A Place of Nourishment

We all need a place where we can go to be reminded that all is well.

When my youngest son was a child we started vacationing in Florida.
We would return to the same place year after year and it became our home away from home for a week or two every winter.

During those first few years, I was so sleep deprived. For me, it was deeply nourishing to arise early in the morning and go for a walk on my own along the beach.

When I got to the end of the beach, I had a practice of stopping and closing my eyes. I would face the gentle warmth of the early morning sun and wait until I felt something shift in me. Occasionally I would step away too soon. I’d shut my eyes again, lift my face to the morning sun and wait until I was filled with its nourishment.

I haven’t visited Florida for many years, but I still draw on the healing power of that place.

Here is a poem that echoes my experience of the ocean.

The Healing Moment by Elizabeth Tarbox

Each day I am newly reminded of my unworthiness—a dozen thoughts misspoken; another day when the good I do falls short of the good that I could do; myriad small interchanges; moments of sharing that strain to the breaking point my desire to be generous, helpful, and kind; months of careful work lost by a moment’s impatience, a careless word.


But when I am here at the edge of creation, breaking with the small tide over the sand, the need to do good rolls away; the question of what is right diminishes to insignificance and is easily borne away by the tiny waves. Here, where no words are spoken, none are misspoken.


I am with the broken stubble of the marsh grass that holds on through the wrecking wind and the burning flood. I am with the grains that mold themselves around everything, accepting even so unworthy a foot as mine, holding and shaping it until it feels that it belongs.

I stand somewhere between truth and vision, and what I don’t know ceases to embarrass me, because what I do know is that the water feels gentle like a lover’s touch, and the sand welcomes it.


What I have done or failed to do has left no noticeable mark on creation. What I do or don’t do is of no moment now. Now I am here and grateful to be touched, calmed, and healed by the immense pattern of the universe.
And when I die, it will be an honor for my blood to return to the sea and my bones to become the sand. Reassured, I am called back to my life, to another day.

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Is there a place that nourishes you? A place where you can always find comfort? You hold that place in your heart. Return there whenever you are in need.