To find a sense of balance and centering I regularly step out of the home and go for long walks in nature, just nearby. Being blessed with an abundance of wide open space here on the south coast of Africa, it’s possible to find all the space you might need to get away from the busy activity of society. Today I want to share some of the views from my humble paradise.
These photos show my meditation space, where I retreat for hours at a time every other day. With no people around, I feel as if I have it all to myself, which is a real treat. Such is the luxury of a simple lifestyle in the right surroundings. Without having to endeavor or pay anything, the natural environment is available. It feels like the best of many worlds, since the region has beautiful beaches just below these cliffs.
Add to that the beautiful vegetation and in the season shown here, we also have the abundant waterfall. The region is supportive of life, and sometimes I wonder If I could just leave the world behind and come camp out here for the remainder of my days. Of course, the waterfall is seasonal so it’s also sometimes dry. Nature has both sides to her, and is cyclic.
This particular little waterfall flows right down the cliff and in to the Indian Ocean, down below. I make regular descents to the rocky shoreline, sometimes bathing in the rock pools. The more pristine long stretches of pure white beach are a few short miles away, where there is great surf for those inclined toward it. So there’s lots that nature has to offer here.
I personally prefer these rocky cliffs as they are more solitary and also offer me a chance to get some great exercise climbing up and down to the shoreline and back. It’s a special added bonus to sometimes see the schools of dolphins swimming past, in long lines that seem to stretch on for ages. Besides that the seals make this their home too. Whales are visible too in the southern winter, around July to September, when they come to calve.
In this way the surroundings of nature offers up a blissful arena for tapping in to the life-sustaining environment, along with the rest of her creatures. We are never alone, with hawks and crows adding to the cacophony of bird life, including the seagulls of course. I have become familiar with some of the birds who are visible almost every time I make it to the cliff tops and the river valley.
I can understand why hermits and monks of old would retreat to some isolated environment in nature to focus on their meditation and inner awakening. Today we may be more obliged to focus on a busy career, but at some point it’s crucial to get away from the desk or even the suburbs, to find peace and health among the natural surroundings.
Taken with a fisheye lens to fit in the broad vista
You can notice on one of the photos how the carved pathways on the hillside appear to resemble a double helix of the DNA, or something equally mystical. It happened by accident as the original path was recently refined by someone to facilitate more hikers or tourists visiting the area. As a result the newer carved pathway overlapped the original older one and they appeared to me as a potential symbol of the source of life itself.
Such is the artistic beauty to be found throughout nature, whether spontaneous or by engineering. It’s al going on by intelligent design. The amazing harmony found throughout nature shows me just how much of intelligence there is behind the entire creation, from the spiral galaxies to the spiral shells on the beach. This creation is not the result of an accident. Perhaps I’m being swept away by my imagination, but that is how I have perceived my surroundings overall. There is an intelligence permeating through nature and certainly through all life. And we humans are merely a fraction of that whole ecosystem, which is all a symptom of consciousness, merely expressing itself in varieties of forms.
(photos my own)