The Wave
A new season is coming
The sun streaming into my bedroom window is coming in earlier and showing the tilting of the earth toward the sun. The other day a bee flew through the open door of the greenhouse. The birds are singing in the morning. The light has a brighter quality as it cloaks the sage bushes and brings out a little more green among the grey. Patches of frozen snow still hold on in places, and its meltwater seeps into the ground. Little green tips of tulip bulbs have emerged in the flowerpots.
Despite winter’s lingering presence and periodic strong returns, I know spring is approaching. Real spring doesn’t come here in Northern New Mexico until May. I must have patience, but I can enjoy the warming sun during the day on my walks and my afternoon sunbath through the open door of the solarium.
I’m reading Henry Beston’s the Outermost House. Beston the naturalist, inspires me to observe and take time to be with whatever the season brings. “When all has been said, the adventure of the sun is the great natural drama by which we live, and not to have joy in it and awe of it, not to share in it, is to close a dull door on nature’s sustaining and poetic spirit.” Beston spends a year on the tip of Cape Cod; he describes all that happens in that world of sea, sand and sky.
Reading the book, I miss the sea. But when I’m at the sea I miss the mountains. Fickle human that I am, I can’t find rest in one place. But for now this is where I rest, on the vast open sage-covered mesa, butting up against the tall snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Both sea and mountains inspire and expand my thinking. The sea through its endless, restless wave motion. The undulating mountains through their immobility, their deep stillness. The adventure of the sun, its great natural drama, exists in both places. I live by the sun. The sun makes me happy, feeding my always hungry dopamine receptors. My energy rises with the longer arc the sun makes in the sky with the coming of spring. I come alive after a (not so long) winter of hibernation. My knee rehab is following in stride. I can walk longer distances; I can bend deeper and extend farther. I will be ready for gardening season when it comes.
As a species, we’ve lost the ability to shape our lives with the motion around the sun. Our homes, protective as they are, close the door on experiencing the sun and the changes in climate/temperature. We create an indoor climate that is comfortable and dulls our senses. I walk and hike to break out of that prison of comfort. Deep in our DNA, we are nomads who overwinter in place and set out to find grazing and hunting grounds when the sun’s arc changes.
When I observe nature’s transition toward a new season, its burgeoning growth reveals existence as a cosmic wave. When I walk, I can feel the wave starting from my pelvis with each step, move up my spine and end with a bob of my head, to begin again at the base of my spine with the next step. Walk slowly on flat ground and you’ll experience it. Exaggerate the wave to loosen up your whole body. The wave is good for you. It keeps us upright-walking creatures relaxed.
The seasons’ wave, provides expansion and contraction, growth and decline; time for action and for rest. Living life by the seasons, eating foods that are in season, and doing activities that correspond to the season, keeps us healthy.
Not only the sea produces waves, even the rising of landmasses, mountains as earth forms itself, show a wave pattern. A wave frozen in time until another change in landmass comes along. Seeing the undulating mountains confirms for me that the cosmos is a wave. Waves are the essence of change. The universe, expanding and folding in on itself, is a wave. The world’s condition seems fine when this natural cycle continues.
Some waves are bigger than others, break harder before they run onto the beach. From swimming in the ocean, I know that getting caught in an enormous wave as it breaks, hurts. My father taught me to dive under the wave’s crest and let it break above me while I was swimming underwater.
I want to use this metaphor for the wave of chaos and violence we experience nowadays in this country. The wave will break at some point. Confronting the wave, preparing to submerge, swimming beneath it reduces its force. Don’t stand there and let it sweep you away. And after the wave breaks, what then, you wonder?
A new wave builds; let’s hope it will be a gentle one, a wave of kindness. The monks’ 2030-mile walk for peace has become a gigantic wave of kindness. It will break and end its course in the coming days. May many smaller waves of kindness and peace follow in our lives. Feel the wave when you walk; feel the relaxation and expansion. Share your good fortune.
Dami Roelse is the author of several books on walking/hiking and transformational travel: “Walking Gone Wild, how to lose your age on the trail” and “Fly Free, a memoir of love, loss and walking the path”. Her next book, “Body and Grace, a woman’s hike to wholeness on the PCT, is forthcoming April 2026 from Mantra Books and available for pre-order on Amazon.
New growth. New life. It gives hope.
And I like the wave metaphor. May it wash away and smash down on all the bad stuff and bring a new wave of cohesion and kindness.
A very positive, hopeful piece of writing. 😊