Sailing the Ocean on Winds of Illusion
The ocean has a powerful mystical quality about it that beckons like the smoldering core of a campfire draws our eyes. Some of my own fondest memories are of sailing off Long Island Sound in a Laser sailboat with my father. The ocean can teach us so many lessons, and those that work with its rhythm and energy, whether sailing, surfing, swimming or diving, are rewarded with close communion with Mother Earth. Yet the ocean also compels us to consider our mortality, for our subconscious minds constantly simmer over the countless unknowns beneath the surface. Spending time in nature rewards us with countless gifts, but at the same time, if we don’t arrive already with the right awareness, our journey on this plane may come to an end in short order.
Before having his own boat, my father made a living for a time as a delivery captain. During a long sail around Shelter Island, I recall asking him about safety precautions when sailing long distances alone, and one of my first questions was, “do you wear a life vest?”, and his answer surprised me, “No, not in real water outside the bays. It would just take longer to die if you fall overboard.” I’m sure every single boating safety organization advises otherwise, but either way, that answer always stuck with me, and I think it goes to a deeper truth. A lot of life’s normal supports are, if not entirely illusory, pretty severe misestimations. While a life vest can keep you afloat, the utility of that is marginal if you’re a person overboard miles from shore. In the water at that point, you realize, maybe I really needed a harness tethered to the lifelines, a strobe light, fresh water distillation and filtration system, emergency beacon, a lifeboat. A partial support system is just biding time until the inevitable.
In the realm of the physical, we tend to give large chunks of our light away to illusory supports, to dog-and-pony shows of ego and delusion, that ultimately alienate us from our truth. These supports are like having an emergency candy bar in your pocket to eat as you tread water and wait for the inevitable. A lot of us either currently or in the past have worked for large corporate entities. The actual harms caused by, or just toxic behavior internally within many of these places, can mangle ones essential connection to their higher self.
These dehumanizing temples to capital marionette their workers in a dark puppet show, offering paltry carrots and heavy sticks, patronizing perks and ‘parties’, doublethink, meetings where dynamism is extracted for profit. Yet people once they enter the ‘game’, they must form their own persona and anima in response to it. It is sad how many people adopt the toxic internal pathologies and shadows present in these organizations, rather than fight them in some way. A big name employer that people respect can be an illusory support to the ego.
Professional sports have been used as a front-line opiate to the masses, an entirely illusory ego support since the days of gladiators and chariot races. I used to love football. As a child, my dad would send me to run to get another beer during games, and I would try to dash back as fast as possible. Great memories. Anyone still in that phase of fandom, I’m happy for them. For myself, as time went on, the magic left. The athletes all consider it a job, as they should. The owners have a undisguised slave-owner mentality. The media coverage, when you take a look after being outside that bubble, is bizarre and infantile. Watching panels of grown adults debate professional sports topics with (I hope) feigned anger, passion, and ‘hot takes’, makes me personally sad for this society that can keep at all a straight face at the childishness of the spectacle.
Sports fandom is a real ‘emperor-with-no-clothes’ example of an illusory support to me. At least an un-aligned job pays your bills. The whole thing is brilliantly regressive for society in that it subconsciously stokes the tribal, warlike mentality of constant competition against the ‘other’. The NFL and military recruiting are almost seamlessly intertwined. The ads, the fighter jet flyovers. The football field size American flag. You’ve already given yourself over to an in-group, you’re already trained to be a follower, that’s why they show these things during games. Sports fandom primes your brain to go deep to sleep in the illusion of separateness and fear, willing to follow ‘your team’ into battle. If football in America is our Ares, baseball could be said to be our Hera, its corny rituals and unspoken rules a stand-in for the alleged values we must unquestioningly fight for. If you can legitimately feel anger and disappointment watching a game, you’ve gone too far. You’ve been brainwashed by the militarist, jingoist, tribal agenda. If you would stoop to that level of non-thinking, you are liable to go along with anything.
In very light winds, I used to complain to my dad that I could swim faster than we were sailing. One time he told me to get in the water and prove it. I lurched over the side, started my little doggy paddle, and watched him draw away silently, leaving barely a wake at twice my speed. From shore, it looks slow. From the very boat itself, it can feel slow. The only sail we have on this plane is our heart. If the sail you raise is not your own, it’s not heading to your destination, and you have relegated yourself to crew of your life, no longer Captain.
We each have vastly more sovereignty and influence than we so often appreciate in day-to-day life. We must recognize the power we have in each small action, positive and negative. If you find yourself part of an organization that doesn’t align with you personally, I encourage you to be your own Don Quixote, fight from within as long as you must be there. Society is starting to wake up. For decades, people sought identity in brands, their employment in prestigious corporations or firms. This isn’t gone by any means. But the time of individual empowerment is on the rise in the changing Earth energy. Have confidence that your heart guided actions will support you to your highest path, and as Earth shifts, fundamental misalignment with your soul purpose will bring increasing struggle.
