Enlightening Late Afternoon Seascape

Towards the closure of the day, I finally arrived at the seaside. There had been a short interval of cloudlessness around nine AM, but I was already busy with my cleanup and reordering work, which went on until late in the afternoon. Mischa has seen how wonderful it is to have the soft blue early morning view at sea. So, when I arrived on my favorite “Thalassa”-Dune top, I had no expectations at all any more. It had been raining throughout the day. It was a bit windy, chilly enough to renounce in advance even from a quick bath.

But, Ah!, Look! Far into the South, beyond and over the vast extended harbour installations of Rotterdam Europort, heavy clouds were breaking, giving way to a pyramid of light beams. Lighting up and down again, according to the moving of the somber clouds. I went down to the beach. Barefoot I walked through the wet sand to the surf. Clearly the nearing high tide was flooding the banks and beach very quickly. No way to put my backpack nearby at a safe height. So, I spend my time paddling through the flooding waters and watched this changing play of light&dark.

Here and there sunrays were beaming over the waves and ripples. A kind of ceremony in which the sea was giving her farewell salute or serenade to the hidden sun. A takeover of the nightwatch by the ever flowing deep sea mirror. As I left the beach with cold red feet, the magnificent scene had all vanished. A few people found themselves closed in on the peninsula by the flood. In spite of all official warning signs.

As I took my bike back home, I saw how they managed to cross to the mainland. Not without wetting their boots and pants. They will learn..perhaps. There always lures some risk in losing yourself watching such magnificent scenes without awareness of changing conditions. In every corner of this splendid universe, the unexpected deploys itself in multiple forms of danger. Wandering through and sitting down in quasi-paradises we cannot do without situational awareness. A mindful, deeply sensitive awareness of how we are situated in our being-in-the-world is a crucial constituent of a daily exercise in spiritual awakening.