Connection to the sea

We live a few minutes walk from this beautiful stone beach. Calm evenings we can hear the waves crashing onto the shore from the porch of the house where we stay, so the presence of the sea is near even though we do not live right on the water just now. The area where we are housed this winter is very quiet and serene among all the greenery, but to be able to walk down to the ocean this swiftly, does gives life an additional dimension. 

On our previous walk to the beach, Alex and I were discussing what exactly it is with water and the sea that makes a soul feeling calm and satisfied. It is proven through studies that people (both wealthier and the one from socioeconomic communities) who live closer to the coast have reported better health, and I guess most of us who have ever lived near or on the water can agree on the fact that water has a soothing, relaxing effect on our wellbeing. In the city with unnatural noise and crowds, we tend to release more stress hormones, for which the sea offers the opposite effect. Coastal living is also proved to better encourage physical activity.

But what is it with the aquatic life that makes us feel at peace? Is it the never ending movement, the constant energy of the ever flowing water that feeds us with serotonin? The therapeutic dose of negative ions from the pounding wave energy that we inhale through the salty air. The way the sea keeps pushing and pushing, reminding us of that the world keeps moving around us. Or the relaxing sound of lapping waves which tends to lully our senses and which helps us reconnect with the reliable pattern of our own breathing.

Though it might be easy for many people to forget while they're busy living a modern, urbanized life - we human beings are grown out of, and we're part of the natural world. The nature which is made up of energies and natural molecular constellations. We are born and we still live in - no matter how far or close connected to it - a natural world with which we are interconnected as much as the plants, animals and the sea. That natural connection, a way for us to get back to where we come from and which offers us a chance to heal, is probably the most metaphorically beautiful thing with water and the ocean in my humble opinion. 

“ It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; 
the greatest source of visual beauty; 
the greatest source of intellectual interest. 
It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living. ” 

~ Sir David Attenborough ~