Connecting to the Rocks

 

When I swim in the sea, I am close to and surrounded by the granite boulders which are so typical for the Cape coast. The rocks are calming the waves and make it possible to swim in the open water.

As I float close, I feel a connection arising. In a way the boulders come alive. 

Strange creatures of another world watching over me.

Just after sunrise it is as if they come to rest and sleep.

During the day they are rocks, hard and solid, unmovable.

But now I can imagine how they are alive at night, touching and rolling over each other. Playing and splashing around in the sea. Making love in the waves.

With the first light they take up their positions like in a giant pantomime play. Frozen for thousands of days.

When I lie on a rock in the morning sun to warm up after the swim, I can feel the subtle vibration of a sleeping giant.

Of course, I have the option to know that this is a piece of dead mineral formed millions of years ago.

Or I can experience this boulder as an aspect of the living earth just as I am an aspect of it.

I make up time in my mind and my time is too fast to see the boulders playing.

In the morning twilight I can open my mind and we come closer to connect what belongs together.

 

 

The Rose

 

I love taking photos of flowers and my most favorite flowers are roses.

There is a feeling of attraction, I can hardly stop admiring them.

For me, the flower of a rose is one of the most beautiful representations of Shakti, the creative life-giving energy.

Absolute radiant beauty and softness offering a hint of mystery.

 

Deep inside the center, in the dark, lingers an expression of longing and desire.

 And there, beyond its vulnerability one finds a secret.

At the right time, without thinking and wanting, the rose opens to reveal its deepest truth.

Effortless it shows its aliveness and purpose.

When the rose opens and forgets its vulnerability it is ready for its stamen to arise and its pistil to receive.

The creative lovemaking begins.

This is the miracle of creation, that happens a million times all over this earth, wherever a rose grows and flowers.

The once so seductive petals serve their purpose and fall off revealing a fruit that grows from the rose’s ovary.

A seed forms inside which contains all the information to repeat life over again.

Each stage of the life of this flower has its own effortless beauty and wisdom.

 

 

Moving Boundaries

 

Tidal pools are the most wonderful places along the cape shoreline.

A wall protects the pool from the sometimes-violent waves. At high tide it fills up with fresh water.

It creates a safe space in which I can experience the action of the sea without too much danger.

In a way it acts like a filter keeping the strongest movements and currents out of the pool but still allowing enough movement to float and bob around.

This kind of wall however is static. It always acts and filters out and breaks the highs and lows of the Ocean.

In our mind we have a multitude of filters. They are made up from our conditioning, both inherited and learned. Conditionings are useful protection devices to help us survive and navigate through life.

Lately I have started to swim in the open water at Backoven in Camps Bay.

It is remarkably interesting that in this environment I must set my own boundaries:

How long is it safe to stay in the cold water? What are the currents and how strong am I? How far can I go out? Can I cope with the wave action and what is my survival strategy, can I hold on to something should I need to? Is someone around to help if I get into trouble?

I must constantly monitor and set my boundaries and as my adaptation and fitness increases, I can move them and expand the range of my experience in the water.

Swimming in the sea, in the tidal pool and in the open water are a metaphor for navigating life.

Feeling fully alive by constantly expanding the range of experiences requires to question and if necessary, to step out of my conditioning, which was helpful in the past, consciously.

 

Between Desire and Release

 

The spring and flower season is short in the Western Cape of South Africa.

A few hot days and the bright and colorful flowers are gone. They vanished virtually overnight.

The burning bright desire in the fireworks of color turns into an abundance of seeds.

The curtain has fallen on the carnival show which attracted the pollinators.

But hidden in the grass the seeds are ready to fly into the unknown.

The dried-out heads can no longer hold them. They must let go.

They must release them and hand them over to the winds blowing at the beginning of summer.

Observing this, I can feel the energy between desire and release and the trust that new life will be born.

 

Stillpoint

 

I am standing in a stream and I can see the water rushing towards me.

Turning around it gushes away from me quickly.

Here I am in the stillpoint between future and past. 

From this point I can see in both directions.

Seeing is an extraordinarily complex process in our brain.

We are actually seeing very little. 

Most of the image gets created from patterns stored and recognized in our memory which fits the information received on our retina.

This still point between future and past is a fiction created in my mind.

The water is gushing at high speed. 

There are uncountable vibrations, waves, and patterns. 

The world around me is absolute chaos. 

My brain and mind are an amazing tool to navigate me through this. 

It gives me the ability to stay alive and feel the universe pumping.

 

Wild Swimming

 

Even in winter I like to swim in the sea. 

My favorite place is the Dalebrook tidal pool.

After the latest cold front, the ocean is furious with rage.

The big sea monster is relentlessly rolling over the wall at the edge of the pool. 

With its mouth full of foam, the beast crashes into the tiny enclosure. 

Chaos washes over my head and I paddle to stay straight and not lose orientation. 

Upside becomes downside, as I bob around between the uprooted kelp, rocks, and the wall.

And with a giant slurp the monster sucks the wave back into it's mouth. Just enough time to take a breath and swim against the strong outward flow.

Before I reach the wall the monster spits out another blast of foam washing me back.

It feels so good to be alive and strong. 

There is no fear only deep respect. 

I know the violent force of this monster can overpower me when I fight against it. 

For me its: Go with the flow, stay orientated and swim only to keep myself inside the pool.

And in this wonderful wild dance of life I become part of the sea monster myself.

The Origin of the World

There is a famous painting by Gustave Courbet named “The Origin of the World” depicting the yoni and body of a beautiful woman.

When I started working on this image of a flower, I immediately was drawn to this origin.

This flower makes the same idea visible; it emanates the origin of the world.

But isn’t our normal western view the other way around?

The world brings about life in a most intricate way from a big bang to aggregates of atoms into a soup of an early ocean on our planet, out of which all life is born. 

This life evolves into a multitude of forms: Flowers, bodies, and animals.

Courbet had a different idea. For him, the origin of the whole world could be seen in the feminine. 

The feminine is that what creates and gives birth to everything.

The feminine showing up in this flower, radiates and vibrates the desire to unfold and expand.

It shows up as pure “Lebenslust”: The desire and joy to live. 

Its an indestructible all permeating energy. It will never be lost, only transform through death into new life.

And for me, this energy comes first. 

This vibration is the origin of the world, out of which all manifests into our reality.

Immersion into the Whole

I love to swim in the tidal pools along the False Bay coast, even in winter.

The Glencairn pool has a soft sandy floor and is very shallow at the one side and deep at the far end.

It is a special meditation to walk in slowly and feel everything.

This early Sunday morning, just after sunrise, its surface is like a mirror and the water is crystal clear.

I am standing still in the deep and look out to the calm sea. Consciously breathing in and breathing out fully is the only movement of my body.

After a short while the water does not feel cold anymore. My skin seems to melt, and I lose my boundary. 

The sea and I become one. Gentle waves rolling on to the wall of the pool, are moving with my breath.

The warmth of my body dissipates in the whole of the ocean. Deep inside I know that my life-force, the aliveness of my body, my energy will never be lost.

It becomes part of the ocean; part of this planet and I am a part of this universe.

How come I normally feel separated from this wholeness?

When I begin to swim through the pool my movement disturbs the layer of warmed up water around my arms. Like in a mystery I feel my hands and my muscles taking shape.

The nerve endings of my body hair sense the movement of the water. I become me again.

All the sensations running through to the brain create my physical body and I feel it all in wonderment.

 

Sunset Love

Every minute the sun is setting somewhere over our planet, painting the sky.

Where there is an open space, people tend to gather to watch this spectacle unfold.

They are fascinated by the subtle changes in colour created by the sun and clouds on this gigantic canvas.

Sunset and sunrise are an important part of our world and mythology.

At the same time, they are one big illusion, a mirage from light and water vapor, a fiction our mind makes from the sensory input of the eyes.

There is nothing solid in this ever-changing sky.  

Is it real?  

Yes, it is born anew from the vibration of light interacting with the moving vapors in every minute.

It is the same with the world we live in. We sense movements and vibrations. 

We sense the energy around us and moving through us.

Our so solid world is created through sensing and computing in our body and inside of our heads. 

Our mind constantly paints a picture of solidity and plausibility.

However, there is an interaction between the chaos of vibrations and our mind. 

Our senses are touched. They are touched by the Eros of the universe. 

From this caressing, from this loving touch, everything is born.

Watching a sunset is like watching this act of love. 

Maybe that is why we are so fascinated by it, again and again.

 

Die Hel

"Hell" – that is what the woodcutters of the Dutch East Indian Company called the deep valley below Constantia neck.

It is a dark place. All plants seem to be supersized. It is the low light and being sheltered from the wind which makes the plants grow large leaves.

The trees grow tall.

There is a strange atmosphere in die Hel. Eerie, with big life and fresh decay side by side.

Witches would come here in a moon lit night, taking a bath by the rocks in the stream. And they would sing the song of the deep dark forest.

A bunch of woodcutters were camping at the top end of the valley, close to the road. Their fire had died down to a tiny glow of ember.

Some time after midnight a woodcutter woke up hearing the whispering song of the witch.

“Come my Love, come. Come my Love, come. I long for you my Love. I long for your strong hands.”

The sweet irresistible voice made him take a few steps into the forest. 

“I just want to hear what’s singing. Maybe it is the murmur of the stream. 

Maybe the stream sounds a little different in the upwelling fog.”

“Come my Love, I made a bed for you.” The voice whispered in his ear. “Some more steps and I will know what’s going on.” He thought.

Suddenly he felt some warm air flowing past his ear. He turned around, but there was nothing but silvery shining leaves in the moonlight.

“Come my Love, I made a bed for you.” As he turned back and walked a little further, he felt a warm soft hand taking his and leading him deeper and deeper.

He could not let go of the hand. One moment his mind said: “Let go, turn around, go back to sleep!” but he could not.  
He saw a clearing ahead. The ground is covered with leathery soft dark leaves.

The moon turns it in a sea of sparkles. 
“Come, love me.” The voice demands and pulls him down to the ground. It is slow loving at first, like a bath in the leaves. The scent of decay is intoxicating sweet.

“Come be mine, come play with me.” She was rubbing him with earth and rolling around in blissful ecstasy. The moon is setting at the edge of the mountain and a wind moves the tips of the tallest trees.

The morning came and the woodcutters woke up. 

They waited a while and called for their missing companion. 

He did not come back. At lunchtime, a search party found his clothing and shoes on a little clearing. The ground looked like there had been a fight. 

But his body was never found.

The All-Seeing Eye

It is only a short walk off the top of Glencairn express way to get to one of the most magical places of the Cape Peninsula: The All-Seeing Eye .

On the day of the summer solstice the sun shines directly through the opening in this 50ft crystalline rock pyramid. For the ancient people this must have been an expression for a special point when the sun is seeing the world into being.

My son lives in South America. Some time ago he told me about the Aymara an indigenous people in the Andes. They have a special way of expressing time in their language and thinking. 

For things and events in the past they would point to the front and the future lies behind their backs. This is completely opposite to our western thinking.

Their way of seeing the world puzzled me for months. 

Actually, it seems to be more accurate. 

All what we see with our eyes already lies in the past. 

Everything our eyes observe has already happened and if it is only the milliseconds ago, our mind needs to process the sensations captured on our retina. 

The future is unseen and therefore lies behind our backs.

Right in the middle, at the turning point between future and past are we as humans and is the whole of consciousness. Modern physics tell us, everything comes into being through observation.

The Aymara know that this observation does not happen through our eyes. 

Eyes are sensors and the mind interprets signals from the past.

Real observation, inspiration, seeing as creative process, seeing as the universe making love and orgasmic birthing new life and a new reality, happens somewhere else.

The pyramid rock looks like a symbol for the third eye. 

And this third eye sees everything into being. 

It is the collective seeing of consciousness which creates everything.

The ancient people experienced this through the sun. And in trance and visions they were embedded in this process. Earth, human body and spirit are all parts of one whole being.

The sun shines through the All-seeing Eye and births all of existence. 

Opposite the All-seeing Eye, on the other side of the valley the rocks form the image of a yoni.

 Through this gateway the world wells out into existence like we came into being through the yoni of our mother. 

We can practice to see with our third eye and become conscious of our ongoing participation in creation.

Remnants

I took this photo a few years ago at Sandy bay. 

When I reviewed my collection today, it talked to me.

For me, this image shows the essence of a natural yoni. 

In nature I find that images of a yoni indicate growth points.

All growth, expansion and creation have the feminine energy at its core.

This is a snapshot of the universal life force.

Its expansion has left an imprint of fibers behind. 

I can still feel its pulsating juiciness.

However, it is only a skeleton, the true life energy has moved through. 

The flesh has been decomposed and became part of another life.

The feminine is now growing elsewhere.

I ask myself am I hanging on to an imprint, to a skeleton of fiber showing an image of life and am I missing the real passionate aliveness.

How often does the mind autocomplete remnants into an image which was true long time ago?

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.

Charnel Ground of the Sea

I took this image of the sand at Diaz beach, Cape Point.

What looks like ordinary sand from a distance turns out to be a billion pieces of broken shells.

Each one of them once contained a living creature. 

Shells were protecting and holding the form of uncounted bodies.

Bodies eaten by birds, fish and digested by bacteria, fertilising the ocean of life. 

The shells are broken up into tiny pieces and polished by the sea.

Millions of remnants of past life are now morphing into a beautiful beach and in thousands of years will become limestone in a new world.

All these tiny little pieces of sand show me how small our life is in the bigger picture. Our mind tends to constantly blow our ego up out of all proportion.

However, beyond the mind we are all of this: The sea, the beach, every bubble in the foam and every tiny little piece of sand are an expression of creation and so are we.

Edge of Africa

This is the western edge of Africa.

It is a rough edge, dark and mysterious.

There is a bit of Africa in all of mankind. After all, our ancestors came from this continent.

I find this in myself and maybe that’s why I have been drawn to Africa 

and ended up here making it my home.

This edge must have been terrifying for the early explorers 

and going past they found Good Hope.

To get to Good Hope we must travel past our darkness and past our edges.

It also means to see, recognise and acknowledge them inside and out.

The sailors feared the edges, but they had to look at them clearly.

If the edge stayed in the fog it became most dangerous.

Dance of Creation

This is an image of the sea at Diaz Beach, Cape Point.

I was watching the flow of the water welling up from the deep, dark calm.

Foamy structures welling up in constant changing shapes of a million shades of white and blue.

As I observe I can feel the bliss of movements taking form and after a short while dissolving again.

It is a fleeting reality emerging and flowing back into the deep dark unknown.

I can feel the pure joy of effortless emergence.

Joy is its only purpose.

There is no plan, target or aim. There is nothing to accomplish.

It is just the wonderful bliss of creation.

The ocean is part of and a metaphor for all there is.

It is a metaphor for the bliss of consciousness observing all into being 

and fading back into the full stillness of total potential.

This is the eternal dance of creation. God breathing in and breathing out.

Baobab Time

In the giant green house in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens stands a Baobab tree.

I felt him watching me taking photos through an eye in his bark. 

The eye of the baobab looks like a galaxy, a galaxy on the skin and an image of the depth inside.

Maybe something has been dropped into this bubbling pulsating network of fibers and nodes. 

I see life moving.

This image is a snapshot, frozen in time, of the eye taking in what it sees.

But my mind tells me that there is no movement on the bark of the tree.

Could it be that the baobab has his own speed as he sees with nearly still slowness?

Bubbling and pulsating take place and flow in baobab time.

I believe in nature every being has its own time. There is a time of the flower, a time of the bee, a time of the rock, a time of the wind and a time of the human being in each moment.

I can stop and feel into the baobab time 

and for a moment I forget the idea that my time measures all what is happening.

Time stands still and loses its relevance.