Highly recommended activity: meditating at a tidal pool.
One of my favorite places to meditate is on a secret beach about 40 minutes away from Seminyak, the part of Bali where I live.
We trek there before sunrise, just as the sky starts to turn blue from a starlit blackness. The air is wet with the seashore mumbling below the cliffs.
These tide pools are filled with sea urchins, fleeting brittle stars, and an assortment of anemonies, gobies, and shellfish. Barnacles and coral cling onto ancient volcanic rock. The sea filters through a checkerboard of cups and eddies as it retreats with the pre-dawn tide.
When I’d walk around the edges of the pools, I could feel the surface beneath me bristling with energy. You could hear the tide pool clicking, squishing, and whispering with movement, feeding, and breathing.
Each tide pool would be inhabited by a mix of creatures, decorated with a random arrangements of detritus and rocks. Each morning, after the tide recedes, a new arrangement.
It’s very real example of impermanence. We live in impermanence too, but we perceive it very differently. Living things inside the tide pool cope with change every 6 hours. How do we cope with change?
What is there in this tide pool that is REALLY permanent?
Ask yourself “What am I attached to that is REALLY permanent?”
What do you think?
18 Comments
Hi John,
Thank You for lovely photos of Paradise Island Bali.
Love that place myself.
Sending you warm Christmas Wishes and a Happy and Prosperous New Year of 2010….. from Western Australia.
The weather is just perfect today for the last minute shopping here
Zori
Hi John,
It is amazing the observation you hv made. I hv been in Bali many times but do not hv advantage to see the ” beauty and spiritual senses ” as you mention.
I hope one day I will try to do it!
Wishing you ” A Merr Christmas and A Happy New Year 2010 ” fr Jakarta.
ta heaps for your beautiful images. How I wish to don down and feel the lichen at my feet. The last time I was in a place was in the South of Italy. it does seem as a paradise.
Dear John,
Thanks very much for the lovely photos! Its absolutely
enlightening at difficult times like now.
Here’s WISHING YOU AND YOUR FAMILY MERRY X’MAS
AND A HAPPY AND PROSPERIUS NEW YEAR !! PEACE !
@ja south of italy where? We’re planning some shoots in Europe in the middle of 2010. Maybe you could give us a hint to where to go?
@Steve & Zori – Thank you for your feedback! Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones too!
@Richard : Hint – Sacred Scenery does NOT exist in Kuta, Seminyak, Legian, or Denpasar
Thanks for the nice shots. You really are a good photographer! Merry Christmas! Have a beautiful day…
Thank-you for the beautiful pictures and the insight.
I hope that you have a happy Christmas and a wonderful new year.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.u r gifted n thanks for sharing it with me.
I love these beautiful pictures the are so peaceful just by looking at them you
can drift away. I wish a Happy Season and a Prosperous New Year, we all need this also PEACE.
Its truly amazing the things that become so apparent when we allow ourselves to become syncd to the cycles of nature. A few weeks back I was working in the yard and the frangrance that came from the damp leaves I was racking were so powerful. I felt so connected to Mother earth. I realized that I was working against nature is racking those leaves as they replenish the soil as they decay. I have had similiar expirences along the ocean as I let my breathing become one with the crashing waves. Time seem to stand still everything slowed down and was so real..Belated Happy Birthday .. Bali is a place on my list to vist and absorb the people live such a simple life as we all should.
Hi John,
it’s really beautiful and peaceful pictures, and better later than never I wish you Happy New Years. Thank you have a very nice day
I love the photos that you sent me, I myself I do some yoga and meditation, but the sceneries that you send me are really serene and relaxing to look at.
Thank you.
Frieda.
THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR PEACE.
ПРЕКРАСНО Е!
THANK YOU
Hi John,
It’s awsome. the pictures put a smile on my face and I feel really warm and wonderful inside. Thanks.
Beautful frances from wwww.lifeskillsswindon.com
Сипосибо Джон…Thank you, for the beautful pictures.
Hi John,
Thanks for the very beautiful pictures,made my day.