Reading The Signs Of Life

Life is full of signs.  Learning to see them, to recognise them and to understand them is a necessary part of the learning process of the walk along the path.  Heeding the signs, that is probably the hardest thing of all.  But heed the signs we must if we are to be rewarded with the miracles of life that lie along our path, waiting for us to discover them.  The other day, life showed me two signs and by reading them, and more importantly, by heeding them, I discovered two miracles.

Life is truly full of signs.  Some of them are simple, like seeing dark, heavy and threatening clouds on the horizon, usually means that rain is surely on the way.  When the leaves begin to change colour and fall from the branches of trees, then we know winter is coming.  These are two very simple examples of the signs of life, but they are signs sent to us by nature and therefore by the Creator of all things.  We know them and we trust them.

In the ocean the other day, during the first dive of the morning, I was leading my divers around the north end of the rock formation and dive site known as Los Sombreros.  The visibility in the water was very good for this area of the Pacific, around 15m (50 feet) and coming around the north end, there lots of schools of fish to be seen in the water.  The north end of Sombreros is always an interesting dive because here, the ocean floor drops down to 23m (75 feet) and the currents coming around the rock attract large number of fish.  Due to those conditions, this dive site offers some great surprises and this day would prove to be no different.  As I passed to the side of one such large school of grunts, suddenly and as one body, all of the fish darted away.  Something had got them very spooked and that could only mean one thing - a large predator.  Immediately, I swam out towards the fish.  My instinct told me that there was something out there, lurking out in the deeper water.  My instincts were not wrong.

As I scanned out through the water and across the sand bottom, cruising into my view came a large shark.  My initial shock led to surprise, which led to disbelief.  We have sharks here in the waters around Playa Flamingo and those are usually white tip reef sharks and nurse sharks.  White tips are easy to distinguish by their, well, white tips on the top of their dorsal fin and tail and by their overall shape and size.  This was no white tip.  Nurse sharks tend to hide away during the day time, preferring to seek refuge and sanctuary in holes under rocks and in sheltered channels.  To the best of my knowledge, neither of these sharks is usually a direct threat to so many fish and cause the panicked reaction that had occurred.  I noted the shape and the tail of this shark.  It was large, possibly 8 - 10 feet in length.  It never came close enough for me to get a great look, but I had seen enough of it to know that it was something out of the ordinary.  My gut feeling is that this was a bull shark.  The reaction of the fish leads me to this conclusion, as does the tail shape and the general view that I was given of it.  Bull shark sightings here are very rare.  This was a privilege to witness.

The second dive was at a rock pinnacle known as Dirty Rock.  Here, there is a large population of king angel fish, that act as cleaners for the manta rays, when the manta rays are in season (December - March).  The angel fish pick off the parasites that live on the manta rays and essentially, clean them.  On this particular day, as the group of divers came around the rock, I saw that there was a small group of angel fish on the wrong side - they always tend to be on the sheltered side of the rock pinnacle, and this is where the manta rays come for their cleaning.  Almost at the moment that I noted that to myself, this group of angel fish swam passed me, clearly with some intent.  I turned around and there behind me was an almost entirely dark grey/black manta ray, probably 10 - 12 feet in wing span.  A second miracle of the morning had occurred.

This blog post is not meant to be a post about scuba diving and the joys that this activity brings to my life.  I used these two examples to illustrate only how life places the signs before our eyes.  Instead, what is important are the signs of life and the ability to read them and to understand them.  You see, life shows us the way.  Whether that is in the oceans, the forests, or the deserts, the signs of life are there for you to see.  Learning to read see the signs, to read them and to comprehend their meaning, is a necessary part of the journey that we all make along our one true path.

I believe that the signs that you need to discover are littered throughout your journey.  If you pass one by and fail to see it, then it will come again later on.  Perhaps not exactly the same sign, perhaps not exactly in the same way.  A sign might be an overheard conversation, it might involve the meeting with someone new and an exchange of information, it could be as simple as the shape of a cloud drifting slowly above you head.  The signs are there, they always have been and always will be.  I know that the Big Guy gave me many signs on my own journey and by being able to read them, I moved my life on.  I was able to evolve my spirit, to learn the lessons that I needed to learn.  I'm also sure that I have misread or even missed completely other signs and I know that these will come again, when I am ready for them.

If you travel along the path too quickly, always in a rush to be some place, you will miss the signs that have been laid out for you.  Rather, take your time, look about you, see the world for that which it truly is and as you do so, then so too will the signs begin to appear.  And how do you know when the sign is the right one for you?  You hearts tells it.  And your heart is the best reader of the signs that there can ever be. Trust it. Listen to it.  Follow it.  Your path, your one true path is out there, just waiting for you.  But then, you knew that already.

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Whales, Morays And The Rewards Of The Path

There will come many days on the path when the rewards of your endeavours leave you breathless.  These are the rewards for pushing through the doubt and the fears, these are the rewards for persevering where others have turned away from finding their own truth, these are the days that tell you that what you are doing, that the path on which you walk, is absolutely the right one for you.  Yesterday, was one such day.

I'll be honest, the previous few days I had been feeling a little low.  I had been mulling over my life, pondering the question of why I look for love in all the wrong places and why that part of my life is so unsuccessful.  I would never say I was in a bad place.  I could not say it was a state of despondency or a depression.  No, it was really just a fleeting feeling that came to me one morning and hung around, clouding my thinking, making me focus on this one part of my life with which I have always struggled.  But what is that one part that is a struggled when compared to the rest?

I had been speaking with Terry and his son Ari at the hotel over the last few days and in talking, we moved on, as is inevitable, to scuba diving.  Terry explained how he had not dived for almost thirty years, and, as he was now sixty nine years old, firmly believed that his scuba diving days were long gone.  I offered him the chance to try scuba in the swimming pool and to see how he felt getting back into the water.  To see this man's smile, splitting his heavily bearded face from ear to ear, was reward enough.  Terry decided he would try diving in the ocean again  Ari, had been involved in a serious snowboarding accident some year back that had almost cost him his life.  His head was fitted  titanium plates and screws that were holding it together and his legs the same.  Ari had not dived since the accident but he was now surfing again and enjoying a normal life.  We decided we would all make a dive together, just a shallow, cautious one, to see how things went.

Yesterday was the day of the dive.  Terry is one of those people who is always happy and laughing and full of life.  He is a joy to be around and is in possession of one of those infectious grins.  You just cannot help yourself but laugh around the man.  Despite not having dived for so long, he was no different on our way out to the dive site.  I had thought that perhaps he would become nervous and show some signs of anxiety, but I could detect none.

On our arrival at the dive site, there, waiting for us at the surface were two pairs of humpback whales.  I've seen whales before here but I had never seen them this close in to the dive sites.  One pair were almost right up against the rock, just a few metres away.  It is an incredible feeling to be so close to some of natures largest ever creatures, to see them basking at the surface, arching their backs, spouting huge plumes of water vapour into the air, putting up their flukes and diving.  Everyone on the boat looked on, enjoying this free spectacle of nature, knowing that what they were seeing and witnessing was something very special indeed.  Eventually, the whales moved off and we made our dives.

Despite the tough conditions of poor visibility and current, Terry never lost his grin and the enjoyment on his face after we surfaced was easily evident. It was clear that Terry had rolled back the years and shaken off all the rust.  As I recall the morning, I can recall certain moments when I could hear Terry laughing under the water.  An amazing man and an inspiration, and for me, the reward for a little perseverance and for taking the time to speak and engage with him.

I saw one other thing during the second dive I have never observed previously.  At Dirty Rock (so called because it is a cleaning station for many different species of marine life) a green moray eel was laying with its mouth stretched as wide open as it could possibly go.  It is usual to see a moray with its mouth open, because the eels use the opening and closing of their mouths to pump water through their gills.  But this moray looked more similar to a cobra that had opened its jaws to take its prey whole.  I was able to look straight into this open mouthed eel and I could not figure out why it was not closing its mouth, until I noticed the two small cleaner fish at the back of its throat.  What this open mouth moray afforded me, was a perfect view all the way inside of its mouth and into its throat, showing me the bones that lined the roof of its mouth, reminding me of the flying buttresses of a cathedral.  I knew that this was perhaps a once in a lifetime experience and that I might never have the opportunity to see a moray in such a way as this ever again.

Yesterday, I was once more reminded of the rewards that come from following your true path.  Not all rewards are the same for every person, but in nature, immersed and surrounded by life, that is where I find mine.  Helping a person to overcome a difficulty and to achieve a personal goal has always been something I have enjoyed.  I see it as an act of kindness and of love.  It is giving something back to the universe.  That is my own nature, I will always do that on instinct, I cannot help but do it.  Sometimes we may question the path and ask what is the purpose, or why does such a thing happen or not happen?  The answer to those questions is simple: everything happens when the time is right and when you are right.  Sometimes, the time is the right time, but there remains a lesson that you need to learn.  Other times, you are ready, but the time is not right.  When it comes together, those are the moments of miracles, when life rewards you for your efforts.  I still have a challenge in my life.  That challenge is to find the special someone who will be my companion on the path.  Perhaps the time is still not right.  Perhaps I am still not ready.  But I do know, that in the meantime, I am being rewarded richly for walking my true path, and for that, I will always be grateful to the universe, to the force that governs all life: nature.  Everything is love and if you know how to look, you will always find it.  And you will see it not with your eyes, but through your heart.

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