Until the ocean stood still...

Photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net

An excerpt:

     It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.

     A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water, and the word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of food.  It was another busy day beginning.

     But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was practicing.  A hundred feet in the sky he lowered his webbed feet, lifted his beak, and strained to hold a painful hard twisting curve through his wings.  The curve meant that he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him.

~ from Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story,

written by Richard Bach

I can see this scene vividly in my head: the sun sparkling on the water, the congregation of squawking gulls fighting over food, and then one lone, determined bird, reveling in the joy of flight.  Jonathan Gull reminds me to embrace life and all that it has to offer, to let my heart soar, and to dream big.