Where The Wild Things Are
So here I am packing my bags into my car and setting North… In Mai… I also packed all the warnings of some of my friends with me: “the weather will be bad and the place is only a boring small seaside village with one restaurant”, “Don’t go there the place is overrated, there’s really nothing to do there”. Thus, in the trunk were also my thick rain jacket, my hiking boots and my yoga matt. The plan was to try to hold on in the bad weather as long as possible then close myself for yoga in my apartment. I am after all a hiking freak, born and raised in the Carpathian Mountains, with several all-weather experiences around the globe from Annapurna to Algonquin. What can possibly go wrong?
Six hours later I was rolling into a sun-bathed Sankt Peter-Ording, learning its first unwritten rule: nature does not care about people opinions. I dropped my bags, got my thick clothes and went to the beach. It’s there where magic happened, at that large sandy beach hidden behind the dunes, with rough wind blowing through my thick hoodie, with the water and the mud flats living and breathing with the phase of the moon. Here I felt in love with the organic rough strength of this small town. For any Ayurveda lover and knower, the perfect place where the elements come together into a one. The fresh Air, the wind as manifestation of the Vata principle of movement, the sea Water feeding the muds (representing the Earth) and the sun mixing up the Fire into this perfect equation. Everything pulsated with life, moved and grew according to the primal principles of nature. And nature is unapologetic. It reshapes rocks into sands, which then get cast away into dunes. It moves the waters and forces the sea and mud “inhabitants” into a continuous procession, resembling a hidden game of survival. At the same time, it creates and feeds new life from its abundant resources. It uses the sun light to bring everything in the spotlight and to showcase this majestic play and in the next moment it hides all that is unholy in the darkness of the night, as it would be afraid, that the world might not understand its ruthless laws.
I spent the week riding my bike along the dikes, finding out the next unwritten rule, that riding a bike in Sankt Peter-Ording, will always be with headwind regardless of the direction, destination and time of day. I enjoyed waking bare foot on the several kilometers of sandy beach, getting cold feet in the water and hiding from the elements in the typical beach chairs to watch spectacular sunsets. I ran into the wind and breath its strength. I met, with awe and curiosity, the sea, mud and beach residents, well at least the ones that decided to drop by and say hello. I tried the local restaurants (yes it’s a plural) and found my favorite one, a traditional restaurant build on pillars at the North Beach. I was amazed by the skills of the sea men and women riding the waves, gracefully engaging the elements in a mesmerizing game of catch and release and I learned from them the true meaning of freedom, which here is not just a mere feeling, but a way of life.
At the end of this perfect week, I came home happy with a sun burned nose – the sun is much stronger than expected with the cold wind – and plans to organize a yoga retreat here. The “barefoot at the beach” feeling lasted a couple of days after my returning home while the lessons I’ve learned about freedom, will probably last for a life time…I guess, in the end, things turned out to be more than fine in the Wild Wild North.