Into Each Heart Some Water Falls

My Epilogue: Some Humble Pie

Some natural phenomena put us "on our number" as we say in Dutch, cut us down to size. Among living creatures, trees like the sequoias in California and the kauris in New Zealand tend to put us in our place. Some of those giants are thousand and more years old and look down on us from their fifty meter high crown. They will -hopefully- still be here when we, nothing more than small ants, will be long forgotten. Nevertheless, these big fellows are often very vulnerable. When we bring fungi on or shoes, these can affect and eventually kill the goliaths. Even stepping on the ground near them can suffocate and crush their sensitive roots. So these ancient brothers need our protection.

When you look at a waterfall, the water comes and comes and never stops pouring down the rocks. It has been streaming like this for hundreds and thousands of years, and will continue to do so long after you have passed away. The water follows its cycle, runs all the way to the sea, evaporates into clouds that rain down the mountain sides and revisits our waterfall (well, it won't probably be the very same water molecules that fall down this cascade again next week...). On and on. It's as close to a perpetuum mobile as we'll get.

Then there are the stars in a beautiful black night. One night, very, very long ago -in a man's reckoning-, I was lying on my back on a flat, open space on the tiny island of Formentera, the fourth of the Baleares, lost in the middle of the Mediterranean. I had never seen such a dark sky, not a candle was lit anywhere near me... The sky was wide open, not a cloud in sight, and the Milky Way formed a broad band from one horizon to the other. Stars were twinkling everywhere. I could discern some of the constellations, but there were far more of them than I knew or had ever imagined. I was awed and even a little scared. What was keeping my back flattened against the surface of this minuscule rock? What kept me from floating away from good Mother Earth into that immense nothingness? And then to know that the Universe isn't endless, but that its time and space are limited... doesn't that make you feel like a speck of dust?

And finally, because this website is dedicated to my love, I want to remind you of a song by the late great Jimi Hendrix, May This Be Love, created in April, 1967. He calls his beloved his waterfall that takes away all his worries and sees him through. Don't ever change your ways / Fall with me for a million days / Oh, my waterfall. I couldn't find a video with a performance by Jimi Hendrix himself, only a website with the lyrics. But take a look at this behind the scenes*. The song was covered -among others- by The Pretenders*.

So there it is: a cascade of waterfalls for my Waterfall. I hope you enjoyed it.

Guy, 20 October 2016
toucheguy@gmail.com