Swimming and Spirituality

For the past several months I have incorporated into my weekly exercise routine the swimming of laps at our local school district’s aquatic center. My middle-aged body is remembering the strokes I learned as a boy during swimming lessons and on a swim team, though I am quite happy to leave the butterfly stroke in my distant past. Over these months of practicing, I have noticed my stamina increasing. Instead of struggling to complete 500 meters with a combination of freestyle and breaststroke, I now can swim 1,000 meters freestyle breathing every 4 strokes in about 30 minutes. 

Since caring for my body is part of my spiritual practice, I have been reflecting on swimming as a metaphor for spirituality. From ancient times, the ocean has held spiritual significance for people among many of the world’s mythic traditions. How can a person survive making their way along in the ocean of life? 

One of my favorite movies is All Is Lost (2013) with Robert Redford. He is alone on a sailboat in the Indian Ocean. Along the way, his boat is overwhelmed by violent storms and he casts out in an inflatable lifeboat. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say that for me, this movie has served as a meditation on life in terms of the Serenity Prayer: “May I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

What do you need to make your way in the ocean of life? Some people need a luxury ocean liner complete with restaurants, bars, stage shows, water slides, and all the other amenities. Others may want a battleship with which to engage in warfare with enemies known and unknown. Some might be more comfortable surrounded by containers of goods on an enormous cargo ship. I suppose, a few people also make their way along as pirates robbing and pillaging from others. Sailing yachts, tug boats, row boats, kayaks, canoes, and surfboards are available forms of conveyance as well. 

In the ocean there are waves and currents and creatures of the deep. There are also storms and torrents of the air at sea. The sea is a place of power and of mystery; a natural, observable, tangible phenomenon covering about 70% of this planet. In the ocean, we can physically touch, feel, and even swim in the void. Abyssus abyssum invocat. (1)

Here is a poem I have written from my meditations on this theme:

Ocean deep.
“Merrily we roll along.”
Sometimes more. Sometimes less.
But how, with what, and for how long?

Elaborate conveyances, expensive and grand.
Ocean liners, battleships, cargo freighters galore.
Every convenience, protection, and supply.
Hedging against contingencies.

Personal craft near the edges.
Sailboats, rowboats, surfboards, and skiffs.
Keeping us afloat on the surface of the sea.
A jetski for fun, a kayak to explore.

What about swimming? Water on skin.
Moving along my strokes, they begin
to teach me to float, to be upborne
by a salty power greater than myself.

The power of water. Holding my body.
The mystery of the deep.
To give life and destroy.
Working with me as I work my way through it.

At any moment, this deep could claim my life.
Its power is overwhelming when I think too much.
I too am just a wave in a sea full of waves.
And so, I swim on. 

Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.
Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.

I can’t do it for long, but I can practice each day.
The ocean calls to the deep in me.
The common void at once and everywhere.
My deep calls to the sea.

Here touched, felt, embraced, and held.
A baptism so full of nothing.
A flood. I am left wondering.
And so, I swim on.

I have been carried along in my spiritual journey by one form of craft and another. I’ve needed them during different seasons of my life. Religious beliefs, philosophies, rituals, and communities. Now, for me, practicing Spiritual Naturalism feels more like swimming. Learning the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, discovering the courage to change the things I can, and seeking the wisdom to know the difference. For me, this is an integrative space for practicing adaptive subjectivity in relationship with reality. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. 

It may be difficult to imagine that one won’t simply be crushed and consumed by such a mysterious and powerful environment as the ocean. Many of us need arks of one form or another to carry us along for a time, or maybe for our entire lives. Yet the ocean invites us to let go of forms; to dive in; to practice swimming along as we are able; and to come to trust that its natural mystery and power also sustains, supports, and gives life. You can’t swim very far with a clenched fist.

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SNS strives to include diverse voices within the spectrum of naturalistic spirituality. Authors will vary in their opinions, terms, and outlook. The views of no single author therefore necessarily reflect those of all Spiritual Naturalists or of SNS.
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Notes:

1. “Deep calls unto deep.” (Psalm 42:7.)