Heroes Not Zombies

When I look out at a view like this I see the ancient teaching about the four elements – air, fire, water and stone.

I suppose the most obvious one is the water – just look at it! Look at the rich palette of colours! Look at the expanse of it! I heard someone the other day say we shouldn’t say “Planet Earth” we should say “Planet Ocean” because much more of the Earth’s surface is covered with water than with land. As best we know Life began in the sea and evolved from there.

Above the sea, the next most obvious element is air – well, we say sky really, because we can’t actually see “air”. Look at the colour palette there too, and the expanse. That unbroken horizon where the sky meets the sea with no land in-between has some kind of magical attraction for us, doesn’t it? Do you remember the story about “The Green Ray“? It’s based on the old belief that if you watch the sun setting on a horizon of sky and sea alone then for a brief moment before the sun disappears a bright green ray of light might appear. I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve never seen it. The story goes on to suggest that whoever you see next, after seeing the green ray, will be the love of your life. Romantic, huh? Eric Rohmer made it into a beautiful movie. Another thing we can’t see in the air is wind. We can only infer it from its effects on other elements. We can watch it blow the clouds (and what are clouds other than the temporary appearance of otherwise invisible water molecules which saturate the air?). We can watch it whip up waves.

The element of fire comes from the Sun. We can’t look at it directly without damaging our eyes. But we can close our eyes, turn our faces towards the Sun and feel the heat of the incredible furnaces and explosions which send out waves of energy to our Earth. Waves, without which there would be no Life. And in that air that we can’t see are gases we can’t see, including ozone, which, when it breaks down, allows way too much of the Sun’s fire through. We can’t see the carbon dioxide building up and trapping the energy of the Sun’s fire between the sky and the sea and earth, warming the oceans, the lands, and threatening the existence of all that lives.

Finally, there’s the earth, or stone. If you look carefully at the front of this image you can see the colour of the sand under the water. Isn’t it amazing that those un-countable grains of sand are created by the constant moving of the water? That they started out as rock and ended up almost too small to see. Well, of course, sand is more than little rocks. It’s got gazillions of tiny shells and pieces of shells in it too. Those protective homes created by billions of tiny sea creatures – all without the use of machines or technology!

I love to stand at the edge of the beach and harmonise my breathing with the rhythm of the breaking waves. Breathing out as the water breaks on the sand, and breathing in as the ocean draws its edges back in towards itself. When that harmony falls into place its one of the most calming, centring, but also expansive boundary-dissolving experience I know.

The four elements.

Always a rewarding contemplation.