Long time no write, but it looks as if I’ve finally found a spot in time and space to be back in front of a PC. That is sitting on the beach in front of what sounds like a busy Highway 1 but really is the Pacific Ocean continuously playing its music of crashing waves. Apart from naked feet, which I have daringly exposed almost up to my knee, I do look like German spring – long trousers, 4 layers of clothing (yes, I counted, after sunset yesterday I went up to 5) and just telling myself that I’ll not put on my woolen scarf yet.
I guess it would be hot, if it weren’t for the wind.
Yet the best thing around here are —- whales!
I have finally seen one! I wanted to take a whale watching tour, but asking my b&b hosts, they told me there’s no guarantee (now where have I heard that before, huh, special greetings to Italian dolphins) to see whales just cause you take a tour. And I should head to that Marina beach where the locals go to watch. Bob then successfully searched his truck for binoculars and I have been sitting here for more than 2 ½ hours. The same feeling as waiting for falling stars on a summer’s night. I’Ve seen quitter a lot of water fountains, but I managed to see one fluke (I hope that’s the right word) streamlining through the water. SOO COOOL.
The one thing that strikes me most here – as some of you’ve rightfully been asking how I am and what I’m up to – well, it’s how much I love nature, how good it does me and that it has the calmest way to move something inside of us. And watching that happen is almost impossible even if it is clearly there. It sneaks up on the out- and the inside and than at one point it’s simply there.
So while I couldn’t tell you what’s going on inside of me really, I look back on those weeks and I know that the end of week one felt different. So did the end of week 2 and I remember I was a bit disappointed for somehow I had hoped for big things to happen – things that put on a show to declare themselves to be there. And then once they are over you go aaaw and oooh and wooow and then put a star on the walk of memorable-life-events-fame and then you make a movie out of it……… While I, on the contrary, felt explicitly unchanged. Nothing concerning myself feels spectacular. My visions have not jumped up upon seeing all the inspiration they have seen on this journey. My motivation is still mostly keen on nothingness. I have not aimed for superdeep conversations. Yet I am at the core of it, just that – well I am at a loss of words here. Which is rare…
Maybe I am just going out into the ocean. Isn’t it amazing how waves form? There’s wind and water out there in the ocean and there are the waves, too – but in a way they unfold themselves only when they reach the shore. I imagine the waves form out there in the ocean where you don’t really see them. And then the other amazing thing is that while the ocean can take on a different million forms and be tame and wild and ugly and beautiful and loud and still and abundant with fish and merciless like a desert —– in a way it remains completely unchanged. Put that on my list of next lives. Be the Pacific Ocean. Now if you’re tempted to contradict that you’ll need to prove to me that there is no such thing as a next life and that the ocean is not a living thing. Bring a bottle of wine on the occasion. And in that case, make it a Californian wine 🙂
In all that I’ve seen, I don’t know even where to start in telling you.
Every day has been an amazing spontaneous show. I have been close to regretting a couple of times for not bringing more time to each of these occasions who keep adding up like pearls on a string. And then if you describe the necklace you’re likely to do that rather than describing each single pearl.
Knowing me, you of course know I’ll give it a shot nevertheless…
Unless I look up and discover another bunch of birds suspiciously circling a whale-fountain.
A few days ago I went for another round of Sequoia trees, I am pretty sure it’s called the coastal redwood. Or something like that… The ones in Sequoia National Park are the Giant Redwoods, and they can handle height, freezing cold and heat. So they are sort of predestined to live in Germany as well. I keep thinking about getting seeds…. But I’d never live to see them grow big.
So, you might have guessed it, being a big redwood tree has entered the list of my next lives as well 😉
Anyhow, Muir Woods is a State Park or National Forest or something close to a National Park, and it’s north of San Francisco, actually not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. By the way the Golden Gate Bridge IS beautiful with clear and cloudy skies and due to San Francisco weather it will always blow you away taking in its views from all sides and angles. But the trees.
Now they say the redwoods on the coast are smaller. But if I see them, I keep forgetting. I already discovered on my hike with Ramona that as much as I like the mountains, I fall for big trees if I see them. Actually I think this is normal, it’s just weird that other people don’t fall for it as much as I do. A lot of weirdos out there, you know…
The redwoods are like elephants. They are huge, but once you get close or when you touch them, they are surprisingly soft and almost gentle. Nothing impresses a redwood. Fire? Great, more room to grow, less competition from other wanna-be-big plants. Temperature? Winds? Obviously no problem. So the only thing that cracks a redwood tree (unless it’s a native Californian digging for gold and in urgent need to build a log house from high quality wood) is when it decides to fall down. As far as I understand, that might happen due to the weight the trees put on as they grow higher and bigger over thousands of years. Which gives a great excuse to National Park Rangers (yes, they look as cool as you imagine them – must be the hat) to put up pathways and little fences. So it’s a bit more difficult to go “hug” (it’s more a smashing yourself softly against it) a redwood tree than you’d think. But of course I managed and I did not get off the paths (though tempted a couple of times), for I see these masses of tourists and I don’t want to disturb a redwood tree. Well I do want to, but I’d need to stay longer than I did to make friends and then give it a friendly nudge in the side.
Anyhow, on the main path in Muir, there’s the Cathedral Grove, where signs ask you to be silent. And I love this silence in there. It’s special. I once dated a guy who did shamanic work and he told me how he’d talk to the spirits of the trees and that the English Garden (Munich’s main beautiful park for you uneducated non-Bavarian onreaders) kind of sucked in winter cause there was no one left to talk to. I did like the story, but thought it to be a bit far away from my own reality. Well, the redwoods in Cathedral Grove and in that whole forest seemed quite talkative within their silence. It’s a silence you could lay down in. Or do music in. Actually some society once did that in Muir. Successfully forgot their name. They put up a huge buddha statue between the trees, built some seats and had a concert. When I declared them superheroes, Mary Anne (the friend that I’ve been staying with in Concord close to San Francisco) disillusioned me by explaining that was a society for rich white men only.
Still the idea of doing concerts in there…………
Of course you do disturb animals in the process but that depends on the music, right? Plus if there happens to be for example a nest of grey baby foxes, I have photo proof that a ranger will stand next to it and foxbabysit, “ssssh”ing at tourists that can’t hold their tongue despite signs telling you to be quiet. If the foxes move around, just so they can take their nap in the bush right next to the mainstream-pathway, the ranger will move the fence, the signs and himself to the new location. The fox-mother obviously wanted a break from the redwoods silence…