Elements of Alive

I am Alive
I know this to be true
But I sometimes and sometime more than others I come to a pause…
I’m not dead
Of this I’m sure
but maybe not, just not so sure, I’m quiet as alive as you.
A little dull behind the eyes, my twinkle just out of reach
A mundane drone in my brain
That lets me know I’m a little lost, I’ve fallen off the I’m ok.

What is it that I have lost that makes me feel alive?

The inside world is suffocating, stifling, closing in, the cosy inside air that hugs me, gives me warmth, I feel it’s time to shake. I cannot, am not, settled, don’t know where to settle next.
Are the elements calling me, pulling at the doors.
There is a yearning, a thirst that can’t be quenched by staying where I am.
Bound up here for far too long. Can I remembered how to flee?
It’s making me feel out of sorts, a desire to rediscover.
To find what combusts and combines, to spark and to thrive.
To feel connected to the open air, letting us be exposed and bare.

What is it that we have lost that makes us feel alive?
The seas
The sky
The land or sand.
Or even in the air

I’m scared that I’ve lost the longing for the wild outside. I’m scared that what should excite me scares me even more.
Where is my wilderness?
Where is the blustery unpredictable wind that shifts my mind, to let me run free, spook me, shake me up and make me roar.
Where is the wind that ignites something deep inside that makes me want to fly.

Ignited by the raw.

I feel the raw in air and wind, inevitably joined by rain, I start to run, fast and hard. Heart beats to a pattern which now speeds and weeps. Soaked me to the skin and I do not care. Hair striped back, blown back wet with rain slapped back. My lungs begin to blow. Recklessly I run, hunting my untamed

Where is the untamed within you?
In the sky
The land or sand.
the air
or even in the seas

But go away you bays of silent seas with gentle and running waves which trickle and tickle the shore, the ripples we struggle to hear but welcome hearty seas, the big and bold, that stretches out as far as our eyes can see. With waves of such power never ending crashing in, a power that can’t be seen, relentless in its roars. Assaults our ears, so it can’t be ignored, drowning out distraction.
To stand with none and no one, with the nothingness, just the stretched out sea, which glistens with hope on white horses which run out front of me.
To feel the expanse of the ocean and the never ending horizon, to feel the wind pushing me back to the childhood memories and question of what does lie on the other side?
The smell of seaweed in the air. Breathe. Deep. Salt in spray. Stinging eyes. I cry.
This is where I stop. Where I want to run, to jump, to tumble and fall, to feel like flying, to sink and spin. To crash at last.
To let the water take me wash me rinse me through.
To sit and listen.
Waves never ending
A peace within a roar.
A stillness within such power.
Endless.

Ignited by the raw

A calm in my mind, I start to accept, that I am, just me, wild and sometimes, free, just to be me, grounded, with a connection to the earth that supports me.
Come stand with me, bare feet on wet sand, down there, where the sand runs out and the sea begins. The ever-moving boundary between the solid and the uncertain.
To feel the bounce in the earth that supports us, where water rises round our toes, feeling our own fragility. Sinking. Could the earth swallow us whole if we stayed there long enough? Down deep into the depth of the sand and grit, would tides of time wash us out?
Let us scream out our noise to be absorbed in the forces which surrounds us now.
Let us transfer emotion into weight of water. Cleansed.
Transformed. Transfixed
Thrown back as the spray that hits my face, wakes me, refreshes me,
Salt of the sea
Salt in the air
Salt of the earth
The seas
The sky
or land.

The bounce in my step usually reserved for spring returns for one wild flourish.
Today’s warmth of the winter sun manages to penetrate my soul and fills me with joy.
I walk. Almost skip, through the green wet grass. Soggy, I slip slide and hit the sludge, remaining upright, balanced, collected, and complete.
I pause.
I hold my head high spreading arms out wide and breathe in deep. The still, icy fresh air hits my lungs creating a kind of electricity in my blood which sparks and pounds through my veins, its surges into my brain and, Boom. Eyes wide open to my winter wilderness, I look to the clear blue skies and feel tall as the trees, windswept and exposed, basking in the winter sun.
In sea
In sky
The land or sand
Or even in the air

There is a something, an unexplained, it’s not a god, whose worship might not be true, but places and elements we know fast and true.
It’s a feeling, a sprit if you wish.
That’s deeper that the oceans depths,
It’s taller than the birds that fly,
it’s above the stars planted in the sky,
It’s hidden in the land that supports our weight
It seeps in the sand below our feet
It flows in water, ocean, wild and deep
It’s in all of us and all we know

To take time and to pause
What is it that makes us feel alive?
The seas
The sky
The land or sand.

Find your wilderness
Feel alive
Ignited by the raw.

SKB March 2022: