“It’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
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but of becoming the ocean.”
– Kahlil Gibran
On the heels of David Hinton’s beautiful reflections on the Tao and our own original loving, kindred relationship with the vast web of life, Kahlil Gibran’s poem about the fear of dissipation, of being completely subsumed into an eternal loss of identity is actually a call to faith, to trust in the oceanic nature of the life-manifesting force.
Fear
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
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