::the open end::

Epiphanies are real, no one can dispute that. No one can tell me that epiphanies don’t exist.

What someone can dispute is my theory that epiphanies are more likely to happen in or around water.

But I’m not here to defend my theories; epiphanies have a tendency to occur in or around water, and that’s something you either believe or don’t.

Like the other day, I was standing on a privileged balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay, studying the patterns in the bay and, farther out, the Atlantic Ocean.  

The currents moved from east to west.  

To the north, a weedline.  

Stingrays surfaced from the depths, blew bubbles, and descended into the depths, into the unknown, some large enough to create the wake of a boat, others tiny enough to be nurtured, and one of them albino.

I stood on the balcony, around water, and I understood the necessity of prayer.

To pray for people, to love people enough that you pray for them, you give them love in words of silence, in intentions, in positive thoughts, in sunrise meditations, in smiles.

I stood on the balcony, full of charity through prayer, of caritas, elbows on the rail, and raindrops started falling from the heavens.

Concentric circles freckled Biscayne Bay.  The albino stingray surfaced from the depths and started swimming south like a magic carpet.  

I reached my hand over the edge, palm facing up forty stories in the air, and the same raindrops that freckled the bay where the stingray swam also freckled my fingers.

In this way, in water, a second epiphany brightened my eyes:  even the magnificence of nature pales in comparison to prayer, to unlimited loving kindness towards all others.

Related TOE posts:

• On My Morning Jacket, Epiphanies, With Trade Comes Peace, and Jack Kerouac
• Everything in Life is a Tradeoff
• Old News From the Western Wall :: Barack Obama’s Prayer Snatched
• To Google, Reddit, and TOE, Which Stands For The Open End
• Saint Joseph Sells Real Estate