Falling off the Edge of the World

The Horizon

Pacific coast flora, or Matrix war fighter?

There is a sensation, variously called vertigo, dizziness, panic; this sensation can come strongly to a person standing on a seashore on a certain kind of grey day.  There is sometimes a merging of the horizon that occurs when the color of the sky, the haze in the air, and the calmness of the water combine to erase this familiar (and perhaps seldom considered) reckoning point of our lives.

I am told that pilots dangerously lose the horizon – and have instruments to minimize the problem.  When experiencing the vertigo which results from this loss of horizontal reckoning, I struggle to make it remain. 

Vertigo can be an interesting sensation if you know what’s causing it.  This is the sort of thing people riding amusement park offerings are after I guess.  But the sudden loss of clarity about which way is up – or where is the water and where is the sky – and where am I – seems instructive and clearing to me.

This loss of balance is pretty much what I am looking for when I meditate.  I seem to find it more surely though, walking a grey beach on a mist morning.

Wait are those  . . . UFOs?

No, my sense of the firm world returns and in a few moments it becomes clear I have come upon nothing more than three lifeguard stations wintering in the picnic area, well away from the breakers.

Next time you lose the horizon, don't be so quick to find it again.

M. Lee