Solitude
Solitude, Sea and Self
“I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide,
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.”
(From “Sea Fever” – John Masefield)
Another Place
Solitude on shore can sometimes be elusive. The minuscule events of land linked surrounds, entwine me wherever I search. Life gets in the way. Society’s sensate immediacy, my own restiveness, desire for companionship, and need for busyness, repeatedly tempt me to flee solitude as soon as I sense it. I discover reasons to visit, talk, read, listen, and tend to my boat – little room for silence and all pretexts not to dismantle the artificial. My reluctance for solitude proves as strong as my yearning for it. Another place is needed.
At sea, beyond the shore side, out of the market places, away from the surface narratives, I find quiet contentment, balm for spirit, and a place of healing for my hurried, harried soul.
The ocean, waiting beyond the turbulent estuarial waters, with its inveigling allurement, invites me to a letting go of outer voices that offer but a short-lived sense of inner well-being. With its perfectly innocent, lyrical language of nature the ocean speaks its healing to me – its own lingua incognita.
Liberated from the trammels of the land, time stretches into horizonless hours of solitude and surprise, where I discover I come closer to knowing the truth about the nature of things. My boat makes deeply contended humming sounds, and sings her way as she curtsies to her own sea gods. A steady, kind wind caresses her sails as together we slip mile after mile over a lazy ocean. The waves doff their whitecaps and ripple and rhythm against her hull as we romp along. A miniature, inimitable rainbow appears dancing on her bow wave. I have never seen it before; I will never see it again. Astern, the white sparkling wake disappears into the horizon of cloudless sky and azure sea. Occasionally I am accompanied by a pod of dolphins with their leaping, twinkling, and slashing joy. I know then my boat’s kind soul is present.
This place, out of sight of land, is a hallowed space to discover stillness and come to know solitude. It is a place and time where the outer quietude gradually prevails over the inner restiveness, and leads to a private silence. A growing trust in the inner voice that reveals my true kind is nurtured. It calls me to unwind, to untie myself from the supports of daily life, simply to be, and asks if there is something there that can stand on its own.
It invites me to let go, and not continue to depend on the presence of others. To experience harmony with sea, alone in a small boat, is as close as I will come to a surrendering to the authenticity of my being, and an embracing of the bountiful gifts of solitude.
Solitude in Sunrise
Sunsets at sea are always striking. However, sunrises offer more lingering, sacred silences. Here, I experience great hope and enjoy the singular delight of being in unity with the miracle of a new day. Sunrise speaks the language of silence. There is obligation to preserve the stillness, the solemn silence into which the radiance of sun emerges. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me with inexpressible humility. Its richness of colour, immense presence and newness, evoke wonder and delight. A prayer of gratefulness is whispered. A spectator at “le point vierge” of dawn, I witness the rebirth of our earth, when sunrise also seems to seek permission, simply to be. I experience a soul moment. My mind and body resonate. I feel enriched. I experience the glory of being a human being.
Over a kind tropical sea, sunrise is the most splendid spectacle of all. The soft blackness of night disappearing through veils of paling purple, elusive rose made more beautiful by fiery red flashes lighting up seas of nickel, water as unfathomable as the darkness of sky ebbing between the still visible stars — these are my companions at sunrise.
Paradise is all around. Just being here is enough. I need only to commune with its wonder and intimacy, and experience the naked vitality of life encompassing me. Sun, sky, sea and self interweave and interlace themselves. A tropical sea sunrise bequeaths peace encircled by a sacred solitude — a perfect framework for understanding the hidden wholeness of creation.
The Solitudes of Swells
Dawn swells appear persistence, perpetual, ever majestic as they march from night’s dark shadows to salute the shimmering spectre of sea. As sunrise’s enormous yolk of energy spreads to take over the day, its early light falls softly. It appears to glow not on the swells but from within them, bringing out their shy strength through which shimmering depths of the awakened sea glisten.
It is a place and time where the sea praises the steady wind in a constant hymn of wave.
Dawn swells and their accompanying seascape portray the power of wind over the sea. They are vibrant, ever changing – a theatre of fluency that delights the mind, as if during the darkness, an omnipotent, surrealistic Artist laid down the entire powerful panorama.
Noon-time swells, with their gentle constancy and distant origin, are alien to the brash immediacy of much modern encounter. Their constant movement and cobalt reflections glisten everlastingly in the sparkling sunlight. When my mind is entangled it is kind to sail in these swells, to let the warmness of the sun and the rhythm of the sea inside me, each searching to soothe my soul. Body and spirit loosen and come back to their natural pulse. Such solitude disentangles my knotted mind and muscles. My being is tuned to a quiet cadence, inspired by the gentleness felt in these noon swells. I reflect, work is not always required of man. There is such a thing as sacred idleness in this genus of solitude.
Night swells, bring a different kind of solitude. Sometimes there can be a frightening grace in these hidden swells. They come in silence; save for the snarling of their crests. Their unfamiliar, unleashed power can carry aloneness. My boat and I journey in darkness over every large swell. Together we shudder when struck abeam by a solid wave of black water. We voyage in a place where time slides slowly. Big swells raise us high to where I see in my mind’s eye, countless others marching ever forward. Then down again into a watery, windless world, neither above or below the water, but in it, and of it. Such swells create their own rhythmic solitude. In the blackness, there is persuasion to feel alone. It is a mistake to interfere with such feeling. There is a quality to being alone here that is unbelievably precious. There is a special welcome for me at the heart of this aloneness. It is wise to know it, and not seek to dismiss it too hurriedly. Like these night swells, aloneness will soon be on its way elsewhere. It no longer escorts, or disturbs me. In a gentle shifting flow of shadow, I come into rhythm with the sweet dark warmth of the now unnoticed sea, of the cadence of my boat, and my own self. The timeless breathing sound of sea restores the heart.
Night Sky Solitude
On calm, clear nights under a star-studded sky, being at sea is a profound experience that can be purifying. There is no place like a quiet sea. I sail at a pace that is in tune with the slow beat of the sea. I discover a kinship circle where I can be at home. Life is framed by a horizon and a celestial sphere upon which the stars appear fixed, yet wheel in their patterns overhead, — the majestic constellations. Being here is to have a private sky. The naked beauty matches the pure space. With my strong boat as sanctuary, sky, stars and sea awaken my deadened senses to the glorious sacrality of this universe. Navigating under sail on such nights does extraordinary things to my view of the world. It is more than merely finding my way – it is an extension of my mind into the heavens, and into the past, so that for a while I am a contemporary of long gone navigators, each in search of their own “terra repromissionis”.
Keeping watch alone draws out reflective faculties, and gifts time to let the mind drift to the spectacle above. My visible universe is pricked by the white light of a trillion distant stars, in a vast cathedral of silence and speckled light.
I watch but one part of this cosmic place, just those few stars and galaxies, visible at precisely this time, on this night, only from my present position. What I see is but one of countless, comparable or greater galaxies in the total universe. I am filled with awe and wonder at the immensity of which I are but an insignificant part. Here, as I listen with the ear of my heart, I find a generous solitude. I discover my own “thin place” where I become diaphanous with spirit, and there is pure joy. I find the wisdom and refreshment that bring new life. What is life? It is the flash of the falling star that rushes across the sky and loses itself in the unseen horizon. Now is the moment to be alive, to be alone, and to be.
Time in this splendour, is a boundless succession of heartbeats that extend from the present into the past, and into the future. How man “struts and frets his hour on the stage” in the few seconds that are allotted to him. Remote from my illusionary, time-focused, land-linked impedimenta, I experience the timelessness of time, the constancy of sea, and momentarily that place of truth within me, which when I reach it, does not betray me.
My pace slows and births perceptible pauses and music; pauses pregnant with silence, the harmonious arrangement of movement creating the music of the sea. I am part of an ancient exchange that has continued for millennia, between two companions – this music of the sea and the welcome silence of solitude.
Companions
Entrained by this exchange, I become attentive to the soul craft of solitude and the balm of its companion, the sea. It is time to listen, at length, to the whispered exchange of this lingo incognito. A sacred stillness pervades before the mystery of it all. The invitation to savour surrounds. Savoured, it reveals not my own insignificance in the mystery, but my significance to its generous Architect.
I am reluctant to go below. I do not seek sleep. I no longer seek solitude. I am held in its joyous embrace, renewed.
I am the gracious recipient of solitude’s precious gifts. My senses have been awakened by its glorious friend, the sea. I am entwined in the healing art of attentiveness to the presence of their Presence.
In the company of my ‘anam cara’ (soul friend), I sail alone, towards the shore distant, in great tranquillity, in a reverie of suspended thought, thankful for the gifts from my friend, the sea.
Why This in a Photography Website?
I am but one of the 70 million or so Irish diaspora scattered around the shores of the world’s oceans.
In the contemplative and restless spirit of my Celtic seafaring forbearers, I simply took time to ponder why I go to sea, and how its myriad moods, awakens senses that were surely forged to behold, the wonders around us.
When photographing alone, the same tranquility, the same suspended thoughts, the same lyrical language of nature are present, enhanced by a new appreciation of the magic of light.
If by chance, you find yourself in a sunset anchorage on the west coast of Australia, close to our beloved ketch, “Calypso V”, hop in the dingy, knock on the hull, come aboard, share a wine, and with your soul and spirit silent, savour the presence of the sinking sun.
These days, you are also likely to find me with a camera or two on some remote headland of Australia, or somewhere in the outback of Western Australia, or at sea photographing humpback whales, or seeking another kind of solitude somewhere in Africa.
Life is “now”.
