One night in 1945, on a Navy vessel in Pacific storm, my relief on bow
watch, seasick, failed to appear, and I was alone for eight hours in a
maelstrom of wind and water, noise and iron; again and again, waves
crashed across the deck, until water, air, and iron became one.
Overwhelmed, exhausted, all thought and emotion beaten out of me, I lost
my sense of self, the heartbeat I heard was the heart of the world, I
breathed with the mighty risings and declines of earth, and this
evanescence seemed less frightening then exalting. Afterwards, there was
a pain of loss - loss of what, I wondered, understanding nothing.
Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (1979), p48 (Harvill HarperCollins 1989)
