The ocean is my teacher, my love and my greatest leveller.

The ocean never overreacts, nor under reacts. With the slightest breath of wind gentle ripples dance across its surface, in heavy storms it boils and churns, waves crash loud over reefs, cliffs and harbour walls, and on the calmest of days it can be as clear and still as glass. The ocean is a great truth teller.

In Joanna Macy’s book ‘World as Lover, World as Self’ she writes about the Buddha Akshobhya, whose element is water. He holds a mirror, for his gift is mirror wisdom, and he reflects everything just as it is. The teaching of his mirror is this - Do not look away. Do not avert your gaze. Do not turn aside. It calls for radical attention and total acceptance.

Right now I find it hard to look at the reef. All I see is algae covered dead coral, interspersed with bright flashes of blue and pink, and increasing spots of white. The coral is reacting to the higher temperature of the ocean, in their stressed state they release their zooxanthellae algae, hoping to survive.

Diving my favourite spots outside the lagoon, used to fill me with joy, now they make me distinctly uncomfortable and a little sad. When I arrived here I would stay on the bottom for minutes, enraptured by the fish, the sounds of the reef; I couldn’t get enough. Now I feel myself coming up for breath sooner; there are less fish to watch, less colour, less to halt my craving for air.

I watch in horror as the crown of thorns star fish take over, munching on the last healthy corals and leaving their skeletons bare. A few months ago I only saw them outside the lagoon, last week I found them in the shallows by the beach.

The oceans are showing their signals of distress and we cannot look away.

As we look in the mirror of the ocean we see distress and loss. But that’s not all we can see; the mirror also reflects resilience and hope. The oceans show us time and time again their strength to bounce back - we need only allow them the space to breathe. The oceans have an innate wisdom; it’s us that are throwing them out of balance. With less pollution, more truly marine protected areas,  and better fishing practices the oceans can show us the route to recovery. Re-wilding the ocean is entirely within reach, but we need to take radical action and trust in the perfect power of the ocean.