Our Sea Change

by Rita Losch, HHD 2020

 The High Holy Days are here again! We tremble on the edge of this new year, poised on this riverbank of change. Each of us is alone, alone together.

Our reflection may be as still and smooth as glass, or it may dance ecstatic with possibility, or it may circle itself in endless whirlpools.

Some of us wade in cautiously, afraid of turbulence, afraid of messy surprises. We may stay buoyant with flotation devices -- life vests, inner tubes, outer tubes, inflated squeaking rubber ducky rings, day-glow angelic water wings, pontoons and safety rafts.

These careful ones may transport a rowboat, motorboat, tugboat or houseboat to our new year's waterfront. Do these vessels save or drown us? Our spiritual watercraft may be vital tools or clumsy burdens.

Bolder ones among us leap splashing, trusting the river and the ability to float, tread water, doggy-paddle, perform side strokes, backstrokes and butterfly strokes, even swan dive, jack knife, flip or cannonball.

This body of water may turn out to be a simple friendly puddle, a mere rippling rivulet, a slight eddy, a sad little trickle. Or maybe it is a creek, brook, stream, pond, lake, canal, reservoir or swamp. What creatures lurk in this lagoon? What golden treasures await us on the riverbed below? Will we encounter logjams with grace or with twisting, tangling, thrashing panic?

Our shared river may be a cascading fountainhead, its currents rushing against crosscurrents, impatient and insistent. Or it may meander sleepily as slow quicksand, a curious patient quagmire.

This water might very well be the mysterious gulf between a churning sea and a deep full-fathom-five crashing ocean.

This could be our personal Mississippi, loaded with double- s's, serpentine curves, switchbacks and bends.

Or this could indeed be the headwaters issuing from our solitary or collective Eden – Ganges, Nile, Tigris, Euphrates. What is bursting forth, gushing from this new moment? How can we remain fluent in this confluence?

We can surely survive the river's contradictions: hope and despair, growth and stagnation, clarity and murky confusion, questions and answers. And more lovely questions.

We can ride this real and symbolic river of change. We know how to travel across, over, through and beyond our challenges.

In any ordinary moment, but especially in these highest of Holy Days, we are in transition. Neither here nor there, we dwell in this place where past meets present meets future. This in-between place is where definitions split open into countless connotations. This is a place where new phenomena happen within us, between and among us.

These transformations form, reform and inform us. Let's transcend these upheavals. Let's translate chaos into new languages of meaning. Transgress and be transfigured.

Our waters within and without are changing. We can survive and even celebrate these changes of heart and mind.

This is our turning-point, our watershed moment. Do we sink or swim in this river of change? Who is our lifeguard?

© 2020 Rita S. Losch