It’s a Saturday morning. A beautiful morning, cool and clear. I’m not going anywhere in particular today, have no commitments. You know, that song by, mmm…(it’ll come to me), but it goes like this…”Slow down, you move too fast. You’ve got to make the mornin’ last. Just trippin’ down the cobblestones. Lookin’ for love and feelin’ groovy.” Or something like that. Hari Bhajan Singh & I took Yoshi and Ria to the beach this morning for a walk, down to Will Rogers Park. You can’t take dogs on the beach in L.A. County so we walked along the bike path enjoying the sun and the sight of the ocean. Busloads of men, women and children had just spread out along the beach wearing plastic gloves and carrying trash bags and scouring the sand for candy wrappers, cigarette butts and any other debris left behind from beachgoers. It’s Heal the Bay day and I heard on the radio yesterday that in one day they pick up about 40 tons of debris from the Southern California beaches. The funny thing is that the beaches look clean on first look but obviously there’s a lot more under the surface. We helped out by picking up a styrafoam cup, a soda can tab and some other trash. Yoshi usually does his part by grabbing any plastic water bottles laying around, but there were none to be found today. I forgot to bring my camera so here’s a picture of the Santa Monica beaches I took off the web.

Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold.

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the {AE}gean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

*************
This morning while meditating I was thinking about what a perfect tragedy life is. Not one of us bounces through life without losing so much, without grieving, without having to constantly let go of what we love, what we cherish. If we cling too tightly we are sure to find our arms empty, our hearts bereft. If we do not reach out to hold and to risk, we turn to stone, are ground down into fine sand. The only way to make sense of it all is to see that it doesn’t make sense, really, all this do-dah around us. A new BMW, a house ini Malibu, being a rock star or having a seven figure bank account is not worth the proverbial hill of beans. We arrive naked and we return naked. We get old (most of us anyway) and lose our faculties, to one degree or another. This life slips away and when the reel of the film has run it’s course and the credits are running–well, then it’s too late to write another script, to rewind and edit the shots. On the other hand–there’s the Divine Comedy of it all: Don’t Worry, Be Happy, Chop Wood, Carry Water and Be Here Now. If we slow down, if we remember to breathe, remember it’s all temporary then there is beauty all around, there is the essence of the divine, we come into awareness of the unity of all.

It must’ve been Saturday morning, how there’s that feeling of relaxation in the air and how the stress of the city has eased just a little bit–it must’ve been this that got me thinking, along with the fresh sea air and dreams that stirred my consciousness the night before and, well just being a human being trying to sort it out. Yeah, it happens. Now it’s time to go back outside and find some cobblestones to trip down. La, la, la, la, la, la…feelin’ groovy!

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
( Simon & Garfunkel )

Slow down, you move too fast
You’ve got to make the morning last
Just kickin’ down the cobble stones
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy!
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)

Hello, lamp post, whatcha knowing?
I’ve come to watch your flowers growing
Ain’t ya got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in’ doo-doo, feelin’ groovy!
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)

Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life, I love you, all is groovy!
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)