"Rockaway Beach, Pacifica, CA" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
I live in the northwoods now. It is July, and the mornings are lush with green growth and dew-slicked blossoms. My garden has become a quiet sanctuary, a place where each early morning begins with a ritual: a slow walk among the flowers, coffee mug in hand, listening to birdsong, exchanging nods with my faithful cottontail rabbit companion, and sometimes sharing the silence with the neighbor's curious visiting cat. It is not a ceremony in any formal sense—but in my heart, it is sacred. It is my meditation.
To me, meditation is a form of prayer—a communion with the quiet, with the natural world, with the oneness that binds all things. It's not about chanting or mantras or crossing your legs just so. It’s about presence. It’s about listening.
This morning, it is raining. No garden walk. No sunrise slanting through the oak trees. But in the absence of my usual rhythm, I found myself gazing at an image I had tucked away—a photo I took years ago in Pacifica, California. The roar of the Pacific lives in this image. I can almost feel the salt mist on my skin, the cool wind threading through my jacket.
The photo is from where Calera Creek empties into the Pacific Ocean at Rockaway Beach. It stirs a whole world of memory. Two walks were my favorite during those years: the first, from Sharp Park Pier to Mori Point and then up and over that wild headland, watching waves crash against cliffs as the fog shifted like a ghost; the second, through the Calera Creek wetlands to the very place this photo captures, where earth meets ocean in a drama of sound and light.
A few steps into either walk, and my thoughts would begin to dissolve. Worries lifted like morning fog. I became one with the moment, my companions the rhythmic crash of surf, the cry of gulls, the swirl of wind, sky, and wave. That, too, was meditation. That, too, was prayer.
“Meditation is a practice that involves techniques to train attention and awareness. It aims to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state.” ~Unknown
“Mindfulness meditation involves being present and aware of thoughts and feelings without judgment.” ~Unknown
These definitions feel clinical, and yet they resonate. They name what I’ve long known in my bones. Whether I’m walking a beach in Pacifica or strolling a rain-kissed path in my northwoods garden, meditation opens a door to grace. It clears the static. It returns me to now.
Even on this rainy morning, with no walk possible, I look into that photograph and I’m transported. The roar of the waves returns. My mind stills. I am there—and here. The boundaries blur. My spirit, attuned once more to nature's voice, listens to the whisper of memory, the echo of timeless presence.
Meditation, like memory, is a bridge. It brings us home.
“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”
~Gordon Hempton
~Wylddane
To me, meditation is a form of prayer—a communion with the quiet, with the natural world, with the oneness that binds all things. It's not about chanting or mantras or crossing your legs just so. It’s about presence. It’s about listening.
This morning, it is raining. No garden walk. No sunrise slanting through the oak trees. But in the absence of my usual rhythm, I found myself gazing at an image I had tucked away—a photo I took years ago in Pacifica, California. The roar of the Pacific lives in this image. I can almost feel the salt mist on my skin, the cool wind threading through my jacket.
The photo is from where Calera Creek empties into the Pacific Ocean at Rockaway Beach. It stirs a whole world of memory. Two walks were my favorite during those years: the first, from Sharp Park Pier to Mori Point and then up and over that wild headland, watching waves crash against cliffs as the fog shifted like a ghost; the second, through the Calera Creek wetlands to the very place this photo captures, where earth meets ocean in a drama of sound and light.
A few steps into either walk, and my thoughts would begin to dissolve. Worries lifted like morning fog. I became one with the moment, my companions the rhythmic crash of surf, the cry of gulls, the swirl of wind, sky, and wave. That, too, was meditation. That, too, was prayer.
“Meditation is a practice that involves techniques to train attention and awareness. It aims to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state.” ~Unknown
“Mindfulness meditation involves being present and aware of thoughts and feelings without judgment.” ~Unknown
These definitions feel clinical, and yet they resonate. They name what I’ve long known in my bones. Whether I’m walking a beach in Pacifica or strolling a rain-kissed path in my northwoods garden, meditation opens a door to grace. It clears the static. It returns me to now.
Even on this rainy morning, with no walk possible, I look into that photograph and I’m transported. The roar of the waves returns. My mind stills. I am there—and here. The boundaries blur. My spirit, attuned once more to nature's voice, listens to the whisper of memory, the echo of timeless presence.
Meditation, like memory, is a bridge. It brings us home.
“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”
~Gordon Hempton
~Wylddane
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