Palolem, released

November 16, 2006

Just before dawn only a few roosters have roused themselves – or never went to bed – and with most humans still in bed, I can hear the falling of the surf away here inland. Yoga is sweet and quiet, Manny still in bed; then a quiet seat in the restaurant gazebo and time to write. Sometimes day dawns with all the same elements as the day before, still something undefinable has changed, and today is feels as though loops of effort that were binding me to some way of being have dropped away. I walk to the beach, where the waves roll in at their same slow pace, one breaking every ten seconds, just about the length of a person’s deep breath. Almost no one is on the sand, the beach chairs empty, so I take up a seat and settle in for the morning meditation.

Circles of ruffled water can be seen here and there on the surface of the bay, quivering and gradually changing shape, as though a selective wind were touching down just there and there; stirred and bubbling like water in a heavy rain, but there are no clouds in the sky, and no drops falling. One closer in reveals its secret: shoals of tiny fish break the surface and dart back in: there are so many congregated in a small area – each unformed circle about the area of a kingsize bedsheet – their leap and dive is like shimmering quicksilver in the morning sun.

The dogs which rule the beach (and suffer the passage of humans during the day, no doubt due to Bribes Offered), are all asleep in little welcome mats of fur, little patchy circles of variably healthy flesh and bones, each one the container of a bark. One of their number notices an intruder: not a human walking about, but one of the ubiquitous Brahman cattle ambling slowly down the strand. “Just who do you think you are…” one container releases the sound of its being. The cow does deign to reply, of course, so another container opens in a little challenge. Soon there are as many barking dogs on the beach as there are minnows troubling the surface of the water, and the cow moves on tiptoe through the mass of fur and harmless noise, once in a while giving a small inoffensive kick with its back hoof to brush off a container whose bark had made too proximate an approach.

The parade moves off down the beach.

I did not bring swimming trunks with me, as I had no plan to visit Goa. This was Manny’s destination, and his two weeks extra gave him time to play with the spirit, and also play in the sun. The cities we visited earlier were much less attractive than we had hoped, busy and dusty as should have been, but was not, expected. And we felt the weight of our presence in the households of our Tibetan friends, so we left there earlier than planned as well – suddenly I had an extra week in my trip, and little energy for another great adventure, or another spiritual peak. A short vacation in Goa seemed welcome. The bathwater ocean kept calling, so both Manny and I bought trunks to take the place of hiking shorts – a small expense for a trip into the sea.

Yesterday we went – mid-day as it happens, must brighter and hotter than is best, but still delightful. The oceans moderate everything. The ocean takes all of the energy you are carrying, all the high and low vibrations, and washes them with its own steady heartbeat, washes it all away, whether warm water or cold. Any of the busyness that the beach-bound humans could invent, any of the gentle nagging to buy and buy, any of the built-out shoreline, all of the watching and lack of watching, the soccer and volleyball and cricket and frisbee, the herds of cattle and packs of dogs, the fishing boats arriving or leaving or awaiting their ballast, the distant sound of taxi and rickshaw horns, the roosters and the rooks, even the soft swishing of saris or the easy sway of sun-bronzing bodies… all washes out as though the only color was that of water, the only voice that of the waves, the only texture one that runs along your skin like the softest and best-tailored glove…

So Palolem from the sea is almost not Palolem at all. And me in the sea is maybe still me, but all spread out and merged with something larger, something that doesn’t really care if we mess things up or don’t mess things up, something that accepts it all like the universe’ great embrace, and waits to see what happens next, what happens when, with a constant touch of her finger on the sand…