The Return

We went to the ocean today.

Not just for fun or for the atmosphere, but because something in me needed to be near the water again. The salt. The sound. The crashing and returning. The ancient rhythm that speaks to the part of my soul that remembers where it came from. And where it’s going.

The campground we’re staying at has a beach trail walking distance away. It’s one of those rare places where you can drive right onto the sand, too. The sea is not just close here…it calls. So we answered. The whole family, even my mother, came along for this small pilgrimage to the edge of the world.

There’s a river on this beach. A freshwater stream that winds its way down and spills into the great Pacific. It’s mesmerizing to watch. One of the great miracles of nature. What did that stream need to go through to make it all the way to the ocean? How many twists, blockages, droughts, floods? The pilgrimage of rivers reminds me of the one so many humans took along the Oregon Trail—risking everything to reach the coast. Not everyone made it. Some lives ended before the sea was ever in sight.

Just like that, the stream becomes more than just water.
It becomes a mirror.

This meeting of the Many and the One.
Of form and formlessness.
It feels like a cosmic homecoming—the little river, shaped by time and terrain, finally finding its way back to the source. To union with the Great Mother Ocean. To God.

But that’s not where the story ends. It’s where it begins.

Because my son Benjamin had a different idea.
He wanted to dam the river.

Like a little beaver, he gathered rocks and sand. And I, without thinking, without understanding why, joined him. His playful instinct became my focused mission. I threw myself into the task. Rearranging the earth. Piling rocks. Redirecting the current. Trying, so sincerely, to stop the flow. My attempts we futile. Water found a way.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized what I was doing.

We came home, and I stepped into the shower.
Another kind of river.
Another kind of return.

And there, as the water fell over me, the knowing hit.

Spotify began playing a string of songs, one after another, that pierced right through my chest. First: Soul Merge. Then The Embrace. Then Soul Whisper. Integration. Opening to Love. The titles themselves were like breadcrumbs, leading me back to something I hadn’t realized I had lost.

And suddenly, I was sobbing.

Because it hit me all at once.
I had been trying to dam my own return.
To block the flow.
To control the surrender.

On the beach, I had thought I was helping my son play. But I was actually acting out my inner resistance. The part of me that is scared to dissolve. The part of me that clings to form. The part that doesn’t want to die. Not really. Not yet.

…And that familiar wave of fear washed over me again—the one that always comes when something inside is unraveling. The flutter in my chest. The inner voice that exclaims:
I think I’m dying.
The anxiety of the mind going through scenarios of death and despair. Of my time coming to an end.

But it wasn’t all of me.
Just a part.
A part I hadn’t realized was still gripping so tightly.

The part that wonders if my joy is too loud.
If my creativity is too much.
If my playfulness makes me look naive.
The part that still searches the room—or the inbox, comment—for reflection, for approval.
The part that quietly asks, Is it safe to be this free?

That’s the part that’s dying.

And in its place, something wilder is emerging.
Something less polished, more whole.
Not immune to judgment, but no longer ruled by it.

I am not here to perform.
I am here to pour.
To play.
To offer.
To return.

Return to what?
To the sea.
To the source.
To the truth that I am the river and the ocean.
That I was never meant to hold it all in or hold it all together.

I was meant to let go.

With Love and Trust,

Read “The War Within” to see what came out on the other side of this letting go.