Show Me the Way to the Ocean
a mosaic with words from Rumi, Antonio Machado, Denise Levertov, Dar Williams
woven by Elliott batTzedek
Show me the way to the ocean!
Show me the road that leads to the sea,
the language given into our hands.
Show me dreams of pathways,
pathways over the oceans;
God is the path over the sea.
God created the sea and is born of the sea;
God is distance and absence,
God is the anchor in the sea, the open sea.
We have two battles to wage:
in dreams we wrestle with God,
awake, with the ocean.
We have for too long walked in the surf
holding our robes up—
we should dive in naked
under, and deeper under.
At the bottom of the ocean
there is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can not hope.
Would the ocean refuse to give
this joy to anyone?
Do not be jealous of the ocean’s generosity;
swim in its huge fluid freedom.
No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.
It’s ashes to ashes, but always the ocean;
when it surges, don’t just hear it.
Let it splash inside your chest!
Should the ocean come to you as a lover,
let go and drop into it.
You will no longer have the same form,
but your essence will be the same.
This giving up is not loss.
It is a deep honoring of yourself.
This is what the ocean knows of a body;
You can be drowned in the wave
that rises from the center of your chest.
This is not loss.
This is a deep honoring of yourself.
This is life’s rhythm, waves passing
and tremulous ripples
ebbing and flowing.
Emptiness is a cup,
and holds the ocean.
The ocean that created God,
the sea that was born of God.
And God is the anchor in the sea, the open sea.
This Frenzy 