Visiting Wild Spaces Can Have Profound Lessons For You

I stood at the end of the beach where sand met water, where river flowed past rock and out into the larger lake, and I knew I was small. The wind was whipping my hair around and churning the surf sending waves crashing over and over. Where the river met the lake and sand and rock, it was a swirling crashing pool of power. I was small indeed. Just one little person. A guest on this planet.

I stepped out into the sand and surf just past my ankles and could feel the waves crash over me. The sand below me moved with the force of the pulling water only to be pushed back again by the next wave. It was powerful and I knew I should not go further. It would not hesitate to take me with it. It should have scared me but it comforted me instead. It reminded me that I'm not in charge. That there is something bigger and more powerful than me out there and that I needed to know where to stand to meet it but also not get in it's way. That I'm just not that powerful or important. I've grown to love that feeling.

Part of my personality is to feel responsible. Overly responsible for everyone and everything. I've thought it was my role to carry the weight in most situations. Group projects in school, I took on the bulk of the responsibility to get my work done and make sure everyone else did theirs. In my relationships and friendships I have felt like it is my job to worry about others, meet their needs, do things to make them happy and to make their life easier. I tried to control the course of life by thinking I knew what I needed, what others needed, and that it was my job to make that happen for them and me. I thought I was powerful indeed. But the problem with thinking you can control life is that you don't have a healthy respect for the power-the waves. You throw yourself into the surf over and over again thinking you can overpower it, control it, force it to behave a certain way. All that really happens is that you get rolled around, soaked, beat up, and left to lick your wounds, if you are lucky. If you are unlucky, you don't make it out. You are lost at sea. Gone.

Standing in this wild place I knew that the only thing I could control was me. I had to decide how far to go in. I had to decide if I was going to be afraid, annoyed, or in awe. I looked around at the other people on the beach and realized that I could not control them. Some were reluctant, staying far away, shoes on and bundled up annoyed by the elements and not going near them. I could never make them see the beauty in it, they didn't want to see it. There were those who were oblivious to the surroundings, lost instead in the lips and arms of another person. Unaware even that there were others around them. They didn't see anything else but the other person, I couldn't have broken their spell. Some were up to their necks in the water, riding the waves and unfazed by the danger. I didn't yell out to them to try to convince them they should be more careful, more aware of the risk. They never would have heard me over the sound of the surf. The only one I was in charge of was me.

One little walk through the wilderness that emptied out into a wild beach held profound lessons for me. Life is big, and powerful and wild. I am alone on the journey and I get to choose how it goes for me. Do I huddle up and resent and resist life? Do I ignore life and wrap myself up completely in another until there is nothing outside of us? Do I run into it blind to it's dangers and seek the thrill of making it out alive (hopefully) again and again? Turns out, at 40, I'm a stand ankle deep, just enough to feel the power and be connected person. Look for the treasures the storm leaves behind kind of person. Stand in the beauty and feel alive person. I've been all other versions of those at the beach. Huddled and numb, wrapped up in others, and reckless.

Right now I want to look for the beauty, the gifts of the sea (life). I want to stand in the stream and surf of life and feel how small I am and know that something powerful out there is in charge and that if I know my place in it, I can share the power without getting in it's way. That it is sometimes rough and I need to trust it, feel it, but not run recklessly into it trying to overpower it. Rough waters can churn up some amazing things that otherwise would have remained still until forced to move. Sometimes it is so calm and clear that I get to stand up to my neck in it and it barely pushes me, just supports me and lets me see it's treasures below. Either way it is always there. Moving, alive, powerful, wild and giving freely. How I choose to visit it, when I choose to go there, and what I will find as gifts are up to me. It is how I show up that determines that but I know this for sure: going into the wilderness, to wild places will show you where you are and who you are, and what you see as gifts if you are willing to look.