As if it never happened: The Return to Cobble Beach
25 years ago I took my LaStone Hot Stone Massage training and receive my set of basalt stones from the Pacific Ocean. I always promised myself when I was finished with them, I would return them to the Pacific out of gratitude and respect for them being so good to me and my practice as used on hundreds of clients over that time.
I could not just sell them to someone or even give them away. They had too much of myself and clients in them through some difficult times of transition and challenges as my own WCG crisis unfolded personally. If I have a soul, these stones contained part of it.
I never could imagine how I would end up in a position to actually return them to the Pacific being in the Carolinas, but... end up there I have and so back they went this week.
At 17 million years old they gave me a mere 25 years and now seeing them on Cobble Beach, it's like nothing ever happened.
Cobble Beach just South of Yaquina Head Lighthouse
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I found myself there alone at sunrise. Not a soul in sight but pelicans and the occasional sea lion.
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Cobble Beach is quite the unique and violent rock strewn part of the Oregon Coast
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Guarded by Dinosaurs...
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Cobble Beach is made up completely of smooth basalt cobbles, no sand, that are eroded from the cliffs over thousands of years. Trying to walk on them is almost impossible and is like walking on snow during an avalanche. A hiking stick is all that saved me. When the waves wash over the cobbles and retreat, it causes the stones to click against each other on every outgoing wave. Very nice sound.... ticka...ticka..ticka...ticka........
My massage stones, hardly discernable from those already there and giving minor hints as to their having a past unlike those that have ever been only on Cobble Beach.
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Once I put my basalt massage stones down on the beach, they immediately started their return to the sea. They are the line from bottom to top of somewhat elongated and a bit off color stones but fit the beach cobbles nicely. In a few hours, the high tide will remove any residual oils from massage and they can spend the next million years with their budds and keeping the secret they hold as to what they were up to in the past.
In many ways, it is like it never happened.
It was a meaningful experience to me, alone on Cobble Beach at sunrise in a place I never thought I'd ever see again. A few years back I placed some of my parents cremains at low tide in a tide pool there and watch the tide come in and take them away. Another meaningful and deeply profound experience personally.
Cobble Beach, to me, is a very special place, a metaphor of sorts, for the brevity of life and the respect we should all have for each other and the time we have to enjoy it.
Sunset that evening on the Pacific...
Thanks for tolerating the share. I am sure there will be more COG BS to report on shortly! :)
Fascinating personalized mystic experience, and there is a lot of subtle symbolism involved, and things that could be read into the story. It's actually refreshing that someone from the WCG background is able to share on a basic and very human level such as this, because alas, we are so accustomed to the hyper ego and authoritarian nonsense emanating from your garden variety Bob Thiels, Dave Packs, and other pretenders to the conch. These are people who have absolutely zero of any importance to teach or share, and are mass inflictors of damage.
ReplyDeleteYour simple tale of putting back, or giving back, provides a better metaphor for what all of us as humans can and should do at our best. Utilize resources. Accomplish good with them. Respect them. Return them in good condition. Such resources could involve materials which are useful to us, or the people who are entrusted to us. Or, as Doctors learn, "First, do no harm." If our former handlers had taken this seriously, and had practiced it earnestly, (it's actually Christ-like!) we would not all be enduring such lengthy recovery from their intersect into our lives.
Thank you 328 for your very kind and observant comments. I just returned from five days away, to the coast and couple days in the mountains where I could get some clear night sky for stargazing. Was really nice and I was also working on doing things alone which is not something I do well so it was a good practice session. Oregon has so much to offer and not far away for the most part.
ReplyDeleteReturning the massage stones was important to me on a personal level. The concept that I would return them, after decades, and none would be the wiser, seemed a good practice at a deeper level. Being at Cobble Beach alone, which was amazing, was almost surreal. I just finished up and the parking lot started to fill. I did tell the park ranger what and why I was doing this, asking even if I could, and he thought it was all very cool.
Life is too short to lose sight of life being short no matter how long... Leaving a small footprint and a realistic perspective also works for me. A clear night out with my telescope
looking long at my favorite things, the Pleides, The Orion Nebula, The Andromeda Galaxy and others has always been a serious need. Back in the day of WCG, drama and trauma, receiverships and church collapse, time with the telescope keep me sane and still does :)
In a fundamentalist church environment, one can waste far too much time with "soon", "shortly", "just over the next hill", "around the corner" and "It won't be long now" while missing the actual time one actually has now.
Thanks again for your comment. I hesitated to post it but it's just a commercial and no one has to watch commercials, if they don't wish to, between main events! :)
Thanks Dennis,
ReplyDeleteI too appreciated the commercial break. As I've observed before, your remarks are often more spiritual than some of the theists who comment here! We would all do well to remember that our time here is brief and is best spent in kindness to and compassion for each other.
Seems a priority to me Lonnie.
ReplyDeletespiritual than some of the theists
ReplyDeleteI thought Denis was a hard materialist. That would leave no room for the spiritual. Sentimental perhaps, but not spiritual.
This is bad for science. Future geologists will conclude that sea lions had massage therapists before returning to the sea. Go get those stones back!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing that, Dennis. It reminded me of a story that could have come out of Mark Manson's book, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck"
ReplyDeleteSubtle. Interesting use of language.
DeleteThanks and the photos are beautiful and intriguing. Control groups like the cogs have little space or patience for wonder.
ReplyDeleteThank you Dennis for sharing this. I've benefited greatly from your articles over the years. This one is no different. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThis adventure is an example of something that all of us should be undertaking as global climate change worsens and affects us in new and unforeseen ways and the political situation continues to trend towards hard right authoritarianism. It's important to be making new memories now while we still have the freedom and wherewithall to do so, because those memories will certainly sustain us in the future. In order to maintain good mental health, it is imperative to get out there and nourish your sou!
ReplyDeleteBecause it would require years of abnormal precipitation to rebuild the snow pack and glaciers whose controlled melt and runoff have kept the Colorado River stable, and the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs at acceptably sustainable levels, I can see a time in the not too distant future where the water most of the public knows nothing about, which is the massive quantity of water stored in underground aquifers, to also deplete. If that were to happen in California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and southern Nevada, climate refugees will be inundating the Pacific Northwest, and I will probably be one of them.
We often wonder what happened to the people who used to comment here and on the other sites. Well, they probably realized these things earlier on, and are out living their lives and making their own new adventures. Armstrongism prevented us from living normal or even acceptable lives while they controlled us with their scam. There is no reason to continue to cede this power to them, or to dwell in the past.
Thanks all for your kind and thoughtful comments on this one. Getting away, for me, from work for a time is a real refresher for me. Sitting on Cobble Beach alone with wind and the classic churning Pacific of the Oregon Coast resets my perspectives. With binoculars I could see the occasional Grey Whale surface for a breath and the classic, "thar she blows" as well the flashes of black reveakubg the passing of Orcas (Killer Whales) not far outside the surf line. It's why I simply don't swim in the food chain! I did not see any sea lions as I have here in the past, but they are not far. They don't call them Sea Bunnies, trust me.
ReplyDeleteBeing alone there for a time gives me time to regroup and while I don't like the alone part much, it is good to learn to deal and cope with it as it is reality for me at this stage of life. Good practice I guess.
Time to think and rethink.
Thanks again!
When you get right down to it, Dennis, we really and truly are all alone. We go through all manner of self-manipulations to strategically ignore the many differences between ourselves and others, just to get along. It really is rare to find others who are of like minds to ourselves naturally and in an unforced way. This is why it is easy to be totally alone in a room full of people, and to even be suspicious of those who would attempt to get too close. I learned about twenty years ago that I am my own best friend, my most trusted ally, and life has been so much easier from that point on.
ReplyDelete