I go to the ocean
to listen to the waves tumble upon the shore
to let tidal rhythm inform bio rhythm
         until ocean song
         hums and pulses in my belly.

I go to the ocean
to enter the primordial waters
to float in and taste the salty matrix
         from which life first emerged
         until my blood remembers its source.

I go to the ocean
to play in the waves and skip along the beach
         with childlike abandon
to dare to venture far from the shore
to delight in becoming supple like seaweed
to offer mandalas and poems to the sand
         which vanish with the rising tide.

I go to the ocean
to pray
to the vast forces that guide life on this planet
         the moon, the sun, the stars,
         the sky and the wind,
         the earth and the sand,
         and most of all, the deep mysterious waters.

I go to the ocean
as pilgrimage.

To be blessed.
To be renewed.

Lumini Merced
Oak Island, NC
September 2011