“Be melting snow.  Wash yourself of yourself.”

-Rumi

Day 278 – On a beautiful day, post-Irma, my husband and I came to Playalinda and saw the beach cleaned, emptied of all drama, glistening like a gem.  Irma washed our beach away.  Irma had washed away our Floridian identity in some way.   It was remarkable. Similarly, in today’s reading, Rolf points out that “rushing through our days, we feel only hints of the deep waters that swirl beneath our surface.”  Although the beach is never the same on any one excursion, it will never be the same beach again, looking at it with post-Irma eyes, observing its changes wrought by Irma’s fury.

I settled into a long pranayama practice today, a day that brings promise and new beginnings post-Irma.  Rolf writes:  “The physical and mental calm that comes over us with pranayama practice makes it possible, often for the first time, for us to perceive the pain we are in.”  Our trip to the beach showed us how powerful Nature can be, and how impotent we are to thwarting Her.  And this is as it should be.  We cannot control the tides, nor should we make ourselves sick doing so.

Today is a new beginning at school.  New routines and normalcy.   In the end, as Irma and the beach show us, we have each other and really nothing more.  Love is all.