The Cleansing.

A compulsion,

A pull,

A call

To the sea.

I enter, and frozen knives try to drive me back to shore.

I'm unworthy, yet, and I must prove myself.

**

But I panic, I flinch, shoulders rise to my ears.

I am afraid.

I push on, lowering my resistant human skin into a murk of green.

I jump up again, taking a moment to breathe.

I force my unwilling self into a purgatory.

This is a cleansing of the mind, of the earthly body,

And I must accept the pain to purge the flesh.

The sea waits.

'Prove yourself,' it whispers,

Taunting me with it's steady rhythm.

And so I plunge into the frigid waters

Giving up my fears and my human resistance.

The sea accepts me, and the cleansing can begin.

**

A dark moody sky

Mirrors the mercurial mood of the sea.

A restless need to churn and change,

Destroy and damage

Lurks in the energy of the molecules.

For now, the watery god only grumbles

As I push my way through

Small waves.

The gift of buoyancy encourages me to stay a while.

This temperamental deity soothes my bitten skin with numbness.

I can no longer feel the cruel knives,

And I am comfortable in this saline world

Providing I keep moving my fragile human limbs.

**

But his time is precious,

And soon he drives me to shore.

I am tired and satifsfied,

Purged of the burdens of a human body.

Purged of fatigue and pain.

Purged of the racing thoughts of worry and fear.

For now at least.

**

I have been blessed. Baptised, by the cold water,

And as I once again feel the burden of gravity

While I walk up the sand,

I look back, and nod to the salty god

Who helped me forget for a while.

**

For all of you who know and value the healing power of the sea.