taking off on the idea of communication without words by using words has a certain charm, just like having a secret channel on the oh so public net.
willingness… first i am honored to be included in a conversation with a couple of no doubt troublemakers ornery enough to challenge the capacities of the previous herd enough to be banned from that digital island. without knowing any particulars sometimes it is not productive to try to describe colors to the colorblind. it’s not their fault and time is short. will try and live up to the spirit animasoul implies and speak from the heart as we get to know each other.
the world of the possible… there have been times when i’ve been allowed to “see behind the curtain” (if we were in wizard of oz land), more precisely seen something beyond the levels of education and understanding that i had been exposed to and absorbed. Raised in a science based family where direct observation and repeatability were the required cornerstones of the world view, many times some of the more rigid precepts have crumbled in moments, and each time i was left feeling that i had been allowed, priviliged actually, to see the inner workings of an entirely different world.
an example… many years ago 5 of us were fishing about 125 miles offshore in an antique wooden vessel built in 1927. she was a classic hull but with that age came the necessity of having seven primed pumps running continuously in order to keep her afloat. Before we sailed i discovered that there was going to be a total eclipse visible from the area we were bound. Normally might have been able to use the dark glass in a welding helmet to look directly at it but this vessel did not have that equipment so put one of the small glass plates in my seabag.
If i remember correctly it was the time of full moon, the tides normally strong there, now ferocious with the moon, the old girl did not have a lot of horsepower. The trawl gear tangled and snarled repeatedly, culminating in an hours long repair on the morning of the coming afternoon eclipse. I decided to have some fun with the young Portugese shipmate Junior who had been at the wheel when the disaster occurred, humor often helps to break the monotony of long or difficult trips, bad weathers etc. i told him that because of his lack of attention earlier there was going to bring more bad luck later in the day. He was going to pay for it!
the time came and it began to darken. Junior had the wheel again so out of sight on the stern i checked progress with the glass seeing that initial bite out of the side of the sun, and proceeded to let him know his time was coming. Ever so slowly the early afternoon sky darkened. it seems to take forever, then finally that eerie almost darkness of totality with the purple ring of flames. He looked at the sky but could not see the sun, Finally i let on about the eclipse and gave him the welding glass. Meanwhile i turned to look around and was imobilized at what was going on. Struck dumb then yelled for him to stop looking at the sun.
For as far as you could see in every direction giant blue tuna were leaping out of the water, dozens of them, twisting and turning. Then they were running at high speed along the surface and launching themselves toward the sky over and over. Shear exuberance. Tail dancing to the perfect alignment. A celebration of absolute magnificance. Pure joy !
All too soon it stopped, they disappeared. all of them. Speechless, the joke was on me. I was ashamed, making a poor attempt at demonstrating a little knowledge, when the larger truth was that this was the special time of celebrating a holy communion of Joy…
Were they concious? how could they be leaping repeatedly into the sky and not know what they doing? were they self aware? self concious ? or is that a peculiar affliction of the hominids, putting actions into verbal thoughts, putting thoughts into sounds about actions, the difference between music and singing, and reading printed text about music.
a little lesson about what we think we know