Turn Around, Slow Down and Wonder

Yesterday was another warm and calm morning. I again went to Baviaanskloof, with the intention to go up the mountain. This time I took the left path at the fence on the border of the estate. I was rushing up through the beautiful fynbos, along the little stream. After a while the path crosses the stream and I ended up in a dense indigenous grove of old trees overgrown with climbers. 

Dark and mysterious  full of dead wood, moss and ferns. 

The path only goes down towards the trees and houses of the other side of the estate. No that's not where I wanted to be. I decided to turn around and slowly retrace the path. 

I will go up another day. However yesterday I slowed down to look around and notice the little wonders I had missed rushing up and down into the dark side.
There is a miniature lake so calm. I feel like the tiny lonely bubble drifting on the surface.

Tiny flowers unwrapping themselves, opening towards the light.

Seeds ready to fly into the adventure with the intention to find fertile ground, a spot in the sun.

Further down I see the queens of the fynbos. There are flowering proteas everywhere wearing their crowns. 

Life giving to tiny creatures like ants and bees.

There are beautiful flowers and a million little wonders to discover. 

So easy overlooked in the rush on a misleading path.

Order and Chaos, Protection and Adventure

Today's walk did not feel like autumn. It was a perfect day. Perfect as the budding protea. Containing everything tightly packed in a perfect order. 

But at the same time the other side is visible. There are seeds produced last year, ready to be blown and scattered and to be dispersed around into the chaos. 

It is just a matter of luck to find fertile ground.

I see some sand in a hollow on a rock. Just enough to collect some moisture for a short life. A little pocket of opportunity in the chaos.

There is a fight for light going on. A struggle of life or death.

The sun comes up bright and strong over the mountain. A bush stretches its hairy fingers greeting the promise of enlightenment. 

The brightness lights up the chaos. Light and shadow are created.

I watch a lizard  It is protected in the unknown dark, invisible - attracted by the warmth, it is coming out in the open.  Alert and careful moving in and out of the shade. In the light it is visible, clear defined, alive but very vulnerable. 

Different from a seed, I have the choice and can decide every day anew to stay fuzzy hiding in the shade or come out clear, defined and alive in the bright light. 

A new path - Vlakkenberg 2

In my meditation this morning I had this deep feeling of loneliness. 

It was a grey morning full of sadness. 

I followed my feelings and went for a walk up the Vlakkenberg, opening my senses, and willing to listen to what this mountain has to say.

This walk starts with a lot of steps full of rough stones. Hard to walk, unpleasant step by step. There is a fence on either side of the steps. Razor wire keeping me restricted. I see the sun rising through the wire. The warmth is so far away.

Along the way an old tree trunk. Remainder of a twisted life full of old ghosts, haunted and full of pain.

A spiders web collected a thousand tears.

A broken pebble reminds me of an ancient stream. The water gone millions of years ago, embedded in stone it is waiting to be washed out again. 

I step over a trickle of life giving water. Fresh green springs from the tears.

I see life protected, sheltered by the rocks. I see a new and fertile land in the distance.

I see a new path leading the way up.

I carried on walking and it turned out to be a long walk through fynbos full of birds.

Out of the Shadow

This morning I walked up to the Blackburn Ravine above the East Fort. It was a windy morning.

Somehow the constant blowing wind in the shade made it unpleasant. 

Thousands of proteas swaying their budding flowers. 

Black hairy heads hiding a secret beauty just about to break to the light.

A wood monster watching me walking past. 

After an hour walk I reach the little grove of ancient trees. A spring full of refreshing water. 

Water finding new ways.

Out of the shadow I look to the Sentinel rising out of the blue sea into a beautiful sky.

Jung wrote:

The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. For what comes after the door is surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside or outside, no above or below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water where all life floats in suspension, where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living begins, where I am indivisibly this and that, where I experience the other in myself and the other in myself experiences me. 

Above Suikerbossie

After a long time of absence I went for a walk above the Suikerbossie Restaurant today. 

A lot has happened for me after my return from Germany in January: A shoulder operation kept me from walking. My mother’s illness, another trip to Germany and the final loss - my mother died last Saturday. Today I tried to listen what the mountain is telling me.

It was a cool and sunny morning with amazing views on the Little Lions head. 

Further up I found this ancient shore, frozen in time. 

Looking down I saw a tiny boat drifting in the sea, like a little speckle in the ocean of eternity. I saw a picture of the boat carrying a soul to another life.

I saw the life in cracks. Cracking up what became rigid. 

Making a crack and at the same time using the protection. 

Grow out of the crack and at the same time get anchoring in the ground.

Pebbles in a Rock

Sunday morning was warm and sunny and I decided to soak up some sun before I leave to the cold, dark Europe next week.

I went down to Sandy Bay from Hout Bay. Early in the morning I had the beautiful beach just for myself. White innocent and clean, totally untouched, not even a footprint.

I lay down in the soft sand next to a sand stone rock. The wind was blowing prickly sand on my skin and the sun was warming me. Tickled, laughing and happy I was listening to the breathing of the ocean.

There are white clean pebbles embedded in the rock. Pebbles polished in a river a billion years ago.

Today they are on this beach turning into sand. The time of the universe is beyond our understanding and has no haste.

“Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.” Jorge Bucay

Morning Clouds

This morning I was watching the clouds forming over Constantiaberg.

Warm moist air rises and as it moves over the mountain top it meets the colder air giving birth to a constant stream of clouds. Wild beings welling up into the morning light.

 Like a silent movie of life, creating ever new and different forms: Cloud horses, wild hair, filigree webs and white dragons. In essence they are only a few liters of water, a billion droplets dispersed in the cold morning air. These forms are coming to life between the polarity of warmth and cold, between dark shadow and morning light. 

 Clouds coming to life like myself coming to life again this morning.