As a confirmed islomane, I was aware of elemental oceanic affinities as early as as age two, but early on met a nonetheless ironic fate: born, as I was, into the Great Basin of Utah, surrounding the shores of the Great Salt Lake, my home was the only place on the North American continent where rivers failed to run to the ocean, leaving me high and dry and all but landlocked. Save for my surrogate "Mother Ocean", a proxy role filled suitably enouigh by the hypersaline Great Salt Lake. These days I am now an "ethnic" Mormon, having traded that religious imposition for a surprisingly well-paved path for my burgeoning interest in Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism.