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excerpts of Chapter 12: Between Horizon and the Sky

musings of a kook surfer

(kook: 1. Dork. 2. A new or inexperienced surfer. 3. Someone who says they surf but they can't.(waxboy)

 

Logic and Perspective (a poem)

 

Quantum Imagination Rules.

What-Ifs equal What-Is

in this, a shared creation.

 

If we are surrounded by what we can see,

what we see is what we are;

Then matter is perception of resistance,

time is the persistence of opposites,

And space is an Electric Universe;

not lonely nuclear fires,

but Twin Ribbons of infinite energy

traveling through plasma that unites all.

 

The Earth

a wonder of positive and negative,

not solid,

is the infinite slowed into harmony.

The Sun

a focus of resistance,

not burning out,

Burns In.

 

No small coincidence that

equals means is

You Are and

You See so

I am and

You are, you see, the I Am

...

 

 

No Chance for Chance (a poem)

 

What is Serendipity?

Seen miraculous,

Some thing done there,

Something done.

 

What isn't Serendipity?

The unseen miraculous.

What miracles undone,

in time

in time,

as it never happened.

 

Everything?

Nothing?

 

It cannot be a good thing-

Fortunate for you is

lost fortune for who...

Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy

or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

 

It cannot be a bad thing-

In agreement

with yes...

Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy

or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

 

I think,

so I think I am caught between

a wave and a particle.

 

….

 

Between Worlds

 

Never turn your back on the ocean – the mantra of the surfer in my thoughts as I continuously scan the horizon. There is just enough time to position for a wave; decide to paddle left or right or quickly further out to avoid the random pummel of a looming larger wave. Between sets, the water gently bobs me floating half submerged. Staring introspectively at the water, I am learning to interpret ribbons of upward-turning sparkles in the distance.

Dawn is an hour away; visibility is dim but gradually lifting. Morning’s light is so flat and the water’s glassy surface so smooth that anticipating incoming waves becomes almost a matter of intuition. The illusion of separateness from creation is breaking down. The water is almost chilly, but still comforting. I forgo a rash-guard; the subsequent chest irritation from surfboard wax is a small exchange to feel immersed in the ocean. The bay feels intimate yet expansive with only two other meditative surfers in the distance. Turtles swirl the water, heads straining up for a peek and a breath. Sometimes they turn their shells so their fins feel the air; they keep three of us wanna-be-ocean-dwellers company.

Yesterday a southern Kona wind brings volcanic-smog from Kīlauea. Vog is high in CO2 and fumes, giving sensitive people muddle-headedness, lethargy, and sore throat- a reminder this is Pele's paradise. This muting velvet feels almost smothering to the horizon. Is it fog? Yet a glance behind verifies the slope of Mt. Haleakala is visible, from the shore to the cloud blanketing the world above the 10,000' peak. Hale means "house" and the rest can mean either "of the sun", or "of a special raspberry-like flower". Either way the mountain was pulled from the ocean by Maui while he was roping the sun from the sky. Usually, from this place in the sea, sunrise begins with a torch-like beacon of illuminated mist right over the peak, flaming brighter in the turquoise sky just as the sun coronas into a brilliant gold spotlight over the bay. Yet this morning waiting for dawn, islands, water, and sky are all various shades of hushed mainland gray.

Half submerged and floating quietly, my back is to the mountain and I face the close but unusually shrouded island Kaho'olawe. It was callously blasted to a streaked surface of wind-blown dust by a military just for "training". Recently reclaimed for pono, it represents the hope of nurturing a senselessly abused, irrevocably lost paradise. To my right is far-off Lana'i; to my left is Molokini, the sharp half rim of an ancient crater barely rising above the water's surface.

The world suddenly wakes, shedding gray. The sky's far reaching dome overhead intensifies, glowing in layers of rose, red, fuschia. The atmosphere I’m breathing becomes thickly permeated with color, as if one could breath lavendar-orange.

 

What planet am I on?

 

It feels so foreign, time stops. The two other surfers are still as well, dwarfed by distance, and I am alone. Tiny in this red expanse, I become quietly centered. I turn to see Haleakala where the sun is yet to rise, awed to distraction, forgetting incoming swells. A bright sun smoked crimson is hidden behind the peak, shining horizontally through what I imagine to be some opening at the horizon. Illuminated ridged undersides of the high clouds are streaked neon red to half the sky. The atmosphere is hushed over the still water, the tangible copper light presses down, infuses everything. It feels disarming yet comforting and surreal, floating surrendered to this other-world light; sky to water, horizon to vast horizon, the calm apocalypse the turtles and Kaho'olawe have been praying for.

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re-collecting-mind
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May 15, 2013
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