Charting This
Magic Sea
Moira leaps high into the air and the ITCZ Serpent lashes out and
smacks her hard with a 35 knot blast of sizzling hot air. She ducks and rolls with the
punch only to be surprised by a flat wall of water right on the nose. Blue Pacific rolls
over the deck as Moira vibrates like she has been hit by a photon torpedo.
"Anything?" Freddy calls.
"Maybe," I peer out into the gloom under the seething,
twisting grey coils of the great angry sky serpent. My sextant is tucked up under the
dodger waiting for a glimpse of the sun to determine where we are. I don't see any breaks
in the belly clouds of the ITCZ but off to the southeast I do see some odd looking,
rounded black clouds. They have been staying right there, smooth and oily looking, while
the rest of the sky slithers off towards Wallis. "I think I see the island clouds of
Savaii."
"Where?" She comes up into the cockpit and peers out into
the howling wind. Just as she pokes her head around the dodger, another wave explodes on
the starboard bow and she rebounds a second too late, soaked to the skin. "Oh
SHIT!"
"Come on, let's tack," I hand her a sea-soaked towel.
"There is a small harbor on the northwest coast of Savaii. Maybe we can get in there
and hide."
"Anything to get out of this." She dries her face and
holds on as another big wave heaves Moira on her side.
We come about with a great banging of sails and slam into the seas
towards the what I hope are the clouds of Savaii. Freddy goes below to get into dry
clothes and I watch her struggle to undress as Moira is flung violently about. Walter cat
comes out of hiding, walking with exaggerated care on the slanting deck.
We have not slept more than a few minutes for two days and I find my
thoughts shifting and turning with each wave. There is still something missing from This
Magic Sea, something lacking. What is it? I lay back on the cockpit seat and close my
eyes, exhaustion dropping me down into a brief sleep even as Moira drops down the slope of
a long ocean swell. When I awake seconds or minutes later, I have an idea. Not about what
is missing, but an idea about ideas themselves.
 Words are like boxes for our thoughts. Each concept, every
clear, communicable idea, has a word-box which is built with a certain design to form-fit
the shape of the memory we wish to put inside. I am thinking about the hand carved ebony
kaleidoscope I sold to Reg. I made the cedar box from a beautiful piece of driftwood. It
hinged open to reveal the intricately carved black wood kaleidoscope nested in the grain
of the white cedar. When the kaleidoscope was removed, there was a hole in the wood
exactly matching the carved design of cells transforming into tropical reef fish. The
kaleidoscope could only be put back into the box one way. The kaleidoscope and the box
were a wonderful whole. They fit. The way a quotable phrase beautifully encases a
particular idea.
I look below and see Freddy stretched out on the settee with Walter
crammed in between her and the leeboard. "Everything OK?" she calls out, sensing
me watching her.
"OK." I reply.
The series of poetic phrases of This Magic Sea is like that. An
attempt to build a word box for the kaleidoscopic idea of the changing shifting being of a
living planet. But there is something still missing, pieces still sticking out of the
container. Not another idea about the living planet or what it does, but something
physical about the way the box is built.
It's like a box built of words is not enough. Like, we have a pilot
book that describes Asau harbor, but no detailed chart. All the words in the world are no
substitute for a good map. I need a more visual representation of This Magic Sea. A
nautical chart to show the concept clearly and easily.
 I
close my eyes again and try to visualize such a chart. I see a churning
amorphous sea of energy - the plasma of the big bang perhaps - it coalesces
into strings and nets of interacting particles and these swirl and move
together to form a giant ball of atoms which compress and pack inward
until they explode into radiant light. The creation of a star. And by
the light of the star I look outward and see millions of other stars
rushing outward into the void in a great expanding universe. The star
is like a hurricane, forming from great interacting forces and, once
formed, changing everything in the bath of spreading radiation.
Overlaid on this vision I see the map of the process of creation, a
double-cone shape funneling non-random behavior into the creation of a new being. When the
new being is created, there is an expansion of non-random events from this new being out
into the surrounding universe. The hour-glass shape flickers over and over in my mind,
merging with just about every aspect of This Magic Sea. This is the shape of it. This is
the map.
"Everything OK?" Freddy calls.
"As well as can be expected," I open my eyes and watch
another wave burst over us. There is a loud crash as the staysail halyard lets go and the
small, but essential sail collapses onto the foredeck. Freddy is in the cockpit like a
scalded cat. The sail fell on deck but if it washes over it will be a hell of a job
getting it back aboard.
"Keep her down wind till I finish," I yell, swinging the
wheel to starboard to bring us to a downwind heading. I rush out on deck and gather up the
sail.
The serpent lashes at Moira all the way to Savaii. Even in the lee
of the giant volcano the seas heave and buck, throwing white surf onto the barrier reef
closing off the entrance to the small harbor of Asau. There are some sticks in the reef
indicating the pass. On the east side of the calm interior I can see an absolutely
enormous cement wharf. Clearly big ships get into this harbor so the entrance must be
plenty deep for Moira, even with swells like these. I hope.
I stand in the bow and Moira heads proudly in towards the reef. "OK?," Freddy shouts every ten seconds? "OK!" I scream back as I begin
to make out the narrow blue line of the pass. It looks shallow. As we come in, Freddy
starts shouting off the depths. Her voice is rich with warning and fear.
 It is, after all, an easy entrance and the harbor is calm
as a lake. After three days of beating hard into thirty knot winds, the delight of calm,
protected water makes us deliriously happy. In the gathering dusk we drop the hook just
off the big wharf and collapse.
Moira has made the upwind nasty beat with few problems. The staysail
halyard is almost frayed through and needs to be fixed and some of the main slides have
come loose. She looks like you'd expect after being violently shaken up and down about
10,000 times. Freddy's kidney's hurt, I have a splitting headache. Walter, however, is
delighted to be out of rough water into the calm.We sleep like the dead.
20 November. "Asau is not a legal port of entry in to Western
Samoa so, for the record, this has to be an emergency repair stop. OK, up." Freddy
cranks on the mainsail winch and the Avon lifts slowly off the deck. Actually, the main
emergency was that Freddy and I were totally exhausted by the storm and need to get into
shelter to rest. I put the outboard, anchor, fuel tank, tools and shoes into the dingy and
roar over the flat calm bay to the ship's wharf. There is a ship tied up to the wharf this
morning and trucks arrive with veneer bound for Sydney.
I walk up the dirt road leading from the big wharf, heading for the
nearest habitation to declare our presence here to the officials. Not far along the road I
come upon a low wooden building with a crudely painted sign saying 'Police'. Exactly what
I need. I walk in.
The building is empty. Nobody home. I go outside and find a
comfortable log to sit down on. There is not much to see as small trees obscure the view.
So I think about the chart to This Magic Sea. The shape is everywhere - an hour-glass
shape - representing coming together, creating something new, and then splitting apart,
expanding outward. Subatomic particles combining to form hydrogen crushing together to
form a star and then stars forming galaxies, galaxies forming an ever expanding universe.
A butterfly flits by and settles on a small yellow
flower. Molecules of air, water, and organic material come together from a very broad area
and focus in that butterfly. The butterfly reproduces and, in a few generations, becomes
thousands of butterflies in an ever expanding universe of butterflies.
At the narrow waist of the hourglass, the creation of the single
entity creates something new and different. The sun generates omnidirectional radiation -
sunlight. It also makes elements which later form planets. The butterfly creates awareness
and a behavior zone. It creates a behavior web of signals. The signals, such as organic
molecules called pheneromes, create a behavior zone in which the butterfly influences the
world of Savaii.
Someone is snoring inside the copshop. I get up and look inside,
thinking maybe they have a prisoner in a lock up in the back. Through an open door I see a
pair of gargantuan feet, toes pointed up at the ceiling. That must be the local fuzz. I
knock on the door, but the snoring goes on comfortably. I cough loudly. Finally, I shout, "Hello? Anybody home?" The snoring stops and then resumes. I clomp around on the
wood floor making lots of noise. "Anybody here?" Snore, snore, snore. Maybe I
should set the place afire. Or at least yell fire. Instead I go outside again and sit down
on my log.
My thoughts come from here and there, from thousands of perceptions
over years and years. They come together to form an idea, a concept, and the new concept
expands outward, opens up new areas where other concepts bud from mine to form an ever
expanding and evolving school of thought.
This is the shape of To Be, To Change, To Have Direction. It is how
the system of becoming works, a pattern of behavior which creates new behavior and, at the
same time, unexpectedly creates something brand new and unexpected. The butterfly carries
pollen from one flower to the next and becomes an unexpected link in the ecology of plants
of Savaii. A new idea creates businesses and, linking up with other ideas, changes the
behavior patterns of thousands, perhaps billions of humans.
The snoring abruptly stops and I call out, "Anybody HOME?"
That does it. I hear shuffling sounds and a huge Samoan man with a
big pot belly comes out of the back room rubbing his eyes and arranging his skirt. He
looks at me for a moment, trying to decide if he needs a shirt or not and decides he does.
He goes back into the back room and returns buttoning an impressive uniform shirt.
"Sorry to disturb you. Uh... I know Asau is not a port of entry
but we had trouble with our boat late yesterday afternoon and were forced to come into
your harbor to make repairs. We'll be on our way to Apia as soon as we're finished."
He stands there, 250 pounds of Samoan, well over six feet tall, and
glares at me. Maybe he didn't understand. Maybe I'm in deep doodoo. His expression is
fierce. And then he yawns and shakes his head, puts on a quizzical expression and says, "Huh?"
I repeat our problem, this time slowly, in special English.
"You are from the yacht?" he must still be half asleep.
"Yes."
"Well, come into my office," he leads me inside and into
another room in the rear of the building. He sits down, smiles, says, "You have a
paper for me from Prime Minister's Office?"
I shake my head no.
"No? NO?"
"No. We have not been to Apia. We came from Wallis Island. We
were in a big storm. Big waves broke our sail, damaged our steering system. We had to come
here to fix the boat. When it is finished, we leave."
"During this little presentation, the policeman's attitude
shifts from aggression to politeness to suspicion to confusion to acceptance to confusion
to apathy to resignation and finally to friendliness.
"OK. You must stay on your yacht. Then go to Apia." He
thinks a minute longer - a full minute at least. "If you want to come back you must
get a permit from the Prime Ministers office. I will call Prime Minister. Maybe phone
works today. I go to hospital, get doctor, and we come to have a look at your boat."
Eventually he sends me back to Moira. I walk back down the road
admiring the butterflies which are out in full force, roar over the calm lagoon, wondering
all the while about the complexities of life which require a permit from a Prime Minister
to visit Asau harbor.
Freddy has sorted out the worst of the mess below decks. I help her
get the sail ready to mend and while she sits in the sun working on it, I repair the
toilet, fix the auto pilot, seal a forward porthole, fix the plugged sink, put a new bulb
in the light over the nav station, remove the staysail roller furling gear, and splice
together a new staysail halyard.
It's hot. At dusk, Freddy and I dive over the side to cool off.
After a brief swim we rinse off. Two young men, Pelou and Tapu, come paddling by in a
dug-out canoe. They stop along side and put two a big pineapple and a basket of husked
green drinking coconuts on our deck.
"Where from?" Pelou asks as he puts the basket on deck.
Tapu, the older man, can't speak English.
"America," I reply.
"What do you want in return?" Freddy asks.
"No. Nothing. We are friendly people. Just come by to say
hello, welcome to Savaii." He smiles, sits back down in the canoe and gives a little
wave.
"Hey, wait." This is the first time any islander has given
us a gift without expecting anything back. Freddy goes below and comes back with a bag
full of goodies for them, including some fish hooks and fishing line and some Women's Day
magazines. They come aboard and oohh and ahhh at everything.
Pelou tells us the cop flew to Apia today. Big doings. They paddle
off into the early evening.
At 7 PM, I turn on the radio and listen to the news from Apia. "A foreign yacht has made an illegal entry into Savaii." says the woman's voice.
"Officials have not yet learned the purpose of its illegal entry. The yacht is flying
no flag and is believed to be anchored in Asau Harbor. A special team of investigators
will fly to Savaii in the morning to look into the matter."
"Oh no," Freddy moans, "Lets get out of here."
"Too late. We can't make that pass at night. Anyway, we'll have
to speak with them in Apia, so why not get it over with now?"
All evening I work on the map of This Magic Sea. It's like a
treasure map. Nobody can really understand it, or find the treasure, unless they know what
the symbols mean. But still, it helps illustrate how the process of becoming works. That's
the treasure. Knowledge of how creation, becoming, evolution, learning works. How behavior
nests together, changes everything into a new level of being and then nests again.
Looking at the map, one realizes every part of it is interaction of
behavior patterns. To be changing in a direction. We start from a universe of hydrogen
forming stars and galaxies in which there is only inertia, momentum and reaction. At the
point of formation of stars, with the generation of sunlight and elements, we shift. The
creation of elements results in planets. The planets receive the omnidirectional radiation
of the stars and create a new environment. The whole map of behavior shifts into another
level of being when the interaction of stellar radiation forms complex associations of
molecules into DNA.
At this level, To Be, To Change, to Have Direction becomes
Perception, Memory, Reaction. This is Mind. Mind is what awareness does. The formation of
bacteria then expands out into all the different forms of behavior on the planet we
perceive as the world of life. An ever expanding universe of galaxies of multicellular
beings, each made up of trillions and trillions of bacteria in exactly the same way
galaxies are made of trillions of stars.
The creation of life results in something brand new and totally
different. Awareness, a radiation of perception built upon the error of expectations. And,
at the same time, the beings generate pulsed signals which are sent out into the world
around them. The pulsed signals change the awareness patterns of other living beings and
become something brand new and different.
Eventually, the signals formed words. Written words. These became
very complex until they became books and were printed and distributed widely over the
planet. The books are like planets receiving the sunlight, only the elements which grow in
complexity are words and the sunlight becomes the awareness of hominids which reflect from
the words and thus change the behavior of the beings of Planet Earth.
The books expanded into galaxies of books to create multicellular
organisms of thought - science, religion, economics, politics, history - in an ever
expanding civilization. This shift in the hour-glass of behavior lifts To Be, To Change,
To Have
Direction to still another level. Perception, Memory, Reaction,
becomes Understanding, Knowledge, Learning. And at the narrow focal point of creation
there developed something brand new and different - Electronic pulses in elaborate
networks of elements. These have formed an entirely new level of being. A Global
Electronic Interacting Awareness. GEIA. A network of behavior which communicates around
Earth at the speed of light, wrapping all beings in an electronic web of commands.
The shift from one level to the next depends on the existence and
maintenance of the previous level. Each level controls the other. All aspects of each
level appear as manifestations of the whole web of interactions.
"Bed time," Freddy sits up and stretches. Have to get
ready for the boarding party in the morning.
"You want to see my chart?" I show her my scribbling.
"Looks like scribbling," She says and goes aft to get the
towels. |
