allison labine

One of the first words I ever spoke was “ocean.” I pronounced it oonda then, and I’d often ask my parents to take me to see the big oonda. As an adult, the first thing I do when I travel to another country is search for water – a coastline, if possible. Standing on quiet Brazilian sands years ago, I realized that even though I was thousands of miles away from my home in Florida, I was home.

The world of language barriers fell away, and I was left with the primal pull of a force so deeply ingrained in me, I knew it before my own name. Sometimes, the quiet is louder than any sound. The sea spoke softly that night, allowing the moon to weave silver in her midnight skin. I knelt down, listening to her gentle murmurs – to the faint music she played across the shore. She whispered of secrets long forgotten…of dreams hidden inside her depths.

The salt water ran cool and gentle over my hand till there was no longer a distinction between the two – till the sea became my own skin. Without a single word, she reminded me that before I ever took my first steps on land, I lived for nine months in the water – that all life on earth descended from her. In the dark calm of a foreign land, I was called back home.

If we listen closely, she calls to us all.

-Allison LaBine
http://www.motherocean.org

Photo by Allison LaBine