It was my birthday so we decided to take a few hours off of caretaking my father and head for the coast. Half an hour from my father’s retirement home in San Mateo, California, on a stunning drive through grassy and wooded hills is Half Moon Bay. As we parked the car along the beach, we immediately breathed in the fresh salt air, and hear the pounding of the surf.
Walking along the beach is always such a thrill. The temptation was to remain caught up in my thoughts, but I focused on each footstep on the sand, no two steps being the same sensation. As each wave reached out its ever moving fingers towards us, with the cool wind whipping our clothes into a frenzy and the sun beating down upon our faces, we felt our worries being aired out. As each wave pulled back into the body of the ocean, my own body and mind lightened up. I could breathe again, and oh how fresh it was. The sense of spaciousness simply expanded, with each second being different. When another temptation to get caught in worrisome thoughts came along, and they did, I followed the movement of a particular wave, and the thought vanished with the wind.
Beach at Half Moon Bay
Directly in front of me I saw what appeared like a small smooth red rock. Picking it up, it easily nestled in the palm of my hand. I realized that it was brick that had been worn down with the constant movement of the waves. I thought it would be great totake home as a reminder of how everything melts with time. I asked Lucy, the photographer, to take a picture of it, as I placed in just within reach of a small wave to capture it glistening in the sun. Just as she clicked the picture, a larger wave overcame us. Shrieking with glee as we tried to escape its thrust, our feet getting soaked nevertheless, I watched the wave recede, alas, taking my treasure with it. I have to admit that there a fleeting moment of loss washed over me, but ever the Buddhist philosopher, I exclaimed that this was a wonderful lesson in impermanence. There is really nothing that we can possess, is there? All that w e have, which is everything and nothing all combined together, is the experience of this moment. Sometimes the simplest things remind us of this, and what joy it can bring.
Gift from the Sea
Walking back along the path, we came across a house with a hawk sitting on the peak of its roof. Lucy, who is Aboriginal, believes that the hawk is a messenger. The message could have been anything, I suppose, but what the hawk seemed to be telling us was to simply embrace the enjoyment that we were feeling at that moment, and that this experience was always there for the taking, regardless of where we were and what we were doing.
The Messenger Hawk
As we continued our walk, we came across this exquisite house that is part of the Sun Centre for Well Being. We had met the owner once before who had built this centre from the creativity that nature had inspired in him. While we didn’t build anything that day, we were filled with joyousness, and ready to face any challenges that awaited us. How much better it would be, I realized, to care for my aging father from a place of inner happiness than from that of worry. And with that thought, we headed back.
Creativity Inspired by Nature
Vancouver Island Meditation 