I saw this on my Facebook feed and I shared and wrote a little blurb to go with it, but I really want to expand further on that.

What I initially wrote:

I grew up with the ocean – it is a place that helps ground me and return me to inner peace.  It is a part of my soul and the further I get away, the more I feel like I’ve lost a bit of myself.  This is the reason I had my handfasting on the beach.

But it’s really more than that.  Being there often puts me in the same mindset I get when I do yoga – present and in touch with the universe.  The waves washing up on the shore is namaste to me.

I think this runs in my family – my maternal grandmother moved back here to the Pacific Northwest from her retirement in Arizona because she couldn’t stand to be so far away from the rolling ocean waves.  My mother and father took us kids to the ocean at least once a year when I was a kid.

One of these days I will go by myself for a weekend or so, but generally I prefer to bring someone I love and trust, who knows me and is open to what that entails.