Stories

Gar Love

Posted on | By fondueset

Waves move through me as I float a few hundred yards out in West Bay, breathing toward the next dive.

Shadows shift between the rays of light, seeming to expand and slow.

A bright object appears in my peripheral vision, inches from my face. A leaf maybe, or a small stick.

But it is moving, deliberately…

In that moment when you first sense the presence of another, alien, awareness – and that you are the focus of it’s strange attention – theres an interesting gap, a sort of bardo of recognition. A startling intimacy wherein you see and feel a thing before naming and ‘knowing about’ kick in and insulate you from the moment.

Its a measure of how relaxed I was that I didn’t completely freak out.

This little gar swam directly beneath me and seemed to know that it’s color scheme went well with my monofin.

It waited patiently while I reeled in my float, unzipped the bag and grabbed my camera, happily chomping at the bubbles I made as I struggled.

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Gar are by no means common in west bay, in fact until now I’d seen only one, many years ago.

This one was convinced that I was an excellent thing under which to lurk. So much so that it was hard to get good angles for pictures – with the fish doggedly pursuing my monofin as I chased my own tail trying to line up a shot.

At one point it began to swim away. When I followed and caught up with it, it stopped, turned and formed up with me again.

I think of their strangely docile behavior as linked with the fact that their species goes back to when rayed fins were a novelty.

Maybe it gives them a different relationship with time, and identity.

A wave, not a particle.

They’ve got a whole different set of boundaries than other fish. They’d rather you didn’t touch them, but if they are checking you out they like to get really really close. They don’t spook off random movements like most other fish.

After a good long while the little gar seemed to understand I was not the stationary lurking station it was looking for and sauntered off.

Its amazing what shows up sometimes, right out of the blue..

Meditation

Posted on | By fondueset

I am floating, lightly gripping a thick line that descends into the blue void below me. Nearby are others. They are there to keep me safe.
I breathe facing downward into the water – through a snorkel. I begin to focus, feeling the vertebrae in my spine expand and contract with each breath.

Gradually, as they become objects to awareness, I release tensions in my body. At first these are obvious. Neck – holding my head slightly up from instinctive fear of water getting into the snorkel; no need – the water is calm, my head buoyant enough. My hand gripping the rope – no current – I let my arm circle it passively. Gradually deeper tensions make themselves known. Lower back, legs, feet, thighs. Slowing breaths move like waves through thin ice. Deeper – as the breath lights up tensions inside the body – emotions arise and evaporate into joyful stillness..wait a minute: A little too joyful..

I add a pause at the top and bottom of each breath to back away from the edge of hyperventilation. Return to the spine – something like exhilaration moves there as gentle waves release the outlines of body-sensation into the water. I am becoming transparent – thoughts, motives, goals, anticipation all flow through and beyond ‘me’. Shifting like oil on the surface, where I shall soon leave them.

In stillness
the seed
of movement
flickers.

Time
to
Dive

Slowly my eyes open – they want a moment to focus – there is the line, the shifting play of light into disappearing depths.

Inhale, slowly..
Just another relaxed breath – releasing anticipation before it crystallizes into tension.
Arms over my head, hands together, bend at the waist, bring the legs and fin up; let the weight drive me down.

Stillness.. released into movement.

Starting with the arms a powerful undulation moves through; gaining force as it ripples down my spine, hips, thighs, knees and snaps out the blade of the monofin. I release each part of the body after its active role in the movement – watching always for static, unneeded tension as I drive deeper.

Abiding in stillness.

Soon my lungs compress and I begin to sink. I slow the undulations – reducing amplitude and force until they are only small movements to keep me vertical in the fall.

The line going by, faster and faster; the sound of water whizzing by my ears.

My lungs and throat collapse – the feeling of being out of air, like an extreme exhalation – invokes intense anxiety.
Fear, panic; these things pass like faces in windows on a fast-moving train. If any of them stay the dive is over.

My lungs are empty

I am not the breath

Equalization: The greatest technical challenge as I pass 35 meters.  Awareness contracts to a focus in throat, Eustachian tubes, mouth, nose, body alignment, the line. The line is my only visual referent in the darkening depth.

Thought
falls
away.
I am redefined
by pressure
water
speed..

Time
to
turn.

Grip the line.
Passively my body falls into alignment for the return to the surface.

A moment
to relish this deep place.
I’d smile
but then my mask would leak.

Carefully at first – because of the risk of straining chest and lungs at such depth.

And then, again…

Watching the line.
Feeling the wave,
driving upward
now
Toward light
and air
and other divers.

My lungs expand
again the urge to smile.
The air in my mask – I draw a small breath from it.
A banquet.

Another diver appears, scrambling to turn and stay with me.
Watching my face intently.

I am buoyant now. The rest of the dive is a ride.

Falling…upward.

Awareness blossoms as fullness, joy, laughter and ease.

I reach the surface and, in the brief moment of my first breath, I notice something about these people.

They each love this journey we make; all it’s moments complete.

The precision, focus and release it demands of us is a secret passageway.

Our gathering in this place; a definition of the Sanskrit word ‘Satsang’:

Good company.