Ripcurl


He put lead weights on my feet and down I went leaving the surface, my reliance on breath and staying afloat behind. One fathom, two fathom, deeper and deeper I went until it was cold and dark. I had asked to go deeper but became more and more confused by the place I found myself in. I knew the steps I had taken and could not turn back but it increasingly felt so isolating, so far away from the action and all the things I wanted.
Before long I stood on the ocean floor with feet like lead staring at the empty space.

‘This is where waves are made,’ He said and proceeded to take me on a lengthy circular path through the water eventually arriving back to where I had started. Then it was my turn to take the same course, I had to walk in time with Him and follow His instructions as we went. At first I could hardly hear Him for thinking about the surface and trying to keep my steps in time was abysmal. He seemed to move so slowly it was irritating. 
After completing this path He sent me round again correcting me and keeping me on course. Round and round I would go supposedly holding the same pattern in the same way. My timing was the killer; I just could not get it right or stop the urge to speed up.
As time went by, this deep dark place became my home and I became used to being there. I had to learn to walk in step and in time with Him through impatience, frustration and despair and it seemed to go on forever. 

The ocean depths are where the pressure chambers are and they are great enough to eventually crush and dissolve the body. It disintegrates and becomes one with the ocean. Self is crushed, undone to become like Him and I am held broken in the vast ocean of His presence.
One day, as usual I was doing the circuit without even thinking and suddenly noticed the pull of a current that was new. I turned to Him and He nodded smiling. Day after day the current came and the sway in the water was turning my holding pattern into a whirlpool of bubbles. The timing and discipline remained the same and yet the effect it was having was growing powerfully. Life was becoming fun but I had learned to be still inside and wait. There was no need to hurry or fear missing the moment, these years had taught me well; it was all in His hands and He knows better than I.
Just a while longer and that moment arrived when I knew everything was in place. I looked at Him grinning as I felt the familiar surge of the water,

‘Can we go now?’ 

With His permission I was hurled into the current somersaulting over and over shooting upwards toward the light. Being allowed to rise back to the surface was exhilaration itself. As the wave and I broke the surface its rip curl rose over my head like a canopy. We were both laughing as I stood in its grasp running my fingers through the water ceiling with delight.
The wave gathered up full strength while I remained in stasis at its centre. I stretched out touching the sides of the curl, upright as if surfing. The wave began to move picking up speed until we were hurtling across the surface surrounded by flashes of sunlight dancing, weaving and racing through the water. At breakneck speed and screaming with pure joy we travelled over the ocean heading towards land somewhere ahead.