Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 43. Sailing with my Son (part 2 of an open water journey—my spirit sail)

(click here to listen now)

Hello human.

If you are not coming to this BUOY from Episode 42, my son is on the Transpac 2023 return crew for a boat christened Good Energy. This means he is on the crew sailing the boat back to California. Transpac is a biannual sailing race from California to Hawaii, and one of the world’s oldest and longest open ocean races.

This is his first major crossing. He left on Saturday, July 15 from Hawaii. By the time Episode 43 goes live he may be making his final approach. Or beginning to anticipate it.

They are traveling at the speed of God-knots.

And this is a journey of 2,225 miles. And a mother’s heart.

At the halfway point, he posted:

“Today we hit the halfway point “as the crow flies.” With a celebratory beer from the Captain and Navigator to all the crew, and the ceremonial cutting of the entry bracelet from the Transpac kick-off party, we begin the second leg which is straighter and faster.

I began to take sextant readings this morning. Two readings of the sun. And this evening I will take readings of six or seven stars just as the stars and the horizon are visible at the same time. Starting in the eastern sky which darkens first and sweeping west. The almanac and the charts themselves will be done once we return home.

All That Water

My comfort and assurance are grounded in what he shares with me. That he does laundry, he fishes (mahi mahi tuna tacos), and he verbally spars with his Captain and Navigator. That he is learning so much about all that water.

Sending photos with captions like:

“Laundry day after my shift ended at 5am.”

“I’m number ten. I hang my gear inside out sometimes when it didn’t rain so it can air out.”

This is sailor culture. I love feeling like I am part of his experience.

And descriptions like:

“We just tacked to the east and now are motoring directly into the wind. The main sail is up but the second forward sail (the Jib, which is the name of our navigator as well) is down and lashed to the deck.”

“There’s debris in the water in this part of the ocean.

I was just sitting in the bow and found my first direct prayer request to God. I asked…

Then. A little wooden cross floated by.”

“And now we have wind. This doesn’t happen. We’re flying out of the Pacific high this morning. Incredible.”

When I asked about buoys…

“We only saw buoys leaving Hawaii. Green is going and Red is returning.

The sailor reference is RRR Red Right Return.

And the stuff from within:

I’m emailing you my draft (story line) as of today. Starting to have all the elements.”

I responded:  “I am so grateful to have this experience with you. God’s nature is in every one of my moments. I don’t always connect as I should. This is an amazing moment for me. My heart is trusting in your experience. Because you are actually doing it. That’s a window into transcendence. What we do together to be closer to God. I am beside my earthly self. So happy.”

Then: “I am off to sleepy land. Sail on sailor boy.”

Waking Up At Sea

He responded with this writing sketch, which I did not see until morning. And I did not see this coming.

“It’s a strange thing how, though we mostly travel in long straight lines, four hours of sleep and waking to completely different sea conditions can seem like you’ve taken a few turns and are somehow in a different place altogether. Due to following seas and barely being able to stay course without luffing for some reason, my shift last night seemed to be an aurora. The boat seems, when the instrument lights are on, to be traveling at the speed of light. Almost like building a campfire to be warm, then by not being able to see being able to imagine whatever you want beyond your campsite. So, it is in the vessel. Or perhaps that’s what I want to imagine. A dream. Where it’s not just the delivery of the goods but a journey through your own destiny where seconds seem like weeks and hours seem to age you with the understandings they bring to you—for the sailor can never stop discovering. New unfamiliar relationships bonding however slowly, but surely. To be in a single condition, although no two waves are alike, and to master the complexities of that sea state and that wind direction and speed. The personality of that cumulative condition making itself known to you by your willingness to go side by side with it through time. It is not a dream, but it seems like one. It is not heaven or hell but can seem like both, and somewhere in the outer layers of the brain the task is taken, accepted, and begun, traversed and one way or another ended with myriad importations of being alive.”

I responded:

“You have gone to a sacred place, your purest voice as a writer. Your deep immersion into His creation is indescribable. Yet you did. Humbling.”

He said:

“Thank you, mom. It’s humbling to me as well.”

From his experience I go beyond what I know about my witness, to what I want it to be. A transcendent witness. Like how my son describes the ocean he sails in. God’s presence in my life.

A witness that needs a spirit-sail. Which God gives me. So, someone else can transcend.

And it happens “out there.” In all that spirit-water of my life, doing His work, doing His hard things with His power and love.

I want to share one more insight from my son on his deep blue water trail across the Pacific.

He said:  “My partner was down below most of the shift, so It was just me and the stars. The main constellations I mention, I’m always pointing out to Katia at home. And last night they were directly beside me, and I felt very at home.”

Picture what he sees… as he describes it:

“The moon casts a shadow of me I will never reach the end of. Unlike the night in which it shines. Tonight, the stars and skies are mine. Many times, the nighttime tries to hold my hand, yet it is lonely. Off the port mast I sail by Markab East by North. To my port beam lay Ursula Major, Minor and (Cosiopea) Cassiopeia, as if out my front door. The loneliness is not with me tonight, rather a victory of some parallel perception. As if belonging has reared its rare head to show its face to me in this place, yet again. This wonder for a moment seems available always, but it is not. This night, this moon, this mast in waters that never again will have the same contours, the same profile, the same child of sight and sound and feeling. The same child must take this breath, breathe it in and release it as slowly as necessary to have breath before the next moon can cast such a course—through longing to become a true sailor of this vessel.

I can’t unpack all of this here … but it is about being a child of God seeking our fullest potential. And it reflects what all that water and wind is teaching him, in a no soul-stone unturned kind of way.

He paused that conversation with:

“Pretty soon, ma, we’ll be all growed up.”

This is a journey of 2,225 miles. And a mother’s heart.

What does he come home to? His life. The daily details of it. The relationships in it. His boat. Rethinking his course. A salty sea story he began on this, his first major crossing. An experience to anchor how he has changed. Through God’s transforming nature.

Out There. With My Spirit Sail.

Where has my spirit-sail taken me?

At 3am, Saturday morning, July 22 I woke up thinking two words… “out there.” I had pretty much done that every night since he set sail. Waking up to a startled realization in the anxious hours of the night, that he is out there, in all that water. Followed by prayer for his safety and well-being, physically and spiritually.

But this time it was for me. Like I have come to “knowing” what it will take, and I have a more intense desire to be “out there” with God. To be deeply immersed in His presence. To deepen my time alone with God. So, my life can be deeply immersed in His will, His power, and His plan. It is His ocean.

I am convicted.

Psalm 145:18

The Lord is near to all who call on him,

    to all who call on him in truth.

 

Time alone with God has a seaworthy grip on my heart… like never before.  

In video footage of Good Energy making its way across the Pacific I noticed a banner on it that says, “Live Beyond Land.” To me, that is when we realize our spiritual swim is longer than we had charted, and the water is deeper. We commit to an attentive heart that goes where God goes. The challenges are constantly changing. It is a place beyond sure footing. And we rarely come to shore.

Like the albatross. Who has the longest life of any wild bird. I read about a Laysan Albatross, called Wisdom, who is likely as old as 71! Researchers banded her in 1956, and scientists estimate that she was 5 years old when the band was placed.

What a wise old bird. Flying over all that water for so many years. And our journey’s albatross, bringing good luck to Good Energy early on when my son first took the helm. Yet the Ancient Mariner got it wrong. So many get the journey wrong. And end up with a dead albatross of regret hanging around their necks. Human nature, left to itself, is brutal.

I couldn’t ask for a more timely experience on BUOY, mywitness99 journey. My witness will be saltier. Knowing land is approaching, and a daily life without this journey returned to—makes my soul sad. I don’t want land legs. I want sea legs.

God says I can have them. That I can, as my son says, “chase the edge of my shadow” in the night.

That’s Good Energy to God energy.

So, I turn my spirit-sail toward my next crossing with a simple prayer.

Heavenly Father,

Fill my spirit-sail.

Steer my will and turn it toward your sea.

Take me to, take me through, uncharted waters.

Bring my life eye to eye with the albatross, so we can soar together.

Let my nights be illuminated by your faith. Start my days with your Son rising. Both of them.

Bless me with a life beyond land. Sustain my heart in the squalls of being “out there” with you, Lord.

Anchor me, in open water.

In Jesus’ name I pray.