I grew up in one of the most landlocked parts of the UK, visiting the sea once a year at most, yet the ocean has always called to me. On summer holidays as a child, there would be much excitement when the first glimpse of blue appeared through the car window after a long drive - ‘prize for the first one to spot the sea!’
For the second time in my life, I now find myself living with a view of the water out of my window. The first was in Brighton, in the UK, in my early 20s. I moved there after university, with a degree, a broken heart, and no life plan. I spent a year doing voluntary work and living on the top floor of an old Victorian terrace running off the seafront, midway between the Palace Pier and the Marina. I could glimpse the ocean from my bedroom window and fell asleep to its deep steady roar and the rhythmic sound of pebbles dragging back and forth.
I had very little money, so much of my free time was spent walking the beach, back and forth to the town, bracing against the wild seafront winds. I wore a lot of hats that year, the sea wind doing crazy things to my tangled mop of curly hair. I spent many hours massaging the soles of my feet as I crunched over pebbles, and watching the waves crest as they rolled towards the shore. Tracing the moment when the lip curls and froths with white as the peak of the wave tips, rolls and tumbles back in on itself. It was a meditation, though I didn't really know that word then and certainly had no formal experience with meditation.
I didn’t know much about grief back then either, but I was deep in pain over the ending of a relationship. As I walked the shoreline and watched the waves, wrapped up in warm layers as the winds blew through and around me, that grief alchemised. I arrived one August, lost, adrift, hurt, sad. I left a year later, glowing, radiant, alive, connected.
I moved to London the following year, leaving vistas of the ocean behind me like a dream. But the sea called to me again some 11 years later. Once again, it spoke to me in the midst of heartbreak, grief and hurt. Once again I followed that call without knowing it was a path to saving myself.
This time it called me halfway around the world to Auckland, a city that balances precariously on such a narrow thread of land that the sea appears to exist in all directions. A city circled by some 80 or so beaches and built on the mounds of volcano craters that offer glimpses of the ocean around every other corner. Once again, I found myself in close communion with the water, absorbing its medicine. This time I discovered the joy of plunging my body into saltwater on a regular basis, washing my wounds, flushing out the past, and gently reviving my soul.
When I tried to move back to London a couple of years later, this time the ocean said No. I remember the exact moment, on a clifftop, gazing out along an infinite stretch of West Auckland’s black sand, an immersive vista of dark cliffs, wild surf and textured sky. The sea spoke loudly and clearly this time, telling me I belong here. That, for now, this is home, however inconvenient long-haul travel may be.
I’m still here many years later. The waters of the Waitematā harbour lap my garden as the tide trickles in and empties out twice daily. Some days I sit looking at my laptop screen and forget. Other days I marvel at how I got here. It was never my life plan.
There’s a quiet, expansive joy that creeps in when I sit alongside the ocean, gazing out at the promise of infinity beyond the horizon. It brings a sense of perspective, a spaciousness, a sense of underlying OK-ness. There’s an increased capacity to hold all the moving parts of my life. My mind loosens its grip on planning, scheduling, and controlling, and I taste a glimmer of possibility. I awaken parts of my soul that city living can sometimes stifle and constrain. I inhale more deeply and my nervous system breathes a sigh of relief. 1
The ocean speaks to me and tells me to be less rigid, less uptight, to stop restricting my life to the confines of what is safe and predictable. It reminds me of the essential wildness of my spirit, the parts of myself that exist beyond logic and rationality.
There has never been a time when visiting the ocean has not alchemised something in my being. Whatever problem or struggle I am circumambulating in my thinking mind tends to crack open a little, allowing light and space and air and possibility to flow in. Opening the closed, contracted spaces in my body, and flushing new life through the darkest corners of my mind.
I take my sadness, my stuckness, my struggles to the foot of the ocean and ask for her wild energy to heal and restore me. If I want to be soothed and held, I head to Auckland’s East Coast where I bob lightly in the water as gentle waves rock me in their arms. If I’m seeking a bigger transformation, I head for the West Coast wildness – the big, formidable energy of the untamed ocean. Tumbling unpredictable surf, rapidly changing skies, and vast, dark landscapes. I never return the same as I arrived.
I’ve written before about how nature offers us metaphors and roadmaps for living. For me, the ocean is always a reminder of impermanence. As waves emerge, intensify, peak, and dissolve, they mirror our own internal states, the rise and fall of our emotions, and the very cycle of life and death itself. The ocean can be all things – soothing, calming, wild, enlivening or threatening. It commands respect and pulls us into the present moment, reminding us of the fragility of life.
The ocean is the lover that keeps calling me back. I’ve surrendered to the deep knowing that – for now, at least - this is where I need to be.
Tell me, where do you go to connect with the deeper parts of yourself? Is there a landscape that has supported your healing? What are the places that call to you and soothe your soul? Join me in the comments, I always love hearing your thoughts, and please do like and share this post if it’s been useful.
Research by Dr Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist at Stanford University, has shown that when we engage our peripheral vision by gazing at a horizon or a panoramic view, the stress response turns off and the nervous system switches into relaxation mode
Beautiful Vicki. The alchemy of the ocean. I love this and it’s a wonderful invitation to notice the subtle healing that is at our doorstep.
Fabulous descriptive writing, Vicki. Takes me back to Brighton, to the wild West Coast. And the emotion-stirring rhythms of waves. It's also so good to read a geographical description of Auckland, (that doesn't feature traffic, crime or cafes). You've beautifully described the Auckland I love.