everything else is crap

During the last couple of months I've been visited by quite a few ghosts from Artman's past. Old acquaintances who've found me through FaceBook and distant relatives phone calling out of the blue. I've bumped into a few past lovers
(in one case literally) and was visited by an old friend and former band mate who I hadn't seen in 40 years.

Now, I accept, as an axiom, the proposition that all we create our own realities. But sometimes it boggles my mind how
that works.
Like now, with all these recent "blasts from the past".
As far as I knew, I was happily living my low-key island life when all these chance encounters came along. What the hell did I do to manifest this stuff? I'm not saying any of this is bad stuff, just very curious.

Understandably, revisiting one's past can run the mind through a gauntlet of memories and emotions, re-open old wounds or re-live past joys, reawaken former pains and prejudices, issues unresolved and unfinished business.
Then there's the boatload of "what ifs" and "whys".
"How could this or that situation been better or worse?" "What difference might it have made to have turned right instead of left?"

Selfish questions all steeped in ego; a sort of feeble attempt to over-master memories of the past and surely not the best of all places for the mind to dwell too long.

Anyway, I put myself through that gauntlet and, in the end, happily came to the place where mind is right, heart is healed and soul is satisfied.
Detached from ego, it's an easy thing to be grateful for those children of God whose lives I've touched and who's lives have touched mine.

Our courses had crossed, drifted their separate ways and now, for some God only knows reason, have briefly crossed again. In the end, all that really matters is the happy knowledge that we're all still weathering the waves and making way
under sail.

Everything else is crap.

out on the water over the weekend

2 birds, 2 boats & another amazing sunset

a wanderer's song

A wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I'll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I'l be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I'll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me'll know I'm there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I'll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels.

John Masefield (1878 - 1967)

a light on the horizon

Breathless, weightless, floating, peaceful, safe, rested, relaxed, content, quiet, awareness of being, one.

A shocking sudden crash through the surface to an aggressive awakening of bright morning light of day. The raw smell of salt, the roar of waves and wind, the taste of the sea. Eyes blinded by sunlight, a gasp for air and the struggle to stay afloat.

Yards away a skiff, deserted, drifting on the tide. A frantic struggling swim for the rail the dry embrace of her hull; the illusion of safety.
"Take bearings and stock", his instincts rose. "The way of the wind, the run of the tides."

The sun rose in the Eastern sky bringing its welcome warmth. A gentle swell on the ocean's face and the comforting calls from laughing gulls riding on the air. "Land nearby but where away?"

The sky to the west still dark, the uplifting swell extended his view and there away, a light on the horizon. It sank from sight as the sea exhaled but he knew. The next rise of the swell would name the light his "Home" and he would make for it.

She was miles off, he reckoned, within line of sight for sparse seconds at a time and fading fast in the spreading daylight. Spirit renewed, he spread the main and charted his course.

In the rush of the morning, no time to think, "Just do."
In the warm afternoon, the hunger, "Just eat."
Ever west, the skiff made way in fair winds.

The sun at its height, stole his wind. Equatorial calms turned the tide and the skiff drifted in the doldrums, "Just row."
A long breathless afternoon, the sun at full fire, "Just row."
Mindless melancholy so far from his home, "Just row."
But for the splash of the oars, hour after endless hours, the deafening silence of the sea, "Turn the glass, just row."

The sun well into the west, the sea began to stir. A cool gust captured in the sail and she made way. From the south, off to starboard, a squall.

The wind and sea rose; the sky darkened, again he took his bearings, again the swell revealed her. Clearly now in the gathering dark; his light, his desire, his "Home".
Nearer to him than before but not near enough for shelter from this. . .
"There's nothing for it, ride her out!
Batten down, shorten sail. . ."
The rain came on in torrents.
"With all your heart, all your power and all your love, take to the tiller, slacken the sheet, sail!"

A merciless war of wind and water, rigging straining against the gale; he held fast. Tossed in the swell, provisions washed to sea, she was taking on water; alternations of bailing and sailing, clarity and confusion, fear and excitement;
Still, he held fast.

Then a whisper. Softly spoken as if through all eternity,
"O God, your sea is so great and my boat is so small."
In prayer, he had realized, become aware; the trials and light that lead him, had lit the light in his heart.
Then, as fast as it had come over him, the storm was past.

The moonless dark made her clearly now. Fair winds prevailed and clouds cleared. He looked to the stars and knew their names; Orion, Polestar, Southern Cross. They too had been his own.

On the horizon, "Home". Westward she sailed, the light of new life drawing ever closer to his eye. Yet the more way the skiff made, the deeper she drank. The day had come at a cost, he knew. All delusion purged, only his faith remained.

He tied off the sheet to hold his heading; still nearer she drew. He lay back in the stern, a tired hand on the tiller, his gaze fixed ahead. He felt the warmth of the water, then sank quietly into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Breathless, weightless, floating, peaceful, safe, rested, relaxed, content, quiet, awareness of being, one.

skypirates

There's a feeling I get when I'm sailing at sunset. Like a presence, a spirit is riding the wind just over my shoulder. A warm calming consciousness on the horizon where sea and sky meet; but excited, mischievous poltergeists where the keel cuts it's wake.

SkyPirates, photoshop & original photography,
16 x 20 matted & framed

They are SkyPirates; the breath of the adventure, the navigators of dreams. The mothers and daughters; the wives of past lives. Following closely behind as silent as night, they board to lay waste to worries, intoxicate with their naked beauty and steal your heart.

off the rock

If you're a thinking person living full time on an island that's barely 2 miles wide by 4 miles long, sooner or later "island fever" kicks in and your brain starts to feel a bit sautéed.
When that happens, most of us locals know, it's time to get
"off the rock".

Many hop in their cars and drive up to the mainland for a few days. (of course the price of gas is putting a crimp in that one, aye?) Others suffer the indignity of inspection, detection, infection, neglection and selection just to board a plane, fly north and be made crazy by the folks back home. (been there, done that too. . .)

So for me these days, wind and water is the way to go.

right of way

Now let's see, I'm sailing off his leeward rail and that gives me the right of way, I think. . .
Well, let's look at this another way. . .
He's 110 feet of oak under full sail at 20 knots, I'm 18 feet of fiberglass. . .
screw the right of way, he can go first!