Tall Ships on the Horizon

I watched the ferry fill with cars and people anxiously, in deep angst that there wouldn't be enough room left for me to come aboard. Though entry into my teen years had brought a noticeable seachange toward successes, I still had tracers of earlier imprints of 'missed boats," -- me standing on the shore, as the ferry-boats left frothy wakes behind them like giant fishtails. Examples? — “Born too late”—to marry “Sexy Rexy” (Sir Rex Harrison—English Actor)—he was born in 1908, myself in 1951—when I was 12, he was 55; “born too early”—in 1967 they still hadn’t developed interstellar space travel, except on Star Trek (it’s now rolling into 2016, and they still haven’t figured that out.)

While we can literally ‘miss a boat,’ we can still catch a water taxi; take the next ferry . . . It is not the disaster I once considered it. Actually, I’ve found that ‘missing the boat’ can often be an unexpected blessing silvering into our lives: Had I remembered, at age 60, that I had widow’s benefits available, instead of 2 years later at age 62, I might still be financially eking-by in Arizona. Instead, "exiling" here to the Midwest, I am graced financial equilibrium as I joyfully prepare for my return to my beloved saltwater and desert environs; all-the-while, soaking in soul-deeping spiritual soup here in the heartland, that will forever bless me.

In my earlier years, the ‘boat missing' scenario really rang true for me—I had accumulated a lengthy list of grievances against boats that had left me behind. I lived in that story, and I found lots of 'evidence' to 'prove' it. This was a series of decades when I didn’t believe in any ‘beyond’ past my points of grief: beyond my 16 years as an Arizona tour guide, beyond my late husband’s death in 1996, beyond the storm-steeped Magi-sea-a of a teen boy’s lightening-silvered eyes, tempest ceiling giving way to the swirling stars in our heads, standing together in the froth of Yemonja’s angry surf—and the soul-fissuring event of his later departure.

Sailing the briny inner and outer seas, however, eventually dispels the sense that our only good is in our past: draws us, in spite of our resistance, into new stories, new adventures, healing us into something more than what we were. We are quickened anew—we love again, get curious again; laugh again--even at our dogged resistance to do so. We get it into our heads that "to heal is to betray," -- to betray the love we shared, a loyalty we embraced. It is not so. Changes in the present, including the renewal of joy, are not a dismissal. There is much ‘beyond’ our past, beyond who we were, our charted waters; and our confounding habit of always looking behind us for our zeniths (a lot of us live like that.) We develop a false penance for that which we do not forgive, in others and/or ourselves; we become tenacious in clinging to the emotional debt we create for ourselves and the stories of why that should be so.

 

There comes a time, however, without discounting or disparaging our pasts, that the briny winds and saltwater seas wash our spirits clean: we bring our gazes forward, to contemplate what is now arriving to us from across the waters, piquing our interest: something tantalizing carried in on the winds; a Tall Ship crests the sea’s horizon, then comes to port. We get the audacity to come on board. We are ushered to the ship's wheel. Silvered Intuition swings its leg over the railing and comes to stand with us at the helm, steering us out to sea, our breath catching upon the return of inner stars--our inner compass needle pointing True North.

 

Asked at this cusp of the New Year to write a letter to myself of what is now wanting to birth inside of me, and planned exercises to support that process, I sat down to the task--anticipating the familiar listing of New Year resolutions and brief narrative bursts of my goals and objectives for the coming year. Got something different: instead of a list of events, behavior changes, circumstances and situations that I wished to achieve (I still harbor those), what presented on paper was skipping-stones of energy-states I wish to seed into the waters of this coming year: rhythmic, poetic, curious, inspired, resilient, energetic, focused, on-point, fleet-footed, cat-agile; living in my soul-soup, silken;

 

free to be messy and soot-footing around in the charcoal of my creative fire—dancing in the flames of a series of beach bonfires, roasting possibilities by the water’s edge, loosing whoops of joy into the stars.

This is exceedingly different from any previous New Year’s resolution lists or narratives — inviting unexpected gains, encounters and considerations to wander in, pull up a driftwood chair, shoot the breeze into the night of possibilities--of soulutions, Intuition flanks me at the helm, I am sailing into the Mystery of Becoming, no longer land-locked, but sea-bound. Joy and ensouled intrigue the compass; map-making supplies below deck.

 

Tall Ships on the horizon!!!

 

SEA ORPHANS, Treasures in the Cargo Hold of Our Past

Sometimes what we need is not necessarily to

explore new waters, but rather to re-sea/see; to see newly what we assume we already ‘know’ about ourselves—to look deeper, with newly garnered wisdom. There is a certain sense of safety, even ego satisfaction, in assuming that something is “in our past,” – that we’re done; finished with it; no longer warranting any further investigation; ceasing to hold any intrigue for us, viewed as something already charted and explored, drifted to the bottom of our consciousness, sitting, long-time unopened, half buried in the sandy bottom of our awareness, hasps rusted shut.

So—this is an invitation to dive deep, and unearth that old chest, bring it to the surface, loose the hasps and sift for missed treasures—for what may not have been fully breathed, fully lived: orphans of your spirit—not all of them necessarily sealed off by trauma or dramatic events; sometimes just slipping away from our focus, our awareness as other things took precedence. Sometimes, as illustrated in the 2000 movie: Woman on Top, starring Penelope Cruz, Murilo Benicio and Mark Feuerstein, we need a complete break from what is no longer working, along with the freeing idea that we’re never going back—that we are, indeed, done with it. Convinced of that, we let ourselves explore, become more than what we knew, suddenly freed of what had become stifling; suffocating.

However, when we trade out what has been for what we are becoming, breaking free into our larger selves, we can end up leaving behind deep, rich parts of ourselves, parts that are still of vibrant value when growth and adjustments are made. Often, in this throw-away culture, it never occurs to us that we can retrieve something good from our past, or that we’d want to.

With, perhaps, years and miles between the ‘us’ of then, and the ‘us’ of now—there may be, to our great surprise something that beckons from the past, something radiant and beautiful, that yet shines for us, from the depths, from below the tides of our now daily lives; not realizing that we have become the Something New that was needed in that old circumstance. Is there something worth bringing up from the sea of your past experience, something worth retrieving and blowing back into it the breath of life, something that wasn’t fully experienced, because you were not really ready, then, because you had to go away to grow into it?

‘Orphan’ can be interpreted as “unsupported,” that which was never ‘fed’. It can also be interpreted as “free.” Free to explore; free to reconsider something that will feed your sea-soul. Khalil Gibran captured this: “If though has two loaves of bread, sell one and buy white hyacinths for thy soul.” Sometimes what will feed our soul is to break through our own traditional interpretations of our past; things dismissed, discounted; or even let go of because they were considered out of reach, unavailable at the time. One of the things most difficult for us is to let go of old conclusions: to reconsider something we rejected, or just let slip through our fingers, and re-evaluate it; re-interpret the situation, the circumstance.

An unknown author comments: “Before you can break out of prison, you must first realize you’re locked up.” Our most confining jail can be the places we feel most sure of in ourselves—places where we are stuck in our interpretations; glued even, to a particular evaluation of something, it never even occurring to us to question it.

The New Year is a time of resolutions and evolutions—and, now, in my book, reevaluations. A little over two years ago, I came to this no-sea of the state of Missouri, heartland of the U.S.— with riches of its own; however completely landlocked—dry of any sea, at any time, ancient or recent. Geologic history indicates there never has been saltwater here. This extreme of not even a hint of the sea called me inward, to my Inner-Sea, seeking nourishment of the Sea Mother, to resume with her a deeper appreciation, respect and resonance, a renewal. Pushed by this no-sea, in 2018 I will return to the Pacific Northwest I had left behind, in a new location within that—with a now world-seasoned appreciation of what I left behind. Sometimes, it takes a lot of “far-ing,” in my case: over 27 years and 1800 miles of distance, before I was ready to look back and consider what it was that I was so sorely missing. Pushed by the extremity of land-locked-ness here, I found myself hunting my needle to mend my fishnet, a sewing—and within it, a sowing: the seed of an idea to return to the sea—a reinstatement of a part of my nature I had been ignoring for many years; a return, a recognition of something for which I was not fully ready before this no-sea experience brought home to me the yearning inside me for the Sea-Mother; and the hidden gifts I had orphaned: the girl with drawing pencils in her hand, tablet perched on her knees, cool waves silking her toes; the young adult bundled against buffeting winds sharing wine, French bread and fresh-caught crab with a friend at a weathered picnic table as the waves crashed like cymbals against the rocks.  

Sometimes we need to go away, so we can come back of our own choosing, rather than it just being where we happen to find ourselves. For me, this is call to congruency, a matching of my inner and outer worlds, restoring me to a new balance and harmony between bodily presence and spirit intrigued. This is a call to letting the tides wash me clean of conflictedness, of having my innards and outers match, to re-growing my mer-tail, consciously swimming with the currents of my psyche, into a new, richly embellished Tale of my choosing; finding, fathoms under what had become my daily consciousness, a self I no longer knew existed, revealing a richer, more vibrant life-current than I ever ere imagined.

Permission to Come Aboard: Cat Tales

Contrary to what one might expect, with most breeds of cats being anti-water, the ship’s cat has been a common presence on trading, exploration and naval ships, dating back approximately 9,500 years. They were carried on ships to catch mice and rats—a source of equipment damage (ropes, woodwork, and later, electrical wiring) and posed economic threats (foodstuffs and grain cargo) and health risks (disease). Master rodent-catchers, adaptable, agile, and welcome companions to long-gone sailors, cats are well-suited for ship life [paraphrased from wikipedia.org]. 

So, the next time you see a Tall Ship--think cats: cats slinking along the deck in low-slung stalking mode, high-perched in a crow’s-nest, executing aerial maneuvers on sail rigging, choreographing nimble rope-dances on sail lines, serving as elegant yard-drapery and  rail ornamentation, and stealing our hearts—because they are irresistibly, fully a cat, nothing hesitant about it.

Cats are ardently curious, master observers; able to spring into fluid, immediate and ever so precise action: qualities that are required by a seafarer of any longevity. We humans, natives to land, out at sea, are in a foreign environment—our survival dependent on our keenness to the sea’s moods. We don’t tame the sea; we adjust ourselves to it—some of us becoming very good at it: becoming skilled at cat energy.  

Our perceptions on land, where we are not at risk of drowning, can become smudgy, inattentive, unfocused, less than acute—our senses dulled. The additional risk posed by being at sea can heighten awareness, underscored by the salt-brined, negative ion quickening that comes off wind and tidal flux—there can come a heady delight from standing on deck in blowing sea-spray. However, there are two sides to the doubloon of a vibrant life (our word doubloon is a fusion of the French and Spanish spellings—meaning double—it was double the worth of a pistole). And, so, too, there is double value, two sides to the coin of our well-being; our sense of all's right in our world:

 

ª      —one is an inner, two-part, sense of worth—partially it is experiential—that of those peak moments of really feeling good in our own skin; a fluid, inner balance, a sense of resonance with our environ, of direct pleasure—it is also the inner conviction that we have value, that we have merit and appeal, that people like having us around—that we’re worthy of things working out for us, worthy of our blessings.

ª      —second is a self-measured sense of competency in the outer world, in the 3D—that we are effective, capable of producing not only effects—but directed effects—ones with a series of desired results; the sense that we can chart our course and navigate our world, not just make the boat float—though that’s a good start.  

Cats are good instructors on both of these essentials. One of the blessings of feline perspective, unless “neuroticized” by people, is that they don’t question their value, question whether or not they “should have” their needs met, or their wants met. For them, it’s a given. ‘Yep, better open that can of sardines. I’m right here, paws licked,’ and "Oh, yah, scratch me behind the ears.' And, while there are those occasional “sins”- where they miss the mark (with acute, un-admitted embarrassment), cats largely are very accurate and effective in producing the results which they, and we—in the case of the rodent catching, want and expect from them.  

What cats have is permission. Whether hanging out at a naval shipyard, or watching Star Trek movies, most of us are familiar with: “Permission to come aboard, Sir?” – Cat’s already have it. Ever try to explain to a cat why  he or she shouldn’t be on top of the galley counter?

 

We could use a little of that audacity when it comes to our culture’s habit of cultivating self-contempt and shame, and try on cat-style cheek—going for the zest, for our gold, our doubloons—including our right to define what that gold is.  

Dare to be cat-sassy; give yourself permission to go for: who you really are, and what you really want. Don't settle for leftovers, for dinner scraps from the table. Don't settle for someone else's definition of what your life should or could be. And, as you're exploring that, allow yourself to contemplate your options through the confidence of a cat--and, update your life-script accordingly. Change your script to one that doesn't question your worth--but considers it a given: decide that you are worthy to be 'out on the water,' charting your course, living your 'cat tale.' Map the life you really want. Embark!

 

Author, speaker and visionary career/success and book coach, Tama Kieves http://www.tamakieves.com says it this way: . . . " We are not trying to “figure this out” but let it out." It's about permission to tune-in to what's already within you, already on-board your being, that wants to express--(ever met a silent Siamese cat?), spring into action, engage. Dare!!! Dare to be feline cheeky. Give yourself permission to express all of the grace and fire that is already inside of you. Give it voice; give it form. Let it out. Allow it presence in this world. We need you, as you really are; the truth of you out-pictured into radiant form in our world.

Follows three mini cat-tales, poetic snap-shots of Felis catus in action:


Night Velvet

I pour out of the bag of my past,
a sleek black cat slipping from a burlap sack –
shake my paw at the puddle of wet on the ground,
pause—sniffing the night damp —
silvering invisible paw-prints into the mirror puddles,
sleeking into the sauntering black silk of oncoming night . . .
first star presenting.

Spilt Milk

Klink.
Spilt milk pools over the freshly scrubbed surface.
“Here – kitty, kitty.”

Brenda, like a Rorschach ink blot, as cat, appears.
Together, they lap the liquid tablecloth back from the edges.
Their noses meet at the sideways glass;
Not a tear in their eyes.

Top Cat

The cat thumped stiffly
On its three stumpy legs –
The fourth hovering, tenderized by
The “top cat” fight that had left him
Un-king of the night before.

Holding him gingerly in her lap
She whispered softly,
“We are more than a morning after
   a midnight brawl.”

Beacons of Light In Dark Seas

We are blessed to have beacons of light as we traverse the seas of our lives; follows two quotes from inspirational speaker (TED talks), writer and workshop leader Tama Kieves, from her book Inspired & Unstoppable (www.tamakieves.com), that I often use to remember myself and others to whom we truly are:

You’re cosmic royalty in a skin suit, baby. You move with a thousand bells ringing your name and secret dimensions reverberating within, and everyone needs and wants what you have. The catch is, you have to remember what you have. 

We’re listening to a dynamic, on-location wisdom, moment by moment. It’s about following instinct more than dried ink. No, were not charging into a fire without a helmet. It’s a bit more like charging into all conditions, bringing the fire with us. We embody a love that creates opportunities where we go and whatever we do.

Stories, Navigational Charts of Our Life-Seas

Each Christmas we gather to hear the retelling of a story of a man from the Middle East who preached a radical change in our collective story—from one of retribution to one of love: love God; love your neighbor as yourself. And yet our world still trembles under our habit of shaming and negative conclusions that there is no way out for us, no hope: but there is a seachange in the wind.

Our stories are the sea charts by which we navigate our lives—the spells by which we cast the very essence of our life adventures—the substance from which they form. They determine whether we stay in port, or venture out to sea, and largely, the courses that we will explore—or not. Embedded in these story-charts are the values we will place on the conditions, events and relationships we experience on our journeys. I have known people who say they don’t like surprises, but I’ve always loved getting blown off course, getting lost—finding myself arriving into a strange new land—in a part of the city I’ve never been to before, through the door of a shop-front I’ve never been into before, in the engineering section of the library checking out navigation systems. We mostly think in terms of having a set of choices: ‘Yes; No; Maybe.’ To these three, I like to add ‘What is it?’—an element of inquisitiveness—a stance of openness, that isn’t yet conclusive; a space to grow into—feel into something new. While gambling casinos have never held any interest for me (not a large enough percentage of return) —getting blown off course, getting lost, always pays off in my book.  

Yet, even in the rich nuances of getting lost, checking out the local treasures and offerings, we are still under the operating-system of our stories—through which all choices are filtered—often guided by one-liner story abbreviations within the larger net of our archetypal patterns. In the movie Into the Woods, Johnny Depp’s Big Bad Wolf tells Little Red Riding Hood,: “The story you tell is the spell.”

Observing a young woman negotiating sea-stacks, outcrops of rocks at the ocean’s edge,  the question of will she leap across that rushing froth of tide-water thrashing between the two rocks?—or will she climb back down and go around? Whether she jumps across or goes around is contained in an internalized descriptor in her story of what kind of person she thinks she is; something like: “Always one to take a risk if she thinks she has half a chance; it seems that Something is always there reaching out to help her; helping her scramble to safety; to the prize.”—or, instead, “Ever cautious, knowing far too many people count on her, she carefully back-traces the climb of rock to the security of the sand and sought the way around.” These are operating systems—spells with which we cast the quality of our life-experiences, the events and our interpretations of them: Who We Are, Where We’re Going, Why—and What We Can Be, are formed out of our stories.

The ‘What We Can Be’ is the opening in our stories, the lu purtuni, the doorway, the opportunity to become more, something different, than we have been. We often don’t know it, but our history does not define who we are, but rather what we project out into the future from referencing that history. But wonder if we can create a different future by telling a different story?

I am astounded by how attached we become to our stories, as much to the negative ones as well as the positive ones, by how resistant we can become to changing our stories, avoiding like the plague looking at any in-congruencies. We cling tenaciously to the old stories, conflicting though they may be, cleaving to them like a broken mast in a shipwreck, bedraggled in the sea, refusing to change our stories, even if they are drowning us.

Depp’s Into the Woods line, “The story you tell is the spell,” is a seachange in our collective consciousness that is happening now, we are opening to the concept that our internalized stories about who we are, who we can be, the under-the-breath comments we make to ourselves, the quick, one-liner, pronouncements that we make to others—often unchecked statements, are nautical charts of the seas we sail, and how we will fare in those adventures. Ready for a seachange?

Nautical Gypsy Wordsmith

I was graced by my friend Deb with the moniker of “Nautical Gypsy Wordsmith”—of all the things I could be on this planet, that is “It” in my book—and in my heart; for this Nautical Gypsy not only sails the seas of the ocean, but also the star sea, and the heart sea—allowing me even to go to the desert lands Sedona; skim the flanks of “Lady” Mingus Mountain, sheltering the Verde Valley, Arizona, where I was graced to live for 16 years, and to which I will bi-annually return upon my relocation to the Pacific Northwest in 2018. 

While ‘waltzing with an anchor’ brings up difficult images, being anchored, at least having a ‘harbor’ to which I can return and drop anchor, a port in the storm, is physically and psychically necessary, and renewing. We all need “pause” — “time out” — a place where it is safe “to stand in the gap” —  in refuge from that gremlin, 'the pursuit of perfection.' Embarking on this wordsmith journey, the carrier-wave upon which I hope to bring deeply explorative considerations of freedom and joy, two REALLY good reasons to be here in the planet. As I started this wordsmith journey, December 1st, there was a niggle in me, of: “Wonder if I 'miss the boat?'—my ‘word-arrows’ miss the mark (originally, 'sin' means missing the mark, and is still a term used by archers), or, the worry of "maybe I should have taken more minutes, hours (days, weeks?) —really honed those words, polished them up until their surfaces were satin-sheened, like the patinated ebony and ivory keys of a piano." 

Well, I didn’t do that, though -- I just plunged in, tail (tale) and all, into these waters of blogging. I didn’t wait to get perfect; I only waited till I got ‘ready.’ That’s a heady word: what is it, and how is it, that we know when we are ‘ready’ for something? Was I ready to get married when I did? Not as ready as I thought--I found I had to grow into it, grow a deeper, wider and wiser sense of what it was all about. Was I ready when my husband passed in a most difficult death? No — I wailed, in deep distress, internally, and externally, at times—years later.  

The other day, I had a woman share with me that she had never loved, and she was musing to me whether it was better to have loved and lost, or to have never have loved at all—therefore avoiding the pain of the loss. I answered unequivocally, without hesitation: ‘to have loved and lost,’ explaining that I would willingly pay the price again of potential loss should that kind of love show up in my life again. We all make our choices, and they are to be honored—and, I am so glad I was willing to put up with the ‘gaff’ of that loss, what at times truly made me feel that I had been impaled, because I am a far-richer and deeper sea-ed woman, deeped in the mysteries of the stars, sea, land and love—and I would have it no other way. I came to the Earth to learn this, amongst other things: the amazing, spontaneous joy that can spray out around you in a halo of water droplets when a wave crashes a rock right next to you; the strange sense of “thank you” that comes when you’ve been too spacey, and being so, you slip on sandstone rock and the ground slaps you back into some kind of coherence.   

Experience is the event, but it is in the later organic, or deliberate, ‘naming and claiming’ – the defining and contemplation that it becomes integrated into us, a part of our way of seeing and being in this world. At least while we are on this earth, we are, more than anything, a creatures of story--of our wordsmithing. Our bones know that as a species on this planet, we have sat by the campfires intrigued, spellbound, by the sharing of stories: we still are. We sit around the pale fires of our TV’s, computers, smart phones, big screen movie theaters, Christmas plays and candle lit dinner tables of a winter’s night—telling stories: from brief snatches of “Oh—I saw Meg down at McGregor’s Mercantile,” to deep, nuanced, richly narrated yarns of love, exploits and adventures: Sea (see)-tales.  

I grew up with a variety of traditional, albeit watered-down, fairy tales (tails--navigating systems)—including The Arabian Nights. The ones that most captured me in those very early years were the ones about flying carpets, horses and ships—and Aladdin’s lamps. They bespoke to me of possibilities, being able to reach into exotic lands and seas of both body and spirit—the rich scent of spices and brews, strains of music floating like scarves over the sand dunes, rippling of moonlight on a satin night sea; firelight gleaming from another’s eyes in the flashes of recognition and knowingness that is kindled in us when we are in proximity of a resonant soul. Our eyes tell unspoken stories, the body is always telling us stories about what it senses and feels. A Sony executive was asked how he so consistently made success-building decisions: his answer—I ask my stomach, “Yes? — or no?”—explaining that it never lied to him, as the head is wont to do.  

So, as we enter into the winter deep and candle cheer, when we dive below the surface of culturally cultivated frantic-ness, not-enough-ness, what we didn’t do, can’t have or how we don’t measure up . . . we have the opportunity to pause, to stand for some very long moments in the gap, in The Silence, to drink deep from the well of the stars and the mysteries of the night seas, and our very souls—that reminds us to our natural state of joy and freedom, to celebrate this divine inheritance with all of our fellow soul-lights in the velvet darkening of winter.   

Word Sea

Word Sea

by TaVie "Coquille" Jazlyn

September 19, 2014

 

I wander torn edges of ocean shores

Surf the roll of desert dunes within my thought-trains,

Red sun sinking toward midnight stars.

 

Words course through my veins, spill forward

Tumbling over each other trying to get out

Of the hot mouth of my mind.

 

Letters replace corpuscles, phrases and sentences

Swim in place of amino-chains,

Pulse, push past one another.

 

Each breaks surface to peer for my net,

Begging my attention of awareness—

Don’t let us drown! Give us breath; give us life.

 

We’ve come to pet the silk of mushroom ribs with you

Speak the breeze’s velvet teasing of your eyelashes,

Form the golden pale drop of peach dew on your lower lip.

 

Don’t let us sink into oblivion! We’ll intoxicate you

With black truffle oil, swoon you with aged

Lavender balsamic vinegar over vanilla-bean gelato.

 

Let us take you there, polish you off in a draw of tannin dark tea,

Leave you sleeping on the sand under the scythe of the moon,

Waves lapping at the fan of your hair,

 

Tug you into memories of spiraling seagulls at ship ports,

Rough slide of cargo boxes on deck, creak of a pried lid,

Rasp of men’s voices, belled by the rare punctuation of women’s timbre.

 

We are the memory of your future, schooling your senses

Readying you for what arrives in our darting silver scales

Slip-silvering through your mind.

 

We are living words: fish us from the sea of your wits,

Raise the net, see our wriggling flickering shine

Salting your mind with star-fire.

Mer-Tail Musings

I am growing back my mermaid's tail . . . I've started wearing long strings of pearls, strands of water-diamond rhinestones. What is it that I am reclaiming here -- that has been circling the ship, grazing the skin of the water's surface, then disappearing with a splash under the waves?

I find myself looking over the ship rail, down to just below the water's surface -- at a mer-tailed version of myself. She breaks the surface and peers up at me. Gazing back into her eyes, I wonder what it is that I will discover as I slip overboard and into the sea. . . .

My tail has reformed: in reclaiming my sea-tail -- I'm claiming my "see-tale"-- jurisdiction over the way I see myself, the world, and my place in it. It's okay that it’s a tale in progress. I turn over on my back, and slap the water’s surface, testing how it feels to have a tail again . . .  a see-tale of my own that I use, like a tail -- as a rudder to steer me,  to navigate these new waters of my life now opening before me.

As I float on my back, tail (caudal fin) gently sweeping up and down in the water, points of light come to my mind--different experiences of joy and connection with others--moments of being spellbound by natures beauty and might; also tracers of regret; disappointment. It's the first time I can own the regrets and disappointments without shame -- this arriving with the restoration, the reclamation, of my tail/tale.

There is majesty, royalty, reintroduction to Neptune's Court that graces us in taking responsibility for our own interpretive powers. We become visible again to ourselves, we grow a tail/tale of our own interpretive voice, a presence--free of the shame of our own self-abandonment when we put others definitions of us as superseding our own. Our song becomes whole again, rather than fractured strains of our innate melody carried around with us in a torn fishing net.

During Let's Talk TLA! Free Phone Conference Q&A and Poetry Open Mic -- Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN) on October 28, 2016, guest Callid Keefe-Perry, educator, minister, advocate for the arts who is also the TLAN Council Chair how he uses Transformative Language Arts in his role as an educator. He shared that imagination was key in retaining creative engagement in our learning process and sustaining healthy, viable, supportive communities. When asked what was the greatest block to imagination, he replied, "Contempt," -- contempt for others or ourselves.

And contempt (blaming) is a cover-up for shame; shame of our mer-tails--convinced in an accumulation of discounting experiences that there is something fundamentally flawed about us. While guilt is about individual events, shame is a sense of our condition--that there isn't a lot of use or value for a tail on land!--that we are neither worthy nor effective, that there is nothing we have to offer that the world wants.

We reclaim the possibilities of our lives working for us when claim our own worth--as we are; right now. We are, and always have been, worthy of joy and success; worthy of dignity and respect, including our own; worthy of mutual recognition, honor, appreciation, support and celebration. Let's celebrate our mer(sea)-tails/ see-tales--our ability to see beyond the debris of shame. Enter Neptune's Court gates with your crown on, and your tail sweeping.

 

Of Sails, Rigging and Wooden Planking

The Lady Washington, a full-scale reproduction of the first American ship to sail the West Coast

There is something breathtaking, a quickening of our spirits,  a deep yearning stirring in our veins, shimmerings running along our bones, a spell cast when we catch site of a Tall Ship: she calls to us--cries of gulls, unfurling wave curls sliding onto the beach, whispery sizzling of retreating tide laced into her voice . . .

When I look out to a tall ship cleaving the sea, there is a courtship of wildness and honed precision that births a third element: a beauty of the two in sea-dance--an alignment, a harnessing of skill in interaction with something that is not tamable; a ship is a marriage of beauty and utility that is required to navigate the sea. It bespeaks the marriage of our own wildness--our innate knowing that we are so much more than we ever imagine ourselves to be--and the clear, precise vision and garnered years of practice it takes to set it free into a practical beauty; into "practical magic," infusing our lives with something tangible--something wet, vibrant and juicy--that doesn't over-run our regular lives, but infuses them--makes them worth showing up for: like coffee, bacon, salt-air and the scent of your lover's hair.

And so . . . in this "salt-sea" wintering, locked away -- for a while -- in the heartland of this expansive country, this landlocked mermaid set sail last night upon the waters of my maiden voyage--launching my blog: Seachange Solutions, with my first post: Deep "See" Fishing.

Deep "See" Fishing

In this salt-sea "winter", as a landlocked mermaid I am not dormant, but rather in a time of inner-deepening, pregnant with depths, and an anticipated  return to the seaboard. I am in a seachange:

	SEACHANGE: – Potent, often poetic, rich, raw, transformative change--vibrant break with the past; birthing wild intuitive presencing (presence and sensing combined) -- active attentive, inquisitiveness of what, of whom is before us.

Graced with this extended preparation time, I am trolling a deepening understanding that the past does not define who we are, only who we were. It is our future selves that are engaging us in a "call and response," guiding us in to whom were are becoming, remembering us to the greater Truth of who we are, always have been: valid and valuable, capable of great efficacy and creative fire--worthy of grace, and freedom and honor, our own dignity and respect. As we remember this, we extend this to others--healing and renewing us to the Mystery that We Are.

Sign on door of old fishing shack:

Fresh See-Food Sold Here

Cost $: Willingness to Awareness;

the flickering silver-catch

Sea Fever

by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Fair winds and following seas . . .