Everything has a life — a beginning, a middle, and an end. Absolutely everything. An endless ebb and flow of energy in countless forms. Each one of us is born, we live, and then we die. Every animal and plant comes into being, lives, and dies. Everything has an arc of life that opens out of nothing, then goes for a stretch, growing into something larger than it was, then subsiding, and eventually winding down to an inevitable finish.
Like Waves on an Ocean
Imagine a wave that builds from nothing, far out on the ocean; a wave which runs for miles until it comes crashing in on the beach and dies in splendor and then finally subsides in a soft whisper of foam as it slips back into the sea.
The book “Oceans of Light” offers the theory that everything is composed of waves. MW-Theory proposes that waves are found everywhere, and in everything. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, all arise and subside in us in countless waves. We are composed of these waves. They are the stuff we are made of, they are our material bodies, they are the world we are immersed in.
Absolutely everything has it’s beginning, middle, and end.
Come and Go, Rise and Fall, Ebb and Flow, Live and Die
Have you ever had a hobby? Maybe you don’t do it anymore. You took on something new that you wanted to do, you did it for some length of time, and then you gave it up. At our local Goshen Woodworkers Guild, people join, they learn skills, they make stuff, they have access to a fantastic workshop with good tools and others to teach them. Members are busy at it for a time — perhaps for a period of years — and then as their interests change and evolve they let it go, and maybe they take up something new.
Do you play a musical instrument? Every person who has ever played a musical instrument knows this arc of life. The beginning, the middle, the end. I learned to play the violin in grade school orchestra, took private lessons, did recitals, and played well into my high school years. I still have my violin but it has been years since I last played it. That arc died a slow lingering death. Then this past month I picked up a saxophone, and have begun taking lessons…
Excited! My first tenor sax lesson is tomorrow. #workingmybucketlist pic.twitter.com/i45Qu1ts
— Tame Bear (@TameBear) November 26, 2012
Finding and buying the instrument was a beginning. Just having the thought — “I’d really like to learn to play the sax someday…” — may have been the real beginning. And now this wave is set on it’s course and will have a life and eventually play itself out.
Every thought (“what’s for lunch”), every event (Hurricane Sandy), every person (Sarah Palin), every trend (smartphones), every social change (Obama Care), every technological advance (fluorescent bulbs), every cultural icon (George Clooney) and anything else you can imagine — they all have a beginning, middle and end. They all have their moment in the sun and for a while they shine.
Even places have their arcs of life. The little crossroads of Oakley, Scotland, which was once a bustling coal-mining town, a town for which my producer Pete Oakley is named, and where he traces his ancestry… Oakley is no more to be found on most maps these days.
Entangled Waves of Life
Everything has a life. Everything is a wave with a beginning, a middle, and an end. An arc of life.
And if you think about it, the wave-like nature of anything is also composed of many other waves. As you read this, you are moving on the arc of your life. Your life is composed of many arcs of separate days, each with it’s own beginning middle and end. Each day contains the business of many chores, events, tasks, thoughts, projects, and goals. And even the surprises and heartbreaks and satisfactions have their beginning, middle, and end.
Imagine an orchestra composed of many instruments, each playing its part, with it’s own particular starts and runs and stops. Some with melody, some with rhythm, some with rich undertones and harmonies; and a conductor waving a baton to set tempo and volume, ebb and flow.
Everything is waves within waves within waves. This is not incidental to life. This is the very stuff of life.
All-that-is exists in waves of being. Realizing this, we should also embrace the fact that nothing lasts for ever. All things have their day and then are gone. Everything is part of something larger. Everything changes. One thing becomes something else. Nothing is alone unto itself. There is no separation of this from that. Our waves are part of many other waves — so much so, that it is not possible to tease them apart. We are entangled with all the waves of other people, thoughts, tasks, tools, chores, and events of our every day.
Read “Oceans of Light”
Is it any wonder that we experience life as a complex drama immersed in ceaseless change as many waves within us arise and run and subside, to be replaced by a bewildering array of more endless waves to come. If this is a meaningful way to think about your life and you want to delve more deeply into wave theory, I invite you to buy the book for your iPad or Nook or Kindle and begin to master the multiple waves that make up your life.
Tags: lifespan, Light, Nature, nonduality, Oceans of Light, waves
