"Edge Of The Ocean" by Bodhi Smith

Oct 06, 2023

 
the edge of the ocean, it's home
the smell of salt mixed with sage
the sound of waves kissing the beach
the stars reflecting over the water
the cool sea-breeze through my hair
the grains of sand between my toes
the colors of sunrise and sunset
i'm at peace, all my senses filled
as i again come to my senses
it's always there, it's forever the same
an unwavering rock in the turbulence
even after all the storms come and go
there's a comforting constant
stability throughout the chaos
needed reassurance in all doubt
the edge of the ocean, it's home
 
MY THOUGHTS
The edge of the ocean is my reset button. When I'm despondent and everything around me seems so insane, I can go there and find my sanity, find a new starting point ― Bodhi, Edge Of The Ocean
 
Beautiful tumultuous clouds swirl in the evening sky at the "Edge of the Ocean"...a massive winter storm is coming ashore and stoking up the turbulent waters of the Pacific Ocean as lightning is striking behind Hidden Arch near Crystal Cove State Park just south of Corona del Mar, California...but through it all for me, there's a reassuring peace, a comfort like nowhere else, because home for me is here by the sea...
 
a wave goodbye
as water meets sky
edge of the ocean
the end of lands
sea's in constant motion
kissing the sands
big love potion, what a notion
as waves hold hands
 
I was born here in Southern California in Oceanside by the Edge of the Ocean 56 years ago...This is my home, and it's always been my home, even when I was away. I cannot go too far away for very long now without missing the subtle smell of sagebrush and salt in the air, hearing the waves break on the beach, feeling the soft cool sand through my toes, seeing the gorgeous sunrises and sunsets out over the ocean, witnessing the moon and stars over the Pacific...
 
The ocean exerts an inexorable pull over sea people wherever they are...and when they feel the tug, there is no choice but somehow to reach it and stand at its immense, earth-dissolving edge, straightaway calmed ― Anuradha Roy, The Folded Earth
 
In the past 50 years in Southern California, a lot has changed---there's less trees, wildlife, and green spaces...but there's more people (and homeless), freeways, traffic, housing developments, high rises, hotels, big box marts, parking lots, light pollution, Starbucks and McDonalds. However, a few things have stayed the same--the beaches and coastline are pretty much unchanged. For example, pictured here on the day after Christmas in 2016, Hidden Arch (a.k.a Swing Arch) looked exactly like this with a winter storm approaching in 1967, exactly the same back then as it does today...
 
That's the beauty of the Edge of the Ocean. Everything inland can change dramatically, roads, houses, jobs, luck, your health, relationships, pets, people in your life--but at the Edge of the Ocean, the waves are the same--they sound the same, they look the same. The seawater has the same feel and temperature. The salt air has the same smell, and still leaves a gritty film on your skin. The Beach is the same all around with the same rocks. The sunrises and sunsets are the same. The stars over the ocean are the same. And the winter Pacific storms are the same...it's comforting to have something so unwavering and stable in your world...
 
There's no better place than the edge of the ocean to rethink, refocus, regroup, reboot, and restart when life needs a reset ― Bodhi, Edge Of The Ocean
 
Your life could be turned upside down, people can leave and never come back, pets can pass away, love can come and go, happiness can be up and down...But go down by the Edge of the Ocean, and everything is as it should be, everything is okay again. When standing in front of a sand castle on the beach that was built by a three year old knowing it'll soon be washed away, starting over seems so easy, so appropriate with the Edge of the Ocean as your starting point...
 
And when I'm gazing out over the Pacific to where the ocean meets the sky, I know she's out there somewhere, she has to be. Because the hopeless romantic in me holds onto my faith in her, in us. She knows me, and I know her, we just need to meet for the first time one day...I'm hoping we'll find each other again, only sooner than later--and at the Edge of the Ocean at 11:11 on 11-11, there I'll be, waiting like always for her...
 
When they first kiss, there on the beach, they will kneel at the edge of the Pacific and say a prayer of thanks, sending all the stories of love inside them out in a fleet of bottles all across the oceans of the world ― Francesca Lia Block, Baby Be-Bop
 
Chaos could be ruling my world. But I unplug from it all, I go down to the edge of the ocean. And I find, everything there is as it should be, it's a constant, it's as it's always been. It's forever. It's peace of mind. It's a confort like no other. It's home ― Bodhi, Edge Of The Ocean
 
 
From July 2011, this song, "Edge Of The Ocean" by Stick Figure. is the absolute most perfect tune to go along with my blog and meaning today, and as a bonus, it even has the same title as my photograph! The lyrics are spot on and run parallel with my thoughts that there's no better place than at the edge of the ocean to rethink, refocus, regroup, reboot, and restart when life needs a reset...and mixed with a somber reggae rhythm and beat, taken together it's all simply and purely beautiful... "Edge Of The Ocean" by Stick Figure. ... (just click on the blue links to listen to any of the songs)
 
So give me a sign that we can start over again
Let's go for a ride, could this be where it begins?
And all this time, you held it inside somewhere
So throw me a line, we can weather the storm 'til the end
And I run 'til I meet the sun
And I run until I reach the seas
At the edge of the ocean
There's a place to start over again
At the edge of the ocean
Holds a place, we can start over again
Follow the light, we can count on the stars to shine
Travel billions of miles, we can light up the skies tonight
All my life, you weren't so hard to find, mm
When the morning arrives, you'll be standing there by my side
And I run 'til I meet the sun
And I run until I reach the seas
At the edge of the ocean
There's a place to start over again
At the edge of the ocean
Holds a place, we can start over again
Moving on, I was leaving
Will you remember me?
I can't turn back those feelings
What will be, it will be
I found a place to live along the ocean's edge
Can't hold back those feelings
It's just the way we are
It's just the way we are
And I run 'til I meet the sun
And I run 'til I reach the seas
Won't you go? You know I'll be there
Don't you know you can always count on me?
I'll be there (I'll be there)
Promise me you'll come my way, yeah
Don't you know you can always count on me?
I'll be there
 
 
 
SOME MORE APROPOS  QUOTES
The boy grew up at the edge of the ocean and knew it was paradise, and better than Eden, which was only a garden ― Eve Babitz, Sex and Rage
 
Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon  ― Joseph Conrad
 
I couldn't imagine living in a state that didn't reach the ocean. It was a giant reset button. You could go to the edge of the land and see infinity and feel renewed ― Avery Sawyer, Notes to Self
 
here i came to the very edge
where nothing at all needs saying,
everything is absorbed through weather and the sea,
and the lightning swam back,
its bolts all silvered,
and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning.
 
She sits at the edge
of the ocean just to
think as she watches
the waves break.
She's done that more so
as she's gotten
older and the way
life has thrown so
much at her.
Because that's
the place where
shallow ends and
deep begins.
 
My life is like a stroll upon the beach, as near to the ocean's edge as I can go ― henry david thoreau
 
It was as if when I looked into her eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the ocean...on a windswept beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves ― Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire
 
And...it’s like all my life I’ve been this tower standing at the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now, has someone thought to flip the switch that reveals that I’m not a tower at all. I’m a lighthouse! ― Laini Taylor, Night of Cake & Puppets
 
Standing at the edge of the ocean was probably the closest I’d get to touching something boundless and greater than myself. For me, the ocean had a way of putting the rest of the world into context for a couple seconds ― Shaun David Hutchinson, Brave Face
 
Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and beauty of the world. And it’s breathtaking ― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
 
If you ever want to see how small you are in the plan of God, just stand at the edge of an ocean ― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer
 
You have been walking the ocean's edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry. You must dive naked under and deeper under, a thousand times deeper. Love flows down. The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes. Tell me, is the earth worse for giving in like that? ― Jalaluddin Rumi, The Essential Rumi
 
You are the diver's clothes
lying empty on the beach.
You are the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.

Your hidden self is blood in those,
those veins that are lute strings
that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf,
but the sound of no shore
 
Would you walk to the edge of the ocean
Just to fill my jar with sand
Just in case I get the notion
To let it run through my hand
 
There's a place to start over again, at the edge of the ocean...Follow the light, we can count on the stars to shine. Travel billions of miles, we can light up the skies tonight...And I run 'til I meet the sun. And I run 'til I reach the seas. Won't you go? You know I'll be there ― Stick Figure, Edge Of The Ocean.
 
 
 
SPECIFICS ABOUT THIS PHOTO
Love can come and go, happiness can be up and down. But when standing in front of a sand castle on the beach that was built by a 3 yr-old knowing it'll soon be washed away, starting over seems so easy, so appropriate, with the edge of the ocean as your starting point ― Bodhi, Edge Of The Ocean
 
Pictured here is an olde grist mill alongside the flowing crystal clear-blue waters of Glade Creek as the last rays of the sun are peaking through the trees near sunset on a windless warm Autumn evening in Babcock State Park close to Landisburg, West Virginia...
 
In order to create my vision you now see before you, a single long exposure was used and this single frame was not merged with any other exposures (like I so often do with my photography to achieve the perfect lighting of the entire scene)...but you need to take special note here however, and be aware that AI in Adobe Photoshop Beta CC was used to enhance the sky with the incoming winter storm off the Pacific Ocean...
 
In my photography, I always use filters to create longer exposure effects, saturate colors naturally, and balance the light in my composition in-camera...I often use as many as four filters at time, and I always use at least one filter in my completed impressions...
 
And to get the effects and balance I was looking for in this composition, I used two ProgreyUSA Filters. along with the ProgreyUSA G-120Z Antarctic Magnetic Holder. to secure these filters to my Nikon D850 with a Nikon Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. ... 
 
Camera Settings for Hidden Arch and Pacific Ocean:
ISO-64, 24mm at f/11 for 333 seconds using one ProgreyUSA 3.0ND Antarctic Magnetic Filter. to bring the light in the image down 10 stops, permitting for the extra long 5.5 minute exposure which creates this dreamy effect of motion blur in the blue/purple waters as the waves crash around the rocks. While at the same time, naturally saturating all the dominant hues in the image...Along with one ProgreyUSA 0.9GND Aurora Filter. to bring down the light in the background an extra three stops, and thus balance down the image and help permit details in all shadows in the arch and rocks in the foreground to come out better in the exposure.  Impression taken about 5 minutes after sunset at 4:55pm PST on December 26th, 2016...
 
Camera Settings for The Pacific Storm, Stars, and Lightning:
AI using Generative Fill in Adobe Photoshop Beta CC was used to enhance the sky with the incoming winter storm off the Pacific Ocean creating more dramatic clouds, adding some stars, and a lightning strike and help all of this blend in better with the long exposure of the middle and foreground of the image.
 
I wish to openly thank my sponsors who have always supported me through both the good and bad times...for truly this long exposure impression would not be possible without the use of my Induro PHQ3 Series 5-way Panhead with an Induro (now Benro) Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod. in combination with the ProgreyUSA Filters. which I use with every photo I take...
 
if nothing else...if i open my eyes, if i hope, if i cry, if i think, if i sigh, if i giggle, if i dance, if i love, if i breathe, then i have lived a full days worth of life, i'm blessed...nothing is wasted, nothing ― bodhi, if nothing else
 
i do not want you to just be into my photography, instead, i'd much rather you take a journey into my pictures, and feel the impression i have created, feel it with all your senses ― bodhi, into my photography
 
contemplate without thinking. be certain only in your uncertainty. stop the world. slow down everything. let it all be. shut off the noise. hush. relax. seize this moment. reconnect. feel and sense what surrounds you. listen to all the colors of light whisper as they envelope you. see the melody and harmony that float about unnoticed. taste the solitude of all this wonderment. smell the beautiful silence. now discover your peaceful serenity. then, reach out and touch your faith with all your senses. this is my world. awaken! ― bodhi, my world
 
my photography is my way of keeping a diary ― bodhi, my diary  
 
I leave you today wishing that bright joy 
and spiritual peace fill your life...
Imploring you to make every moment count, 
no matter what, always and forever, 
for that is the only thing that truly matters... 
  
and above all else,
I hope this message and impression find you well.
 
Namaste,
Bodhi
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