Sitting by the clear green waters, on this long, surprisingly white sandy beach.

The waters of many dreams were always green, clear, by a beach like this, high bank shore, just like this point in the coastline.

I am in South-West Ireland, though, not where I stand by the waters in my dreams, not the places of my youth. It strikes me that somewhere in my imagery, in my own internal shores, THIS is the water, just THIS, and so are the sands, the shapes, the feelings. Longing to walk in, slide and swim away, held by this crystal emerald reflections, let the current lead, longing with a trepidation for the depth, for the wilderness there, but wanting to be right there, where it’s home to big animals of the deep, whales, sharks, unvisited landscapes, the OCEAN.

Spooked and drawn to it at the same time. Wanting to be part of that beautiful abundance.

But this is only a bay, on an unsuspected jewel of a tidal island, and it is too cold today to go in for somebody wild at heart but not wild-enough like me!

So, instead, I sit here and ‘become’ the water, become – in a shamanic dream-like way – the fish, the birds, the green reflections, the cool water, the soft shifting sand of the in-step (where I fell on my bum two days ago, trying to get in!). And as I dream my way into feeling and becoming, I AM THERE, I feel the exhilarating chill of the water, the current, I AM A BIG FISH, a SEAGULL, a SEAL, in my embodied dream I screech with joy in the cool air…

Then I can feel I am just another animal (something from which humans seem disconcertingly separate), who has come wandering by the water, splashed in, I am just like any rocks further up in the grassy mounds behind me, just like any bush, any butterfly, any crab, any bees; flies land on my nose just as they do with the dog not too far from me. I am just one of them, I BELONG HERE JUST LIKE ANY OTHER ANIMAL, any other being in this life circle.

Somehow this brings a wonderful relief and peace and a sense of deep joy. I don’t have to earn my place amongst these creatures, I am AT HOME right here like any of them.

Feeling a CREATURE brings an immense sense of freedom and purpose, worth and meaning, undemanding, although with life-related consequences and inter-connections, just for BEING.

Is this what they call an ‘oceanic’ feeling of oneness, of unbounded bliss?

Is this what is often defined as TRANSCENDENTAL?

Because to me this unbounded, liberating, joyful feeling belongs to the very ordinary, flesh and bones and feathers and skin, water and sand reality of the body, and it is only when I am completely surrendered, totally committed to inhabiting, not transcending, my body, that this experience is possible, becomes available, the place where all other identities fall away, make no difference.

I am – in my animal existence – as meaningful and alive and unconditionally included, catered and catering for, as noted, connected and yet with no other purpose but being, as everything else that makes up this life matrix.

And when we are there, it all feels ENOUGH.

What is YOUR ‘Oceanic’ experience?