Peace, inner calmness and sanctuary

The sun emits long rays and the waves flow along the beach. During my morning walk I reached the Gratitude Bay. Everything emits peace and calm. I am sitting on ‘my’ rock of gratitude, breathing deeply and feeling grateful for my existence. I feel privileged to live here on the Costa del Sol, enjoying life, being healthy, loving my family, my friends and my work. I close my eyes and listen to the ocean, the waves hitting the shore; it is sweet music to my cells and brings me peace deep within. Time stops, and I AM.

A fishermen is on a rock on the bay, holding his fishing rod and calmly preparing his equipment before he, with experience in his expression, throws the line into the sea once again. His wife is sitting on a rock nearby enjoying the sun while solving a Sudoku. They both emit depth, calm and peace. A little later she looks for interesting stones along the edge of the sea. There are a lot of them here. In all shapes, colours and sizes and the eye catches the special stones with patterns and shapes. I am looking for flat stones as I have a plan for them.

On the beach we greet each other. Today there weren’t many people but one person found a wonderful place out of the wind and stretched out, suntanning exactly where we passed by.
Along the beach I collect flat stones and get help from my niece who is with me today. We walk beside the waves, chatting, while it turns into a competition of who can get closest to the water – without getting wet shoes or socks! Ooops, a large strong wave and a wet sock, oh well, it will dry quickly in this climate.

The next destination on the walk is a cluster of rocks, majestically reaching into the ocean, where we observe the stone sculpture, consisting of many flat stones layered on top of one another. The sculpture has been halved because of the waves and wind. Together we reconstruct it and add more layers. We are very focused on getting the stones to balance on top of each other, and exactly when we place the last small musselshell we are surprised by a large wave from behind us. After a good laugh – and now also with our pants wet – we continue along the beach to the next pier, where we head to the edge of the pier by jumping from rock to rock. It is good training both for the balance and the fun. On the pier many fishermen are working with their rods and lines. They are open for a chat about the weather and which fish there may be in the water today.

We reach another cluster of rocks before we start our backwards walk up the long hill. Yes we actually walk backwards the whole way up. It feels good for both the knees and the muscles in the legs to be used in this manner. All of a sudden we are home again, one more lovely experience richer. We have relaxed, been and enjoyed life as well as each other’s company, laughed and realised many crazy and fun things on our morning walk. This is the amazement of the sanctuary: Just let what will happen happen, preferably a little crazy, as it often is with me, and it could be that I am not the only one? As Gitte Henning sang in 1962: “ Put on the old sweater, let your beard be. It is good to make a fresh start. Place the bait on the line and go fishing with me.”