Let nothing disturb thee, nothing affright thee. In urging calm upon you, St. Teresa knows that you are disturbed and afraid. Indeed, her words of reassurance are themselves an acknowledgment of your unsettled state.

But then comes her stark declaration that what you thought was the problem. All things are passing is the solution. A sense of the transience of time is a liberation from it, just as perceptions of the infinite reach of the ocean offer release from the normal constraints of walls and borders.

Why else does your gaze here at the beach constantly shift from the waves just beyond your feet to the unbroken horizon?

Your free association takes you suddenly to Freud -- and why not, since he defined it? But didn't he define this state of being, too?

Oceanic feeling-- the swollen cavity inside your breast; the hollow lump in your throat; infinity transformed from an ultimate abstraction to this intense emotion; the abyss within; the certain knowledge that you were made for more than the sum of your days.

You were made for this.

Human beings are the creatures who cluster together at the beach in the summer, sitting in their sand-collecting nylon slings, under their riotous umbrellas, in their unbecoming bathing suits, close enough to one another to catch the aroma of a stranger's sunblock.

The cluster is half the point, which is why humans like, on arriving, to find the parking lot mostly full.

Normal rules of personal space are suspended at the beach.

And you -- why do you love being in this crowd if not for contemplation?

At the ocean's edge,
watching the waves
and staring out
at the horizon...