-Franci Joncic 2022
I stand at oceans edge to watch: ocean reflecting sky; ripples wriggling into appearance like quivering fish, only to disappear in same; blues, greens, browns undulating, each a separate frequency; a separate species even, forming the fundamental demarcation between earth and sky.
The sandy ocean floor recording this collective motion into ever flowing ribs, where stray shells and random bits tinkle curvaceous crests like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. Where expired unhinged algae cartwheel as if still very much alive; the ebb and flow a place where the expunged still play, for a time.
The brash chaos of the gusty atmosphere broken and tamed into ocean waves, then molded into sand bars; breath transferred to body. This is life. The sea floor awash in minute silver flecks which sparkle like infinite fish scales smashed into separation; such light!
The sun beacon revealing the water; an eye splitting mirage of flashing, calling the solidity of everything into question. A snapshot would set all still and the mere sight of any “thing” cannot reveal a fluid or impermeable nature bereft our four other senses. What is any “thing” without our senses? It’s a magic show and we humans have been supremely fooled.
The whale does not experience this NOW equally, yet its echo location reality is just as valid as our own. The shark senses life with its complex electroreception. These are senses beyond what we humans experience. Isn’t the TRUE reality of this earth life a summation of ALL experience; animal, plant, insect and other, which transcends our own 5 limited physical senses? Why should our human perspective dominate scientific inquiry?
Does not the water spider traverse the water surface the same as we walk the solid earth? Is not the meniscal tension experienced as “solid” to such a being so tiny? And in that vein of reasoning can we conclude both our personal perspective and experience determines our assessment of solid, liquid, and gas, and not merely the intrinsic properties themselves? These states are clearly dependent on both scale and the physical senses (of the assessor) of which our science ignores. Either we cannot imagine the spiders experience, or we do not believe their experience equally valid to our own. Observation and imagination are the keys to truth. The human experience is just a sliver.
Turning from philosophy to observation I watch glossy green shore reeds rippling and bending in the breeze like a giant horizontal flag, swaying within the shallow swells, arched silver backs arranged with seeming purpose towards the sun.
I gently wade and notice plucked sea algae of various scale, neon greens degenerating to russet browns, floating mid depth like jellyfish. Some appearing as our lung bronchi might, if cast and removed of tissue; a branching cohesive lobe so delicate and ephemeral that lifting it to air would collapse its entirety into a junk heap tangle; the water a necessary lift to its functioning excellence; the air a crushing dead weight. We humans living at this gaseous surface feeling the weight each moment; of daily existence, both metaphoric and physical.
I see the ephemeral beauty and tragedy of life intertwined inextricably. If we wish to live fully we cannot escape this dichotomy. We should not hide from the pain of our existence if we expect to cross the fulcrum; the only bridge to true joy. The duality comprises the whole, and we’ve already signed up. Time to lace up and move forward into the day.
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