Walking along the water in Narragansett Rhode Island, we came upon a cormorant perched on a rock, wings spread wide, while the ocean moved relentlessly around it.
We stopped and I began filming on my phone.
In a few hours, I would begin a 28-hour fast for Yom Kippur and help co-officiate the day’s services. My mind was already moving toward reflection: what deserves examination, what needs to be released, where I have missed the mark, and what it means to enter another year with greater intention.
Then there was this bird appearing from what seemed out of nowhere.
It wasn’t escaping the water.
It wasn’t fighting the waves.
It had found a place to stand in the middle of them.
It opened itself completely.
That image struck me as a metaphor for so much of what I’m exploring through Navigating Reality, Destination Peace, Reclaiming Respect and Reclaiming the Spirit.
We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to control the conditions around us, the economy, technology, from Artificial Intelligence, our organizations, our relationships, the media influencing us, even how other people perceive us but reality keeps moving.
Perhaps navigation isn’t about stopping the water.
Perhaps it is about finding the rock.
Knowing where you “stand!”
Creating enough stillness to examine yourself honestly.
Opening yourself to what is actually there rather than what you wish were there.
To be prepared for when the moment comes to be moving again.
There is one other detail I love about this video.
Listen closely and you can hear someone nearby listening to a baseball game.
The ocean.
A bird drying its wings.
Yom Kippur approaching.
Someone following a ballgame.
The profound and the ordinary occupying exactly the same moment.
Maybe that is reality too.
We don’t leave everyday life in order to find meaning. We discover meaning right in the middle of it.
The waves keep coming. The game keeps playing and every once in a while, we find a rock on which to stand long enough to see things clearly or differently.
