Sssh the sea says
Sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh
Not so violent, not
So haughty, not
So remarkable,
Sssh
Say the tips of the waves
Crowding around the headland’s
Surf. Sssh
They say to people
This is our earth
Our eternity.
by Rolf Jacobsen translated by Robert Bly
When I read this poem by Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen and receive it into embodied presence, I initially notice something unnameable in my heart. Is it longing, heartbreak, love? Sitting with the feeling a little longer, I know that I’ve recognised a deep truth in the poem; a truth that is hollowing out all the dross from my heart to make room for love.
The primordial wild of the phenomenal world – the Ocean – speaks to me in the poem and reminds me how small I am and how humility is really the only position to take. This puts me in my place, but not in a way that feels harsh or unwelcome. It’s a gentle return to honouring the Greater Intelligence of Life (or whatever you would like to call it – God, Buddha, the Universe…) via the bridge of humility. This position is desperately necessary in our crazy world.
The suggestion is that our violent, haughty, self-aggrandising tendencies may be worn away by the constant Sssh of the waves. It’s not a pounding or thrashing of breakers, but a persistent, almost soothing Sssh which also suggests a stilling and quietening. And a taming of ego. Knowing that Jacobsen was Norwegian adds to the atmosphere around the poem for me – moody, elemental coastlines hover in my mind’s eye, the feeling of being tussled by wind and awed by magnificent vistas of sea, rock, clouds, sun.
I happily sink into this humble, quiet place and find my heart bursts with love to be there. How strange that from the point of view of the day-to-day hussle of life we might resist this humbling, when actually it is such a beautiful place to land up at! It feels like deep belonging and soft opening. It even has a tinge of romance to it. Perhaps this is the longing that the mystics-of-old wrote of (Rumi, Hafiz), the longing and devotion for the Beloved. Perhaps the ocean is like the Beloved, a Vast Powerful Awakener, inviting us home to union with all Life.
Ps. Join us at the end of May for the next Mindfulness Meets Mystical Poetry course where we’ll reflect from embodied presence, on a diverse range of poems that connect us to our humanity, our deep intelligence and to something altogether vaster. Are you curious get to know your own particular responses to poems and where they might transport you to?