Tickets to Waterfalls

Their secrets and disposition

The author in front of his falls

Peter Geyer

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Waterfall......nothing can harm it all Jimi Hendrix (1967)

I bought you tickets for the waterfall,
and you poured away all the change Jack Bruce and Pete Brown (1969)

The American poet and author Raymond Carver loved rivers, "where water comes together with other water" (1986). I love waterfalls.

Some I've seen are public, like Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, a pleasant urban surprise, or like Waimea Falls on Oahu Island, Hawaii, entertainment in the park. There, at regular intervals, locals dive Weissmuller-like into its pool from the rocky heights above.

Not far from where I live, in rural south - eastern Australia, the impressive Hopkins Falls spill briefly and broadly over a rock face, past a nearby road winding through the verdant countryside, for which it's a central point easily visible. Different aspects of extraversion perhaps, but from the surrounding environment, not the waterfalls themselves.

My preference, though is for those subtle and hidden cascades. If water symbolises the unconscious, how much more those that quietly, yet sometimes spectacularly, appear out of the equally mysterious forest, or around a river bend. A place of spirit, anima. Solutio, perhaps if you want to think alchemically. Places to stare and reflect, or not think at all, just listen, with no radio, phones and the like.

A few years ago, I visited my namesake town in Germany, Geyer. At the end of a fitful day of exploration, I ventured into the Geyerschur (or forest) and without warning or notice came upon a nameless waterfall leaping over red rocks and soil, then disappearing underground almost immediately. Perhaps the water joins the Geyersbrucke (or stream), which runs under the town itself, appearing finally on its outskirts. Or perhaps not.

Closer to home, in the rugged and spectacular Gariwerd mountains, two hours drive and a short walk takes me to the aptly named Silverband Falls. Although forewarned by the telltale burbling, gurgling sounds, it appears somewhat abruptly, in a natural grey rock amphitheatre. A silver line heads downward to a small pile of red rocks, to disappear completely; out of sight, on its journey, to no obvious destination. Small stones crunch and crackle under your feet.

To reach nearby Epacris Falls, you hug the stone cliff as you walk up a short, narrow trail. It takes you face to face with small streams of water dripping down moss-covered rock, almost invisible. Following a 20 minute walk, Turret Falls distinguishes itself with a thin stream of water directed onto one rock, as though there's a point to be made–" focus on this, not that". In contrast, the solid McKenzie Falls one or two miles away expresses its beauty and power publicly, in open space.

It's possible to spend hours on narrow, damp trails searching for the different ways water falls: it's a quest of sorts. Australia's equivalent to the sights of California's Highway 1, The Great Ocean Road, provides access near the surf beach town of Lorne to a number of distinctive falls. The Kalimna Falls give you the impression of being in Plato's cave. You can walk in the cave behind its low thick cascade for an inside looking out experience

The waterfall I've been visiting for most of my life, however is Erskine Falls, hidden from easy view, but a popular and spectacular vision nonetheless. It's a special place for me to visit. I come there in times of happiness and of stress. If you come to Australia and visit me, this is where I'll take you, as a few have experienced. When I learned my sister was dying, some 30 months ago, I drove for hours to this spot to sit and ponder.

Until a few years ago, access was via an unmade road badly graded, with a steep descent down to the head of the falls. Then a steep and winding trail to get you to the foot level and the burbling of the small Erskine River, flowing over rocks and logs, past trees and ferns, heading for the coast 6 miles away. You stare, fascinated at the patterns created by the dashing of the various water streams against the rock face, solid one minute, diaphanous the next.

It's a less private experience now; you have to pick your time if, like me you prefer quiet in these spots. Tourists regularly appear, not before 9am usually, and sometimes in buses, although few venture down the now more user-friendly steps, viewing instead from aside and above. Something worth sharing, really.

Some years ago, I drove 100 miles before dawn to where the Erskine River meets the sea and proceeded up a trail alongside the river, crossing and wading where required. Wisely, I chose a time when snakes were inactive.

It was a great experience finally achieving the quest, arriving before the Falls and its temenos from the river itself, clambering over rocks and fallen mossy logs to get the closest vantage point, feet dangling above its pool, staring at the ferns and rocks, and the falls, thinking of plunging in.

But that was a later experience.

Perhaps this sort of thing is inferior sensing for intuitives, or a rocky, hard place for dominant introverted thinkers like me to clamber over and sort and classify the basic principles of the world. Perhaps it's nothing at all.

But I keep finding new paths to the waterfall.

References:

Herman Borenzweig : Jung and Social Work (1984) (University Press of America)

Jack Bruce and : Tickets to Waterfalls (Chappell & Co ASCAP)

from Songs For a Tailor Pete Brown (1969) CD: Polydor 835 242-2.

Raymond Carver :Where Water Comes Together with Other Water (1986) Vintage.

: A New Path to the Waterfall (1984) Harper Collins.

Jimi Hendrix : May This Be Love (Bella Godiva Music ASCAP)

from Are You Experienced (1967) CD: Polydor 521 036-2.

This article was published (with some photos) in the Bulletin of Psychological Type Vol.23 No. 8, 2000.

Photograph courtesy of Jamie Johnston, CAPT Library. PETER GEYER (INTP) is a consultant, researcher and writer in the field of C G Jung's theory of psychological types. He conducts MBTI Accreditation programs and presents internationally on a regular basis. Peter is a life member of AusAPT and a professional affiliate of the Australian Psychological Society.