One day, out on a walk to lift my mood, I sat on the edge of a large rock pile. I picked up a small rock and saw something marvellous. The surface of the rock glittered. It wasn’t a special rock or stone. It was the sunlight sparkling off tiny facets within the constitution of the rock, probably grains of sand or quartz. Looking at the rock slightly out of focus showed that the sparkles were coloured – rainbow greens, reds, yellows, blues and oranges. It was like magic.

I picked up other types of rock and realised if you look closely enough at just about any rock in the sun, it can be seen to sparkle and glitter. The effect may be only very tiny sparkles, but it is quite wonderful and beautiful just the same.

These are ‘just ordinary rocks’.

Sitting on some Rocks

I am sitting on some large rocks that are part of a constructed sea wall, just past the sandy beach at West Beach. The tide is high and there is a fresh breeze coming in from the southwest which has whipped up the surface of the sea water into choppy waves. The waves come in towards the shore and crash into the rocks below me.

It is amazing just how interesting even these smallish waves are – swirling, pounding water, flowing over the rocks’ forms and into the spaces between them. The effects of the water moving within deep troughs is contrasted with the way it moves through shallow sheets, over the basically flat tops.

The waves come in quickly, and produce rebound waves, as if the wall was like a mirror reflecting waves of light. The rebounding waves regularly ‘peak’ with an oncoming one, resulting in excited surges of water moving up into the air. The high integrity of the rebounded wave is quite surprising really, considering how rough the wall is with its construction from large irregular shaped boulders. To me, this spectacle feels like it could easily be a suitable living diagram of light rebounding off a surface of molecules – an event I am never likely to actually witness at a magnification where molecules appear the size of boulders.

White frothy water; turbulent, continuous ‘white’ noise; rhythmical.

Out on the horizon, the water is a deep green and inspires me to feel that it has enormous depth and mystery. There are individual little white peaks, that form and disappear within about 15 seconds, seen over the large expanse of the sea all the way out to the horizon. Out there near the horizon, it feels like it could be the middle of the ocean – so much fine detail, it could go on forever. The peaks getting smaller and slower to change (seemingly). The sky is clear, but coolish along the horizon.

Down underneath me, the waves keep pounding into the rocks, in general rhythms.

The ocean – a huge expanse; its flatness portrays it so. Huge simple space of the sea and sky in front of me – a huge mysterious volume.

There is a wonderful simplicity about such places as here. Over near the sandy beach, along which I walked to come to this spot, the large line of sandhills cut all ties with any other world beyond them.