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.