Everything is beautiful

Sunday morning up on the Saddle.

Blue sky blue ocean one vastness. Dried leaf blades of watsonia rub against each other in the wind, calling out with hoarse voices. Dried grass curls in strands over a rock. Bright orange and lime green lichen shine like ancient dried blotches of paint.

Here for just a moment is the centre of the universe. Where everything is beautiful.

The knots behind the tapestry

Here at the foot of Table Mountain is a long, wide overhang where you are embraced by rocks. It is a quiet spot with many sounds.

Water drips from the roof of the overhang, a breeze rustles the trees, then drily rubs the long grass stems cascading over a ledge. A man with white plastic sunglasses runs past with thudding feet that fade away. A pigeon shakes its wings and hops into the mossy puddle where the water drips down.

There are no pictures of these sounds, but they are the knots behind the tapestry.

            

The dry gold season

Golden spiderweb

In the long-lasting days of summer, the mountain sucks the last moisture into itself; into the oily buchu leaves, into the wild rosemary, into the pincushions that fray into brittle yellow stalks. Not a sugarbird in sight in the dryness.

The southeaster shakes the dry sutherlandia seedpods that tinkle on the howling low wind. Vygies cling to the rock, flowers faded pink like once bright swimming costumes after a long summer in the sun.

It's the dry gold season.

The stillness in the wind

There is stillness deep inside the hurling, howling wind. A dozen golden, fragile grass stems entangle and make a star above a patch of bright pink vygies. Clifton beach is flattened to a golden disc. The southeaster takes the silver trees and makes them sing.

And in the wind are the things that stand firm. The mosque on Signal Hill. Table Mountain.

Wind-tangled grass stems.

Wildly dancing watsonias.

Clifton: wind-swept, deserted, golden.

Chinchirinchees stand sweet in the wind.

Painting with moonlight

Tonight the half-moon’s quicksilver light slips and slides over the mountain through billowing tangles of cloud flying in from the ocean.

Cold fronts are beautiful.

It's raining moonlight as I move my camera from the moon to the city lights.

Painting with moonlight as I circle the moon with my camera.

Magic Mountain. Upper cable car station shrouded by clouds.

Alchemy of walking

Here are the fruits of a one-hour amble along the feet of the twelve apostles (the Table Mountain ones). Feet that felt heavy, legs that did not feel like walking. But as I put one foot before the other on the pipe track, my heart stretched open to the mountains and the blue sky. Miss Grumpy was transformed into Ms Lightfoot, tra-la-la. And just look at these beauties.

Sunset caterpillar.

Filled with mountains

Silver filigree of a burnt protea.

With Mike and Patty above the Palmiet River.

Here are the small beauties and secrets of the Kogelberg. After four days there I feel filled with mountains, rain, sun and river water.

Sticky stem of a sundew.