Tahitian Lagoon

I had never snorkeled before, but when we took our trip to Tahiti our over-water bungalows had snorkel equipment right there in the bathroom and I knew I was going to give it a go. The first big challenge was to circumvent the hard-wired internal command to never, ever, ever take a breath when your face is in the water. Once I got the hang of that, the next challenge was to avoid gasping for joy at the sensation of being face-to-face with sea creatures. I found it emotionally overwhelming and had to keep lifting my head just to get a grip.

One afternoon the guys took off in an outrigger canoe and I was poking around the lagoon all by myself. After I had spent some time marveling and having my soul charmed by the lagoon-world, I selected one particular fish and followed it wherever it went. When it stopped to nibble something, I hovered above it. When it glided away, so did I. I experienced the entire lagoon at fish-pace. There was no toil, of course, and no sense of time, either. Just the moment-by-moment expression of fishness.