Sea of My Inspiration

"A person should go out on the water on a fine day to a small distance from a beautiful coast, if he would see Nature really smile.- Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

There is something about capturing the sea. I love being near the ocean, and to be surrounded by it, is sheer joy. As a young career woman, i remember getting very antsy after a full weeks work. I couldn't wait for the weekend, and off to the nearest beach we went, thrilled to take the 2 hour drive, and be greeted by the magnificence of the blue. It didn't matter if she were calm, or wildly tossing. We were friends, and intimate, i felt. I survived many of my struggles with what seemed more like a religious pilgrim, where i could be 'alone' with her, despite company. For they were times of retreating from the craziness of life, to bare my soul before God, at natures altar, of sand, sea and sky.

Excerpt from: "Who Hath Desired the Sea" by Rudyard Kipling...

Who hath desired the Sea? -- the sight of salt water unbounded --
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing --
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing --
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea? -- the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder --
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder --
His Sea in no wonder the same his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills.

It was said by one Loren Eiseley, "Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war."