The rock at the edge of the world
Where lands end and worlds begin.
In May, I found myself in Uluwatu, Bali's southernmost tip, Indonesia. Itself a stretch of rock, attached to the mainland by a spit of land the width of an airport. Its name Ulu - watu literally translates to ‘rock at the end of the world’.
I discovered this fact entirely by accident, as I made my way down an eclectic cliffside to a famous beach one morning. The path took me down through multiple restaurants, people's homes, uneven steps, and over a slight jump across a concrete gap. I reached an inlet where the water washed all the way up through the cliff edges, themselves connecting to form a triangle viewfinder through which the infinite ocean lay in wait beyond. It shimmered with sunlight and surfers, beckoning me to gaze upon it. After a while, I decided to head back up the hill and look for a quieter spot; this one was particularly popular with social media influencers. As I ascended the makeshift route, I came across a cafe, and on the wall it said this. ‘Uluwatu, rock at the end of the world’. This tiny island on the other side of the world was Bali's Land's End.
Landscapes in Mythology
Cosgrove claims that the relationship between mythology and the physical world is symbiotic, in the sense that each’s impact upon the other exists in constant feedback. Landscapes and physical entities can become characters through the influence of human perspectives. We eschew character onto them, not meaninglessly, but because the physical experience they inspire can conjure complex and introspective emotion within ourselves.
A pinnacle historical example of this is the stars. In Europe, the Greeks and Romans crafted entire worldviews from them, and now, when we look up at night, we look out for Canis Major, Libra, and the Milky Way (or the Via Lactea—Road of Milk—as the Romans called it). In the South Pacific, stars have long been associated with navigation, particularly across vast oceans. In Balinese culture, as in many others around the world, the sea is understood as both a giver and a taker of life: a symbol of fertility and a being that demands respect. One that can bestow both the ultimate kindness and yet enact the gravest cruelty. Around the world, stars, oceans and rocks have been granted meaning by people, meaning that has influenced modern perceptions of place and physicality.
From Bali to England: Bridging Cosmologies
Like Uluwatu, Land’s End, the southernmost tip of England, has inspired its own cosmologies. There is something truly intriguing about it. Its beauty, mystique and intrigue have been recorded over millennia. During Greek Antiquity, Land’s End in Cornwall was known as Belerion—the shining land. The point is closely associated with the legend of King Arthur’s Camelot, and more recently, in 1862, Edmond writes that: “the aged and the young, the educated and the uneducated, the Englishman and the foreigner, all regard it as one of the most strikingly sublime and beautiful objects they have ever beheld.” More than just a coastline, it is an emblem of fascination, awe and danger.
I decided to pay that southernmost county a little visit. Just three months after climbing up a cliff in Uluwatu, I was now looking out onto the Atlantic Ocean, sitting beside a small square tent, sipping on a smooth and cinnamon chai latte, whilst my sister attempted to open a cider with a mallet (we forgot the bottle opener). There is a feeling that sits in the air of Cornwall. The coastline shines a brighter shade of blue than in other parts of the country. The cliffs plunge earthward more dramatically, and the skyline seems to stretch farther into the distance. There are fewer motorways, and villages decorate country lanes like old baubles on a tree. Summer was beginning to wane, swaying crops edged towards harvest, and the sea remained calm yet alive. I don’t know that I had a defined goal in mind when spontaneously booking this trip, but I suppose I just wanted to spend time thinking yet again about this topic - what it is that’s so igniting about the edge of sea and shore.
The thing is, I know Cornwall isn't the end of the world. The world I have come to know, through books, school, and experience, is vast and yet contained. Diverse and yet utterly kindered. But in a way, that doesn’t undermine what Land’s End and Uluwatu are. Yes, they are the end of one world, but they are also the beginning of another. The very fact of their spatial recurrence shows us this. Is it so unreasonable to think that Lands End is not a unique cultural landscape but a fundamentally human way of understanding that which may have once been un-understandable? In the past, before we had all these maps, before we all got on planes and ships to see far-off places, perhaps not everyone would have known what lay beyond. Maybe the cliffs that dove into the ocean really did feel like the very end of it all.
Central to the mystique of these geographical thresholds is the very duality of their existence. Land’s End and Uluwatu are symbols of the edge of knowing. They represent the terrifyingly thrilling prospect of all that lies beyond, and they serve as a reminder that all can never be known on the land that lies behind you. They represent a choice between forwards and backwards, the known and the unknown, the past and the future. Their physical beauty is striking, but their emotional resonance is piercing. I sometimes like to imagine an ordinary Balinese person and an ordinary English person, staring at the same ocean, years in the past, utterly incapable of fathoming each other's existence. Land Ends, as you may call them, may indeed be closing off one world, but they are they are also doorways into other worlds, both physically and metaphysically. Just like the stars and the oceans, they connect us because they remind us of our own humble humanity amongst the grandeur of the world in which we exist.
In India, there is another land’s end known as the Vivendakanda Rock (in fact when you start looking into them , they begin to pop up everywhere). This site, in particular, is sacred for its association with the Goddess Kanniyakumari. It is thought that she meditated here, at the edge of her world, and today tourists flock to the rock in droves to explore it. The following poem, written by K. B. Sitaramayya, draws on the way that these geographical extremities have long been a source of introspection and reflection, and I leave it with you as a final nod to these intriguing landscape features and the unique and fascinating emotional impact they seem to have had on human populations for centuries.
THE VIVEKANANDA ROCK
(Kanyakumari)
At the Land’s end is the Soul’s End,
The rock that stands every human shock
Stands beckoning him that understands,
Calls him from all that is false.
It calls them too, they are not a few,
Whom divine beauty from human duty draws,
Whose joys spring from no little toys:
They see the sun and moon rise and set
And rise again in all their glory there
They that seek escape also visit the Cape,
To ferry to the rock makes them merry.
Among them all you sometimes find a soul
Finding a balm for all ills in the Calm
May suddenly discover its destined goal.
sources
https://landsend-landmark.co.uk/nature/lands-end-history/
https://substack.com/home/post/p-167524350
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/3647/
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003575269-10/landscapes-myths-gods-humans-denis-cosgrove?context=ubx
https://www.wisdomlib.org/history/compilation/triveni-journal/d/doc72630.html
