Bending over backwards (Heaven and Earth)

Good morning and Happy Tuesday! (Ha! This late night sending means this will still reach my Aussie fans in the morning! May this be a funtabulistic day for all of you around the world!)
This weekend I was blessed to experience something I had vaguely thought would be especially beneficial to me, but that I never thought I'd actually be able to manage and so never seriously considered, until it sort of just came along, at the right time, as these things tend to do: a silent meditation retreat. *takes breath after long sentence in preparation for the next one* (Those of you who know me in the flesh will be laughing out loud right now!) To my utter astonishment, I not only thoroughly enjoyed it (I must admit, I had been looking forward to it with a certain amount of curiosity and scepticism!), but I went through the day effortlessly not needing to speak (and the same went for (most of) the people in my head, as my delightful little sister Olivea calls my thoughts!). It was a day of amaze-full-ness and wonderment for me - something, I think, you'll only be able to relate to if you've experienced it for yourself... and even then, it will be completely different. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to the next one! (And who knows, one of these days, other people (including some of the quieter, and, perhaps, more enlightened people in my head) may even manage to get a word in edgeways around me!) ;-)
Anyway, the evening prior to the retreat I went for a walk along the beach, practicing being mindful, pulling my attention back to the things around me when my mind went skipping hand in hand with one or another of my mind's personalities/thoughts. I walked along, noticing the feel of the sand under my feet, the sounds of the wavelets shushing onto the sand, the slightly wild breath of the wind blowing my hair across my face, and the ever-changing evening light playing on the pre-frontal clouds stretching in from the west.
I had decided at the last minute to leave my Brikon behind, but grabbed my Galaxy on my way out... and I'm so glad I did! There are times when I want to enjoy whatever I experience without the desire to capture it, and there are times when I'm in the mood to share. And I just love my Samsung Galaxy S3! Don't get me wrong, I really love my Brikon too, but let's face it, there's a very heavy, bulky reason I call it a Brikon, and sometimes I simply want to enjoy a stroll unencumbered. There's another reason why I love my Galaxy: the instant gratification of the automatic panoramic stitching feature:

I started out thinking laterally, taking a panorama of the view encompassing Cape Point to Constantiaberg...

...but it was the clouds over Muizenberg Peak that really grabbed me, so I flipped the camera, and my mind, vertically, and just kept on clicking until the beach behind me, with Cape Hangklip across the false bay of sky, appeared, downside-up.
(Click to view large)