Sitting by the inner or outer waterfall creates the feeling of timeless beauty and the sudden awareness that life is not just about business and accomplishment. Life is also about being and listening, sitting without doing. While this is an obvious truth to read, it is not an easy one to live. Sitting by the waterfall makes us suddenly aware of not paying attention to the other side of life. The “meaning” of the waterfall is slowing down, paying attention to the beauty around us, and listening to the sound of life that we almost always ignore. This meaning is not intellectual, but a feeling engendered by the experience itself. Combining the experiential meaning of the waterfall with the intellectual realization that waterfalls symbolize the transformation of energy, we come to the realization that taking the time to slow down and listen to nature can be transformative.
-from Jeffrey Raff’s book Jung and the Alchemical Imagination
