RIDING WITH THE CHANGES IN THE MOTIONS OF THE SEAS

The stimulation of splashing cold lake water on the palms of your hands splashed upon your face, tingling, refreshingly, circulating, exciting and awakening!

Rip Van Winkle who was supposed to have slept for 100 years is awakened. Startling and splashing Sleeping Beauty from her long sleep, kissed by the wetness of the waves. The Seven Dwarfs Sleepy and Dopey, a splash of cool lake water jumpstarting them, feeling alertness coming out of deep meditation, reacting to the sound of the Jewish Shofar, ram's horn, as it penetrates like the sound of scraping steel into your ears, also opening your eyes.

The feeling of cool lake water on your toes, awakening your legs, stretching, having cold feet not in fear or stage fright, instead to sing and to toast with red Kosher wine or grape juice stimulated into automatic sweet song singing the Wine Blessing.

Breaking the bread, a sweet bread for sweet and holy Rosh Hashanah, breaking out in loud sweet song, The Motzi! Clear for all to hear!

To watch these waves of the sea with your right hand on the seas and your left hand on the rivers, changing waves in color from blue to green, then from green to blue.

Soft smooth scaly skins of chameleons changing in color with the changing of emotions, moods.

The changing of the guard from a Levi to a Kohayne, the changing of the temperature of the water from warm to cool, shaded in a sunset of the evening, changing into a sunrise of the morning.

Aware of change, gliding like a private plane on a gust of the wind changing in its direction from west to east, riding the surf of a wave aboard a surfboard, but not falling off. Taking life's changes as they come with an awareness of change, an acceptance of change.

Forever boldly meeting life's obstacles that are the causes of these changes.

HEEDING THE CRY OF THE RAM'S HORN AS AUTUMN CHANGES TO WINTER

In the changing of the seasons of time, to see the rivers and seas change with these seasons, to feel a chill in the lake water where there was warmth in the waves before.

To dig your bare feet into sands that are no longer hot sands but are sands of coolness in the shade of a tree that in autumn now has leaves of color. Multi-colored leaves of reds, yellows, and gold, no longer greens. A leaf like a dead spirit that has fallen from a tree to warn us as with the sound of the ram's horn that winter coldness will soon be upon us.

To feel the coolness of a wind that used to be but a warm summer breeze, winds speeding over the tops of blue lake waters bending sails of boats, tipping them dangerously on their sides, no longer having stability. Soon to see water turn into ice, a cold stone covered with the lace of a snowflake, icy breakers of solid frozen water that once flowed as streams, to be icebergs or snowcapped mountain tops.

Instead of swimming, to be ice skating, taking snowshoes and hiking on the whiteness of icy beaches, skiing with long poles digging into white mounds as you gain speed on the ice but without turning wheels.

Sledding not on horseback, instead in the cabin of a sleigh, steering a sled runner to avoid hitting snowmen built by children on the sides of roads. Snowmen with charcoal black eyes and carrots for noses, snowmen padded from large snowballs, guarding as warriors the safety of snow forts made of ice as bricks, a place to hide from a stray flying snowball thrown in fun.

From summer to autumn to winter, from green to red to yellow, from a child to a teen to an adult, from a girl to a wife to a mother. Times are changing, we are no longer who we used to be.

Spinning crimson colored wool into jackets and scarves, hats, as women of valor we prepare, a time to feel woman-made warmth even when it is cold.

Lighting candles of hot flames to toast into warmness the thawing cold fingertips.

Sleeping in beds of goose-down filled comforters, no longer in sheets. A time to drink hot chocolate beverages, to toast our cups to the richness of the will-be warmth, safe in the preparation of the coming of the future of a snowy day.

BEACH BIRDS IN LOVE

Seeing the love of a bluebird cooing together with no, not another bluebird, but with a red-breasted robin instead. Hearing the song of these two birds of different feathers, different types of birds, but falling in love and singing their song together.

A bluebird and a red-breasted robin together sipping water from a fountain in a yard, bathing together in a bath built just for them, a Jacuzzi in a yard with flowing waters like chocolate where to dip your strawberries. A fountain of waterfalls like the Niagara in Canada, but in your neighborhood forest flowing as a trickling brook where the birds go to drink.

A bluebird and a red-breasted robin, loving each other, even though coming from different flocks, birds that fly freely in the sky, with no danger of beebee guns, a red-breasted robin also cooing together with a red cardinal bird, flying together and flying free, flying as their love spreads as their feathers pick up with speed in the wind, birds that have no doubt, no anger, needing no forgiveness, not understanding why they say "birds of a feather flock together."

Being a talking parrot of many different colored feathers, whistling and talking, saying words of a human language, a parrot having a brain of intelligence, not in a cage but flying free in the tropics, a bird who owns his own island in the middle of the ocean.

Being human but learning from these birds, learning your lessons from nature, studying the flight patterns and lifestyle of birds, building your own nest high in a tree, a treehouse, and warming eggs as you sit comfortably in your tree, being protected as the mother bird cannot be captured along with her young.

The mother bird therefore singing the loudest and the sweetest, a song of opera in the air, a mother bird whose eggs did not crack, whose nest was not toppled by the wind in its tree. A mother bird whose young grows up with nests of their own in trees of their own, a mother bird who can be proud of her young and of their young, generations and generations of free birds of every color, every feather, flying together.

JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL

Resting on a dune in the sand, watching balloons escape from children's chubby little hands to fly higher and then still higher into the brilliance of the blue skies, like a bubbly balloon, a bluebird, a high-flying kid's kite, or a small private jet plane, a hurling whirling helicopter, a flock of angelic white seagulls swarming, landing on sands and being fed bread crumbs as their numbers increase and health and food come to them as a gift from The Lord.

A binding force of greatness and goodness that brings them happiness as their fine feathers become whiter and whiter with every bit of kindness given to them as manna of cream and white wafers, humans showing them generosity and kindness.

Watching these great white flocks of beautiful birds like bold eagles spreading their large arms in a wingspan and freely flying over liquid lake water, far away to another destination that provides them again with free manna falling like chocolate cakes from rainclouds in spoons of cake batter instead of rain.

Receiving postcards in the mail from seagulls who have traveled to China, Mexico, Canada, and back, decorated postcards coming in the mail of beautiful images of the scenery seen by these seagulls on their far away trips, without the use of airplanes, seagulls hovering over mountains in Tennessee, sliding like pelicans down the snow caps of the Appalachians and hiking with hiking poles back up to the places of their nests built atop the snowy mountains' crests.

These seagulls having a passport with stamps of embossment of all the countries in the world, having traveled to over one hundred different locations, on summer, autumn and winter vacations.

Being a Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is the author of his own book, a seagull who travels around the world with a stamp of pride on his passport, a postcard of a picture of smiles hung on the wall of the travelers this seagull has met, exchanging with him a positive countenance.

SLAYING BEACH FLYING DRAGONFLIES WITH SWORDS

The Lake Michigan beach, a huge playpen made of sand, a sandbox, a place to build sandcastles, a playground on the beach for children to stomp around on red cedar chips of wood and bark, a sandy pathway on which to walk, kicking up sand in small hurricanes as you wisp on by.

Dogs in the park, no parking, no dogs without leashes, dogs stirring up sand with the paddling of their feet, paws, pawing the sand dunes, passing by on pavement, puffing up the pride of their owners as their sleek smooth soft fur becomes a place to sink inside your fingers, to stroke the smooth slickness of this furry dog's fancy coat.

Striding over dune grass sticking up out of the ground like sharp swords, a place for aphids to lay eggs, a place for ladybugs to then eat the aphids off the dune grass, not sharp enough to keep off ladybugs, a place like a painting with green leaves countable in unison as a natural fence to divide the lake waters from the sandy shore.

Watching waves brushing on the sand one by one, four foot waves, windiness, whistling like words in the wind as you walk on by. Not caring, not having one worry, worry-lessly wisped away in the wind like buzzing dragonflies soaring overhead paving the way for the dragons to be slain by sharp swords of sharp dune grass.

No more dragons, no more swords, just continuous wily whispering in the winds of the water where to peacefully toss pennies into a wonderful wishing well.

LOVE AND PEACE BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND JEWS

Enjoying a stroll on a lakeshore on a sandy beach with blue ocean waters splashing up on our feet as we walk along together, two Great Nations, together in the USA sharing the same beach, swimming with our bodies, different bodies, the two bodies of two Great Nations, the Nations of the Jews and Muslims.

Brothers with the same Fathers, both descended from the same Father Avraham, two separate brothers who were yet united under ONE Father and also under ONE G-D.

Seeing the female element of The Great Muslim Nation, like their sisters who are Jewish, both pushing strollers as both being Mothers to children who are also descendants of Avraham, children who swim together in this same lake water, a water that merges the bodies of two Great Nations in its purity.

Muslim female mothers smiling at Jewish female mothers, understanding the female element, both being mothers, enjoying their motherhood as they push their children together on a swing set that is shared by all children, children of both Great Nations, enjoying a children's park together at one beach, united under ONE G-D, two Great Nations with great children, going together to the same schools, uniting and learning peace.

How to have peace with your brothers and sisters, to be like Isaac and Ishmael as brothers and have sisters as descendants, two Great Nations of brothers and sisters, in the unity of peace under the mutual belief of the rights to worship in different religions but with the same source, to have love for all humankind worshipping ONE G-D Who is the same G-D Who is shared by all people.

LOVING WONDERFUL WATER AS A GIFT OF NATURE

Floating on water, water sprinkled, water for a mikvah or baptism, water that cleanses, water that relieves thirst. Being always near water, having water in a bathtub, water flowing from a shower spigot, water that sprays into your face and water to put all over on your hands, submerged.

The power of water as it comes forth from the angry clouds in the skies from a thunderstorm, water that changes to balls of hail like baseballs denting cars and breaking windows. Wrathful water as it destroys, as floods and hurricanes havoc the lands turning prosperity into trash.

Water, pure water, water that has been chlorinated, water to sip on your tongue, to whet your dry mouth.

Water as a sport, to swim dive and splash! To paddle water with your arms to build muscles. Water that a dam cannot keep out, water that surges and breaks in wherever you think you are safe, but in reality are not.

Water that teaches a story, as the Bible story of the "Splitting of the Seas." An entire blue ocean that split in two like an event of magic, as a holy miracle, never to happen again, never as happening before, something to believe in or not, how a miracle occurs no one knows.

A red River Nile as red as your blood, not to drink, a River Nile that has become red wine, red blood, the color of water not to satisfy thirst, a river that instead is the cause of thirst, not relieving it. A punishment from The Lord as pay back for your wrongdoings, not to drink again, a reason to be sorry for your transgressions. To see fish once alive that have all now been killed, floating on their backs on this red water, not as a home for them, not to drink and not to swim.

Water as a mighty miracle, water that satisfies a sucking thirst, water that cleans the greasiest of dirt. So much water that it breaks the dams. Water with powers, important powers, the power to keep someone alive or the power to take his life away.

Having the power of a great body of water in your use of clean words and clean deeds, as clean as water. Loving, appreciating water as a holy empowerment.

Feeling that water has a life of its own, and that as a gift to you from G-D, water will never dry up, never to wander in a desert, watery wetness will always be there for you as a place of a promised land.

WONDERING WANDERING IN WARM WATER

Sitting on a bay, hanging your legs over the water swinging them up and down, back and forth, to the rocking rhythm of luscious lake water, singingly sucking in humid air lively as a water wave one after the other crashes against the wooden wailing walls of the dock, deeply darkly submerged.

Sailing sadly in a seesawing sailboat seeing burning candles aboard, drowning waywardly without life preservers, bouncing back and forth in boats, a memory of a memorial of your family ancestry.

Fires on board, lighting up a dismal dark night, rowing in a rowboat, kayaking in a kayak, surfing on a surfboard, sifting sands into sandcastles.

Laying out in the sun as a noontide approaches, seemingly safe so not swimming.

Poetically meditating, sucking in, breathing in fresh wisps of sea air blowing on you, soaring with skimming rocks off the glassy surface of the lake, not aiming at ducks.

Kicking sifting sand with your foot, out deeply suspended over water rescued by a sandbar, wishing as watery waves wash off insecurities.

Watching a new sunrise, a red rubber ball bouncingly hopping over a horizon line easterly, lifting, mingling with covers of clouds, turning a blue sky blood red!

Red skies sailors' warning! A Shofar screaming out the music of a ram's horn!

Red Cardinal birds building nests, the comforts of home, flying in silver linings of sailing clouds safely in the brilliant beams of the burning rays of the sun, golden.

Flipping gold coins, heads or tails, randomly, forever luckily, but knowingly learnedly, to be a forethought plan following a directional map.

Wondering wandering seaward then homeward with health as your wealth, welcoming a new year, forthcoming as a sweet sea floating with apples and honey, a Rosh Hashanah, soon coming to be a time of joy!