The ocean is changing my life and myself. After six years of living on sailboats and drinking straight from the medicine of the sea, I decided it is time to share what I have learned so far. Welcome aboard a series of texts that will summarize the main values & principles that the ocean teaches me about life on Earth.
Our first floating home Mintaka sailing the coast of Brazil: where it all started. Photo by: Bruna Arcangelo
Since I can remember, I have been a curious and committed seeker, always in search of what it means to be alive and how I can become a better human being. A seeker of finding inner peace and doing good to the world. I am hungry for wisdom and truth, dedicated to researching the duo that rules this Planet: fear and love. I am a humble practitioner of the path of self-mastery, failing forward, enjoying the ride (most of the time), eager to share and learn with other committed souls.
This quest took me to all kinds of experiences, places, gurus, trainings, studies, and practices. I drank a little bit from a diverse fountain of religions and spiritual lineages, plant medicine and shamanism, meditation and yoga, psychology and coaching, mystic schools and occult wisdom. All of them gave me a lot, taught me a lot, and some of them are still part of my daily practices and continuous studies. And of course: there will be a lot more to come.
However, what I get from the ocean is different.
And you know why?
Because everything I learn from the list above — the gurus, books, and practices, the theories and philosophies — I can actually understand through experience when I am out at sea. An understanding with my physical, emotional, spiritual and mental bodies.
I went to the sea searching for presence, connection, and a new sense of feeling alive. Back then, at the end of 2017, there were a lot of noises in my mind, messing up with the way I was relating with myself, others, and the world.
I wanted to discover what lies beyond my ego, beyond that identity that I somehow felt so attached to, beyond the lower dramas of myself.
In 2018, my partner and I followed a crazy instinct, an impulse from the soul, an invisible force pulling us to the ocean, and we bought our first sailboat.
Our home for four years: Mintaka, the name of a star and a magic sailing home. Photo by: Bruna Arcangelo
It didn't take long for me to understand why I did that. The very first time I went on a night sailing aboard my own floating home, I noticed the interconnected solitude of being the tiniest dot absolutely integrated into that immense body of water around me.
Nothing I have ever practiced before reached that simple yet powerful state of connection with my higher self and a higher consciousness — some call that "God," a force that perfectly orchestrates the magical miracle of all life on Earth.
This same force of creation can be found within us and everywhere, because everything is a manifestation of this so-called God.
Since the Ocean occupies about 70% of the Earth's territory (!!!), I figured the Ocean is the biggest portion of God that I can not just touch, see and feel, but also live at, to hopefully reawaken the goddess within me.
For me, the sea is the place where the abstract becomes concrete—ironically, surrounded by a liquid body.
It is the place where the confusion clears up.
The place of embodiment of wisdom shared from west to east around this globe.
The place where difficult concepts are understood through simplicity and practical experience.
And it's just lying there: free, open, gigantic, and so unknown and uninhabited by us.
The ocean became my Guru, the only Guru I found so far without an ego.
The ocean is my guru because it is teaching me constantly how to transition from darkness and ignorance (gu) to light and wisdom (ru), and wave after wave, is helping me break down the hard stones of my ego. It is also the temple because it is constantly embracing me, welcoming me with grace, leading the path to reconnect me with the source.
The ocean is the womb of Earth, where we all came from. Returning to the ocean is, therefore, an opportunity to remember who I am, who we are.
And not just to remember who we are but what we came here to do: to remember how to love.
Deep inside, we actually already know it; hence, we ARE love. But due to mass disconnection from our nature (in and out) and the repetition of tons of actions based on fear, both on the individual and collective layer, we are distracted from love.
So: love is the mission.
And since love is the force that connects us all, and the ocean is also the liquid that connects us all, I thought that—maybe—if I create intimacy with the sea, I can learn about love, myself, ourselves, and God. Or would that all be the same thing? ;)
Some go to university. Others to the church.
I went to both, they didn't serve me much. And don't get me wrong: I have absolutely nothing against them.
But the big blue is giving me what no other institution gave me:
Navigating the ocean is a path that teaches me how to navigate better through life, facing storms and harvesting precious treasures found both on the surface and in the depths of my inner sea
A path that teaches me the Laws of Nature, the ones that rule everything and everyone, from the cosmic stars to the smallest atom. I found out that not just the knowledge, but the applicability of these laws in our lives, is what dictates if we live in harmony and generate love and peace or if we live numb, disconnected, and harming ourselves and others.
The ocean puts me in contact not only with the laws of nature but also teaches me a whole set of other principles, skills and values that I believe are necessary for all of us, the ones committed to shift to a new paradigm of life on Earth, leaving a better legacy to the next generations.
The liquid nature of the ocean, the one of impermanence, of abundance, of power and mystery, has been reawakening my nature and atrophying the domesticated Raíssa that grew up in the city far away from herself.
The oceans medicine is one worth sharing, and that's why I am here.
Salt Water Temple is a series of texts dedicated to sharing the laws of nature, the principles and values taught by the sea, which deserve to be applied by humankind in times when a revolution from within is urgent.
I invite you to navigate with me the waters of this Salt Water Temple, drinking a portion of the medicine of the Ocean that suits you now, and applying these teachings into your daily life like I do with mine.
Welcome aboard.
Raíssa