In last week's Sunday Spiritual, as I was trying to describe something without form using the tools of form that I have at my disposal (i.e. language; imagery), I made a bit of a sideways mention of waves.
When I said that experience was happening ‘on my watch’ I had to then try and describe what the ‘me’ that actually experiences this ‘watch’ is, and the best I could do was this:
“This localised manifestation; this wave on the ocean of vibrating energy that we collectively label as a ‘Giles’ has a view on things – a perspective, or ‘watch’.”
Waves are a brilliant metaphor
I was first alerted to the metaphor of waves—as a description of who we really are—by a friend, who let me know about the BBC Scotland documentary, The Secret Life of Waves, just after my mum died. She said it would give me a completely different perspective on life and death, and boy was she right?!
It's absolutely flabbergasting, and I have watched it many times.
What set out to be a scientific exploration of the physics of waves, coincided with the terminal illness of the documentary-maker's mother, which meant that all sorts of parallels are drawn between the very obvious, study-able, visible nature of waves, and our essential nature as spiritual beings having a human experience.
Some amazing facts from the documentary:
- You can track waves, unbroken, from one side of an ocean, all the way to the other 😳
- In spite of this, the water associated with a wave does not actually travel anywhere (it just kind of wobbles, in place) 😲
- This means that a wave you're witnessing as a solid object that clearly moves from one place to another (I mean, you can surf them!) is not an object at all, it's a process. What you're witnessing is a transfer of energy, in wave-form 🤯
- When the wave breaks, the energy (which can neither be created, nor destroyed, remember) dissipates mostly as sound. The whole thing is just made of energy… taking a temporary form 🫠
And all of this 👆🏻 just happens to be pretty much the best description of a human being going.
Mind. Blown.
It's why you'll find numerous mentions of waves in spiritual circles, for instance:
And if you're wondering where you've heard this before, then yes, the chapter of Amy Johnson's book Just a Thought, where she talks about ‘Objects and Processes’ was written after she and I had a long conversation about this documentary, during the recording of our podcast episode on grief and death!
I recommend seeking out the documentary (it gets occasionally aired) and you can catch me and Amy talking about life and death and grief, below too.
💟
Giles
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Listen 🎧
It's a bit raw—Mum had died just a few weeks previously—but it's the gold standard 3 Principles chat about death and grief.