Delight in existence

For one hundred days I lived anchored in the flow of rasa, counterbalancing two decades of modern life sheltered from winds, waters, the night sky, silence. The wilderness revived my native tongue: a protolanguage, words without words, floating into perception, submerging. I learned to be them: patience, surprise, contentment, foreboding, the natural, the supernatural, suspense, relief, fear, peace. My eyes saw verbs in motion. My ears heard the percussion of nouns. Scents became sentences. My mental treadmill, sprinting and slumping in exhaustion since birth, slowed. Apparently I didn't need to chase after brilliance. Everything was already brilliant.

This was more than a transient sensation. Surrounded by seabirds and the sea, I grew suppler, more grateful, afloat on life's buoyant preserver.

There is yet another Sanskrit meaning for rasa: delight in existence. On Isla Rasa, living deeply in the flow, I found myself delighted at my first homecoming to the planet where I was born.

Whitty, Julia. Deep Blue Home. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. 84. Print.