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.