On the water everything is clear. It is a gift for the soul; a clarity born of sea and salt air that touches the small inner voice within us that has been too long silenced by the chaos of life. It is a gift that heals; that gives us power to rid ourselves of confusion, worry, guilt, and regret; that gives us faith in ourselves and our dreams. But if we refuse to heed the gift of clarity, if we deny the inner voice that tells us who we are, then we will wither and die before our time. For when we kill the dream within us, we kill ourselves.
We may be breathing, and the blood may be flowing through our veins, but it is not living. It is merely busy-ness disguised as living – from children who are shuttled from one organized activity to another without a single moment simply to be themselves, to play, or to let their imaginations run free, to adults who scurry from store to store, buying whatever their money or credit will allow in the false hope that material acquisitions will somehow deaden their pain. The pain may go away for a while, but it always returns. For nothing can satisfy a dream unfulfilled, a life unlived.
On the water everything is clear. It gives us power to climb the wind and soar.
You want to be happy? Then find the wind, find where it’s coming from and where it’s going. For it is only when your boat has a bellyful of wind in her sails and her hull is ripping through the sea, and the salt spray is stinging your face, that you will know you’re alive. You will know who you are and where you’re going. You will know your dream.
Valerie Wilcox
