Devastation and new Life

In this Corona times I sometimes feel devastated. 

A positive outlook is blurred by lack of perspective. 

Left alone by the lack of touch and connection I don't know where this all goes and at the same time have to follow sometimes irrational rules and regulations.

Today I did review old images on my PC and came across a series which I took over the years in Baviaanskloof, Hout Bay.

In the summer 2014-2015 Baviaanskloof experienced a very devastating veld fire. 

 The heat had cracked rocks and melted glass.

The devastation was blowing my mind.

But only a few weeks later the life force was breaking through the darkness.

Nature does not give up.

A disaster is cleansing and makes space for new life.

A few months later Baviaanskloof was back to new life.

It is not the same old, rather it has been rejuvenated with new life.

I can trust in the creative force of life.

 I am not lost.

 I know that there will be new life again.

Mother Mountain, Mother Earth, Mother City

I like to walk through the Deer Park area below Table Mountain. Just below Tafelberg Rd is a big flat granite rock. This is called Platteklip and the Platteklip stream flows over it all year round. 

 Even in the hot Cape Town summer there is a constant flow of water polishing the rock.

I sit down next to the stream and watch the water rushing down to the city.

For me this is a magic place, if I listen long enough, I can hear the giggles and laughter of Khoi San children playing. I see them letting little pieces of grass race over the rock. This must have been their paradise for thousands of years. Water all year around and a valley sheltered from the wind.

The big Mother mountain in the backdrop with its porous sandstone acts like a sponge keeping all the rainwater. This life-giving fluid is seeping down until it gets to the underlying layer of granite.

Here it forms streams and springs at the foot of the mountain.

The round, flat, solid rock is like the round belly of mother earth. Water is running down through her valley. Nourishing all of nature below.

In the old days, the stream was jumping over rocks, flowing through a grassy plain, maybe forming a vlei before seeping through the sand into the sea at what is today Strand Street.

All of this was like paradise for the ancient people and it was this paradise that attracted the sailors and merchants to replenish the provisions for their ships on the way to India.

The Mother City was born.

Merchants and colonizers took possession of this gift from Mother Mountain and Mother Earth.

At first it was used to wash their linen at the wash houses and water the company garden. Later Cape Town had canals between the houses like Amsterdam. 

As the city grew the canals became more and more dirty from the effluent and floating rubbish.

Eventually they were covered, and the city grew over its life-giving waters.

This is a history of a few hundred years of possession. The feminine life-giving force gets contaminated and is covered up. Its true nature forgotten. Paradise is lost.

I sit and listen to the stream and honor the mothers and their gifts.

The mothers are still here. It is time to uncover them again.

Looking into a Frog’s Eye

Frogs always fascinated me. 

When I photograph them, it is good to know that the frog’s vision is triggered by movement.

In the moment we look into each other’s eyes there is a connection in stillness. 

The slightest movement would make it jump and the connection is lost.

I am standing still, breathing slow, for the frog to trust me. This trust opens a window inside. 

I can see into this reptile being and at the same time I can see into the reptile deep inside myself. 

I can feel my ancient programs of survival.

Yes, I too can be triggered to jump. 

Looking into the frog’s eye connects me with old anxieties, coded in my DNA. 

Hello stranger, you are welcome.

Caged

In this time of the Corona virus I feel caged in. 

During my meditation of today I remembered this photo I took a while ago at Phakalane in Hout Bay.

A dried cage of a flower is protecting and holding a seed.

When my children were young, we learned from an anthroposophical doctor the value of illness for the development of children. 

Every time they went through the usual childhood infections one could see a significant jump in their development after they had recovered.

The virus forces me into a cage of self-isolation. 

This cage is holding me in suspense. 

Like the seed in this image I am longing to fall to grow and live. 

I am longing to feel the wet earth and crack open to new life.

But the cage keeps me in a resting place until the time is right.

There will be winter storms and the turmoil of hard rain to break the cage around the seed and then in spring, when the soil is ready, the seed will grow to a new flower.

And after the virus has gone, our communities will be different and grown to new life again.