The thing I crave most is a moment of stillness. The soft rush of nothing, the freedom of fusing into that which is unstoppable, powerful, beyond recognition of what the human mind can truly comprehend.
I wonder if this cadence of the wave is not the same as the artist’s?
The wave is only there for a moment, proud on its own, before being subsumed back into the dark, cool depths of infinity.
To break without consequence. To once again repeat a cycle of ancient rhythms, older than ancestral bones. The ebb, the flow, the coming and going—falling apart only to become whole once again—indistinguishable, unrecognizable.
What the wave is in one moment, is not what it becomes in the next. The rocking, the soothing lull; sinking out of sight, sound and into the freedom of the mind—the abyss with no bottom. That which can never truly be reached—never really known. All we can do is guess what might lie below by following the hints and clues provided for us by dreams. Glimpsed only in an instance.
What does is truly mean to be a wave? To be free? To be a part of something greater than the self? Is it a return to who you were before the world made you forget who that was? Is this not akin to the life of an artist? The continual search for meaning. The ability to die, revive and die once more—the phoenix can only rise after it has been burnt to ashes. Fire is it’s own sort of surge.
The artist is always seeking, fueled by a deep instinctual pull into movement, a driving force into another creation; made up of all. And yet distinctly individual in each performance, each line of prose, each stroke of the brush. If only waves could be molded in the hands as clay, composed of our greatest strengths and our deepest downfalls.
There is a precipice to be reached, but the high will not last forever—inevitably the wave will once again fall, crash, lose form…plunging low before beginning the familiar churning to momentum. What does the artist generate next? Does the yearning for more never cease? The unseen, yet felt force which compels the wave to once repeatedly reach for the sky, the air—for just one gasp—for height, for freedom. It is the same freedom a woman might feel as she wades into the water, letting the soft crests wash over her, beckoning her to return…perhaps unburdened by the stones that normally line her pockets—the ones that have spent years weighing her down, draining her life force. The voice in her head whispers, “You’ll never be enough.”
And I ask, “Enough for who?”
So maybe becoming isn’t about sacrifice at all, but surrender. The wave is but a moment—it is akin to a feeling, an impulse, an idea—for how long the aftermath or the residual waters will continue to spread out and over? One never knows.
Gold-tipped in the moonlight—transparent in the sun—filled with the crashing rage of chaotic storms and the quiet hum of steady tides. The artist, much like the warrior— like any true force of nature, must always be ready and willing to adapt. Regardless of conditions, the wave carries on—it does not delay. Yet patience is required to learn the timing, the importance in falling back, resting and restoring that which has been depleted. This is a necessary part of the process, as before long, one will again feel the inescapable pull towards the endless journey. A meeting of both the perilous and profound. And most importantly, the final and most sacred of acts:
Letting. Go.
The wave is power with no control. Force with no end. Fluidity even in stasis. The wave can reflect as much as it can obscure. The endless seas remind us that even one drop of water is a a very powerful thing. Art is never just about the self, but the whole. And so when one moves as a wave, they inevitably move with the entirety of the ocean. And for me that is the truest form of embodying art.