‘A term used to describe the movement of water, often in relation to natural tides. It is commonly used metaphorically.’
I awoke this morning to a mantra repeating over and over in my head, ebb and flow. I carried this mantra around for 30 minutes before becoming full conscious that my brain was saying this. Once clear, I realized that this idiom was an answer from within myself to the life changes I’ve been struggling with lately.
Life is like the movement of water. It’s cyclical and ever changing. The tides move in and out. Rivers can be calm and serene one moment, and violent and rough the next. And you never quite know what’s around the next bend.
In one of my favorite books, Tuck Everlasting, the character Tuck has a conversation about life with the main character Winnie, in which he compares life to water.
“You know what’s all around us, Winnie? Life. Moving, growing, changing, never the same two minutes together. This water, you look out at it every morning, and it looks the same, but it ain’t. All night it’s been moving, coming in through the stream back there to the west, slipping out through the stream down east here, always quiet, always new, moving on. You can’t hardly see the current, can you? And sometimes the wind makes it look like it’s going the other way. But it’s always there, the water’s always moving on, and someday, after a long while, it comes to the ocean.”
The answer I have found from my moment of clarity this morning is to flow through life like the ebb and flow of a river. Changes in life happen like changes in the tide. Accept those changes. Embrace the flow of life and continue down your path. Try not to fight the rapids, but glide over them in a state of grace and gratitude. Eventually, you will get to your ocean, but remember, even the water in the ocean is part of a cycle. After you reach your ocean, a new part in your journey will begin, just as the water evaporates back into the clouds and rains down into a new river that follows down to the ocean…
Bonne Chance Fellow Travelers
Lindsay
