Rivenrock Gardens Blog

December, 2004

Flashing lights, colorful costumes, strange foreign singing and amazing acrobatic acts. I sit the day after christmas full in the aching of having moved several tons of concrete up the hill for another terrace, sitting in my Middle-American Rural comfort on the big leather sofa, freshly washed and watching the Cirque Du Soleil. I love the theater and intrigue in the tapestry woven by human acrobatics and theater. The movement of the lithe acrobatic athlete/performers is truly amazing. Humans are a marvelous species, high among all creation, sinking to the depths of degradation in a fallen world... yet there are times that the genious and creativity of humans comes shining through. Fallen though we are, we are not going to be given up on, so keep pluggin' on. Happy New Year!

Sadness, sorrow, tragedy, and horror.

Beautiful islands and sea-side terrain swallowed by the sea, the same sea that gives us food and fertilizers and oil, the same sea we dump waste into, rising like an angry monster to wipe beauty from the edge of it's face.

It is difficult to not anthromorphosize such an awesome destructive event. Philosophers and scientists can tell us ways to pull ourselves from the event, to make scientific analysis, or disassociate ourselves from such events. Artists and poets will write and paint and draw their hearts and minds out in an attempt to relieve themselves of the ghosts that dwell in their psyche after such an horrific attack.

We who live by the sea know it is both a source of beauty, bounty and bewitchment. The sea will beguile with entrancing beauty one moment and slap you upside the head the next. The sea is a many-headed hydra that presents one head tame and beauteous to pet, while another head lurks behind, foul and intemperate, ready to sink fangs deep into soft flesh, to push one deep into rock and coral, to sweep one in a maelstrom of current topsy-turvy for so long you do not know which way is up.

I've lived most of my life by the ocean, I travel along it daily. I revel in the moonlight on the smooth waters, I marvel in the power that sends huge waves crashing into the cliffs to spray me with the salty air and wind blast. I used to swim often in the sea, taking surfboards far out into the sea, so far, past the kelp beds offshore, so that when I looked back to land the cliffs were just a small line on the ocean surface. I worked on a tuna boat, a hundred miles offshore. The deep aquamarine phosphorescence would run off the bow in a wake as the dolphins would sport and hitch rides on the crest of water we plowed up. As they wheeled and turned, and darted from one position to another they would leave short-lived images of themselves in the water. The flippers and skin would be outlined for a second until the boat ran through the section and destroyed the short-lived creation of my finny friends.

I have stood on deck in a salty wind and watched the dolphins jump into the air to free themselves of parasites, I've watched whales 'spy hopping' to look at us. I've woken to the sound of something wrong with the boat, to run outside and find myself in a pod of whales that thought the keel was a handy thing to scratch their backs on.

I love the sea, and I always will, but they say the sea is a harsh mistress. And just like a mean woman, the sea will take vengeance on us at times. We don't know when, and we can't always say why, except to say that the sea is not an animal trying to protect itself, and it is not a drug-using burglar trying to support a wicked habit. It is a portion of nature, and like all nature, sometimes we get in the way when it does what it does. Nature has nothing against us, the sea will swallow a cow as readily as it will a man if they are both in the same spot. The animals seem to know to stay out of the way though, it is interesting that reports are stating that there are few animals being found dead, perhaps they felt a difference in barometric pressure as the waves came to the shore. They may have fled in a panic and saved themselves in that way. Man however has distanced himself from nature in a way that has caused us to lose touch with the subtle warning signs of impending problems. Just as most Tsunamis will commence with a subsidence of the sea near the beach as the wave far offshore pulls water to itself, there were reports of villagers marveling at the sea receding while they celebrated such a miraculous occurrence by rushing to the tidal flats to pull fish from the pools left there, this was followed by a massive wave that washed so many people away.

Our hearts go out to all people in need, it is difficult to comprehend how much their lives are irretrievably influenced by this single event. This event will change lives in far more ways than it re-arranged the landscape, orphans will be raised without loving parents and will treat their children with neglect or excessive love as fits their changed psyche. The reverberations of this series of waves will thunder for many generations, and lead to some being enriched, and to others being bereft of love and character.

Now the philosopher comes forth and leaves us with some words of Bob Seger, from the song 'The Famous Final Scene'

Think in terms of bridges burning
Think of seasons that must end
See the rivers rise and fall
They will rise and fall again
Everything must have an end
Like an ocean to a shore
Like a river to a stream
Like a river to a stream
It's the famous final scene

And from the Tao-Teh-Ching

Chapter 50
Being born, we come into life, one day we must enter into death.
Out of ten people, three celebrate and are filled with life,
Three hasten their demise through excess,
And three pass through life without realizing it,
Why is this? They try too hard to protect and preserve this life; thereby they hasten its demise.
But it is said that one in ten knows how to preserve his life by emptying himself to the world and the Way.
Such a one can go into the wilds unmolested by wild beasts;
the tigers claws and rhinoceros horns will find no place to catch him.
He may enter battle unarmored; sharp points will find no place to pierce him.
Why is this? Because there is no place for death in him.

Chapter 78
There is nothing more flexible and yielding than water.
And yet there is nothing better for attacking the hard and rigid, there is nothing that can do what it can do.
So it is that the rigid can be overcome by the flexible, and the haughty by the humble.
Yet even knowing this; still no one will put this into adequate practice.
For this reason it is said that the ones who accept the humiliation of the country are fit to be its rulers.
Those who take the sins of the people onto themselves are able to act as King.
This is the paradox of truth!

John Dicus

http://www.rivenrock.com/dec2004.htm