All This Vastness and Nowhere to Go
One morning last week I drove out to Bodega Head for a hike. The day had dawned clear and still, another instance where sweltering heat inland gives rise to a spectacular day on this wild coast. Though it was not particularly early, the parking lot was empty save for two elderly beachcombers. I had the headlands to myself, and took the south trail toward the very tip of the land.
To walk along the head is to traverse a slice of Los Angeles that has migrated north over a long stretch of time, thanks to the San Andreas Fault. The cliffs are ribbon striped in long diagonals of rock that heave skyward as though the promontory itself were craning its neck to see what lies farther north.
Instantly I wished I had brought my camera to capture the foliage. From the flaming tips of ice plant hanging over the cliff’s edge to the subtly feathered lichens circling each rock, the trail meandered through a stunning display of contrasts that also managed to look like nothing at all. Transfixed by the drama of crashing breakers below, one could easily miss the understated beauty of autumn at the coast.
To the west, the surf rode in like great sound waves from across the drum of the Pacific. I felt as though if I just had a tin can held to my ear, I could make out some fabulous conversations across the taut string of the ocean’s quivering surface.
Rising and falling with the waves were beds of kelp and other thriving sea plants, and each cloud of salt spray from below brought a fresh tang that made my mouth water for a good seaweed salad. Sea lions rose and fell through the water, leaping across the breaker’s edge only to dive deep and reappear in another spot entirely.
I struggle with astronomy, with distance and space. When I look up toward the center of the Milky Way on a clear night, I try to imagine in any way I can that I am looking at something roughly 30,000 light years away. Sometimes I get close, and when that happens I try adding to it the sensation of our whole solar system circling that center point of the galaxy at a speed of 180 miles per second. That’s usually when my mental construct breaks down. I simply cannot imagine that much space to go hurtling through, nor the degree of raw power held in all those ineffable orbits.
At the ocean I can approach vastness and be awed but not annihilated. All this water, sitting in a bowl of earth thousands of miles across, with all sorts of things on the bottom: tunnels, heat vents, lava flows, amazing creatures no one has ever seen. The tides, pulled and released by the motion of our moon; the currents which circle the globe; the extremes of heat and cold; the minutiae and multitude of life in the sea. I have a sense of how very little I know, and simultaneously how very, very much there is to know about everything.
That is the proper human perspective when it comes to this life we are given, I believe. We need to know how much we don’t know, and understand that this will always be true, while at the same time cultivating our curiosity to keep learning. If we can come away from these moments of touching infinity feeling revivified, then our link with Source is working for us. If not, then there are some adjustments to be made. All religion begins in awe, but so does just about everything good and precious in life.
That morning I found a spot I will be returning to again. It is a small seat formed by a depression in the rock, overlooking the ocean but surrounded by low-growing grasses, with a view both south and north along the coast. It is a spot where I can sit and fade into the background as life goes on all around me. On a beautiful morning with no one else around, it is easy to imagine that there is nowhere else to be, nothing else nearly as important as feeling the vastness of space, and how marvellous it is that we are inhabiting this very, very small spot in the grand scheme of things.