Be water, my friend

Hi there. How are you?
I once read that when big wave surfers fall, they don’t fight against the force of nature. They don’t try to come up to the surface, instead they are trained to hold their breath for up to 4 minutes while focusing on their bodies to save energy, counting the seconds waiting for the turbulence to pass. To re-emerge in safety. Every so often, the image of them under a big wave crashing on the surface visits me. It makes me think of our capacity for transformation and for trust. Despite the adrenaline rush they might pursue, these surfers are merging with the ocean in almost an act of disappearance. Water is a conduit. It’s a container. It moves, it changes in form. It can disappear, it can solidify. Bruce Lee says “Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water

Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” To be like water, in a way, could be considered one of our lifelong pursuits: The capacity to adapt and moreover, transform. Especially in a world that pushes for fast fixes, self improvement and an exaggerated inflated sense of self, we tend to think transformation occurs in very visible, linear and definite events - they can…but mostly they occur when we are under the big wave counting the seconds, holding our breath while trying to surrender our bodies waiting for the turbulence to pass. They happen when we trust the water and float, when we re-emerge to the surface, alive and changed. They happen in tiny moments that contain a whole ocean in them. Transformation is happening when we slowly realize we are a little bit surfers, a little bit fish, a little bit boat and a little bit salt. A little bit anchor and a whole lot of sail.

With love,
Mariana