36 Degrees of Fire: Existential Not- Mystic Fire

36 Days out of 42-38

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/05/blackholefaster.jpg

If life is how we create it, the existential part of the equation is that there is no absolute truth that we can verify.  It all comes down to subjective creations. 

Yet I am only there part-time.  The problem with existential life is that they close themselves off to the mystery, the paranormal, the synchronicities of the universe.  I believe we do create it...yet we are so much more than scientific explanation of chemical reactions walking around.  It is not better to never of been born.  

After all that mumbo jumbo...the point here is that if we are making it up on a certain level..that is myth-makers, symbolists, priests, saints and all the above.  I mean I believe in Jesus, Buddha, Moses...all the big boys...all the Shamans have something going on.  

So therefore...why can I not make up my own symbols, myths and then experience the mystic side of life.  The only reason I am making up my own stuff...is that our post modern scientific worldview has no symbols, rituals and myths to help us from one stage of life to another. They measured it all out of existence.  I am so devoted to mythology and the heroic journey for this reason.   If I don't find anything exciting, if I don't create meaning- tattoo myself up on significant occasions or initiations...how will I ever take this life and the misery- so in this whole line of thinking....here I go....and now you know why.  

Longitude and Lattitude is sexy and erotic...traveling on a water world through space at a break neck speed...circling a black hole....I mean it is pretty exciting!!!!  If a sailor summons me from a satellite phone in the middle of nowhere...I am going to breath it in!  I am going to consult Death!!! Oh yeah I said it!!!  If I am not dead I am going for the-more-than -alive thing!!!  Life is short- and we did this on purpose...so that it would be taken as a quality time...don't waste it....adventure it...joy it...go deep in...and live it as if it is some obscure dream that you have control of.  

34 Degrees of Fire: A Flame in the Pacific

http://www.simflight.com/2011/11/02/esc-sceneries-palmyra-atoll/

This is the Palmyra Atoll, about 1000 miles southwest of 

Honolulu.  It shows the beauty that is in the Pacific Ocean.  

34 Days out of 42....ETA Dec. 26th- 38 days out at sea.....

All is well, more than well.  

How many girls get a satellite phone call from the middle of the Pacific Ocean from someone she is dating .  And people wonder why one would fall for a sailor.  I guess it is the wide pure(its own still-even thought man has corrupted a lot of it, it has not been conquered) ocean, the vast space that is water that seduces.  I think our understanding of water is so shallow.  I some how have this strange obsession with a moving body that is so deep and alive.  It is different than land.  Maybe it is the movement, the living beings that roam inside, the depth, the water cycle that is essential to life, the storms, the rogue waves, the movement, the movement and its own life giving way.  

Then there are those who choose to work on it.  I mean it is a regular job to work on a ship, but there is a type of agreement, a sort of surrender to such a dynamic body.  Maybe it is one of the only places where man has not totally corrupted it, and so the mystery still lives there.  I know we have fished it dry and polluted it beyond recognition.  Maybe it is the deep Pacific that cannot be built on ever because it is just too powerful and wicked.  I am glad that it is.  And so when a sailor calls me from the middle of such a mysterious place...I feel enchanted.  He might be the closest I will ever come to being there and being ok with it.  A sailor doesn't think twice about such a silly call from a ship.  This is also enchanting.  Maybe some where in my timeline (not just this existence) I was a sailor, a devotee of the sea and all of its mystery and woes.  The memory seems to move like a undercurrent, a warm water moving through the cold icy depths.  

31 Degrees of Fire: A Fast Ship

 31 days out of 42

 Bliss = a fast ship, when 42 days becomes 38!!!

 APL Philippines Update

Last Position Received

Area: Japan
Latitude / Longitude: 34.8632° / 140.2178° (Map)
Speed/Course 7.8 knots / 0˚
Last Known Port: YOKOHAMA
Info Received: 5d 9h 58min ago (AIS Source: 116)
Not Currently in Range
Itineraries History

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Voyage Related Info (Last Received)

Draught: 11.6 m
Destination: SAN PEDRO
ETA: 2012-12-26 06:30
Info Received: 2012-12-16 02:46 (4d, 4h 16min ago)

starwars.com

The Hero's Return- Crossing the Return Threshold Plus

1. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
   The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult.
2. Master of the Two Worlds
   In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.
3. Freedom to Live
   Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.   

 Joseph Campbell, A Hero with A Thousand Faces


The human hero struggles with these last stages of the journey.  We often can go out and get the job done, but when we return how do we live?  Do we even have the ceremony or pathway for the excellent deed doer.  The modern warrior does not return from Iraq or the Middle East with more wisdom, only the feeling to go back to battle. 

The Jypsy does know himself enough to say "hey when I am in ship mode, it can be hard transitioning, back into the world of people".  The honesty is a good place to start after you return from a harsh journey.  The Jypsy is often so focused on action that relaxing, calming oneself down so that he can enjoy all the rewards of such hard work, is not always easy.  Such extreme behaviors is hard to carry.  That is being on a ship, highly masculine environment, with no communication with family, friends and lovers.  Then on top of this you are in action mode for 35 plus days. 

The Boon, the wisdom, being atoned completely with yourself are the elements of the hero's return.  Essentially the purpose of all journeys is evolution of the individual as a dynamic being.  We are all on a path of discovery.  If you look closely you will notice the magic, the wise ones and the monsters all are present in your own journey.  We have a map that can help us attain some inner peace, but our scientific lifestyle is not the only element to our existence.  There are symbols and strange synchronicities that permeate our lives.  We are myth- makers which means we are designed to make up fictional pathways that mirror the human existence.  They are metaphors for the energies that exist in life.  These energies are the forces of nature, our own collective unconscious and potentials. 

30.5 Degrees of Fire: A Strange Fire Ignited

30 Days of Lunar Measure

http://www.dec.ny.gov/public/47767.html

The Gypsy left one day after Waxing Half Moon in Aquarius,

The 19th of November, 2012

The 19th of December is the Waxing Half Moon in Pisces... Tomorrow will be 31 days
from half moon to half moon.  + 11 = 42

While I allow all that is to be, without attaching results or expectations, I have to say I feel like I have lived lifetimes within these 30 days.  A tumultuous time exist now.  Sometimes I feel I live on the sea, riding the high waves and then the doldrums set in.  I want to offer gratitude for my muse.  There is a monumental imagination within me.  I think sometimes it is a muse unto itself.  So for the real human muses and my imaginary maybe more Greek-like invisibles,  I thank you. 

I have been wanting to write about the synchronicity that just keeps aching to be known within my life.  I might be considered crazy like those religious fanatics out there that actually believe that the Virgin birth was an actual scientific event.  My grandfather, passed on Dec 7th, 2012, my birthday.  How it went down was amazing, but that is not the point here.  I don't understand my affection for water, but he was probably the most amazing man I have ever known.  He was a sailor, but raised by the water, and a Pisces.   We were very close.  He was in WWII out on a giant steel vessel.  He was only a baker.  I just can't help but wonder about my obsession with water, sailors, ships and the such.  Some would say I was a fool about my pondering. 

I have a new view of Odyssey and Odysseus.  The warrior who returns after the brutal war.  My grandfather was blown off a ship, on fire.  A kamikaze hit his flat top.  When he returned to America my grandmother was a mixture of Penelope and Calypso.  For my grandfather did not have the luxury of having a witch-beauty-lover to help him recover from such violence and loss.  So my grandfather's sailing days ended.  He became a land locked father and husband.  When a hero becomes intimate with death out at sea something shifts and the journey must be finished.  The hero must return to a place of refuge or be lost forever.  

My grandmother and grandfathers stories are equivalent to the story of Homer for the Greeks.  I have been told of my grandfathers adventure out at sea and in port.  He met my grandmother on leave in Boston.  It was a two day meeting, and a whole life was built with me being conceived by some dimension of it.  I was like my grandfather's fifth child.  How much is a child influenced by love, and all the dimensions of it?  I am still trying to figure it out.  The stories, adventures and journeys that seduced me as a child have never left.  Half of those adventures and journeys I was in the middle of, as my grandfather's sidekick. If he was Peter Pan then I was Tinker Bell, ever faithful flight prone sprite.  Thus my obsession with it seems ordinary now, maybe. 

Is it a coincidence that some friend of mine is out unreachable exactly as my grandfather was for his mother and soon-to-be-wife for years?  I have to endure 42 days....3 days on land...and another 42.  It is strange at least, I think. 

The mystery continues to haunt and inspire with its own agenda. 

30 Degrees of Fire: A Muse Summons

30 days of 42 out at sea

http://0.tqn.com/d/ancienthistory/1/0/M/g/2/Odysseusand-thesirensbywaterhouse.jpg

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.

He saw the townlands

and learned the minds of many distant men,
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.

                            Homer, The Odyssey

Unfortunately we have no Troy, no great battle with

Epic ships and heroic men with their swords and shields. 

We do have warm bodies with broken hearts

And sailors who travel upon steel ships

Invisible journeys around the world and back

Again.  No epic poem written for their heart ache

And small duties that keep the vessel moving at a

Break-neck speed. 

We do have real men with depth behind their land

locked eyes. 

Does the sea rise and fall behind a

simple façade. 

Their emotion is like the sea,

We can never know the true depth,

We can only dive in, learn to swim

Hold our breath,

and hope the memory of breathing

Water becomes a desire again

The gods, witches and underworld

Wait for him, wanting to tear him to pieces

Monsters and strange spells cast their nets upon the wanderer

He does not hear Athena whispering in his ear…she has been lost for

So long. 

The epic hero exists, but is invisible

To the untrained eye. 

The sailors, every-dayers, hidden heroes are all epic

With hearts reaching for a charmed life lost

Let a muse summons you into

Their lair of fire

Let the world melt into

Your own creative wandering

You have a sacred compass within

Just listen.

Kori 12/17/12 

According to Greek mythology, Zeus' and Mnemosyne's nine daughters were called Muses whose one being in heart, spirit and thought was dedicated to the arts, Taught by Apollo, they inspired creativity and imagination in artists. http://winsome.hubpages.com/hub/Why-Men-Love-a-Muse#

 

24 Degrees of Fire: The Best Way to Burn

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html

24 degrees of fire is my favorite kind of burning…

my first lover had 24 degrees of heat

…and these degrees of heat tattooed me mysteriously…

I am hoping my loving has evolved to flames that rise 

to touch some part of heaven

My favorite degrees….the reverse of 42. 

My 42^nd  year in this time and space  I met a sailor

One sailor leaves and another enters

coincidence laughs for 

 one was born not

Long before the other passed on 

the lone gypsy barely resists

 his mistress the China Sea

An exotic scent  caresses his lips

 and the massive water caravan hides 

him deep within 

Do I require a true sailor in my life?  

 One who travels upon a

 steel monster that tempts the fates

And the hero in the belly,

 lost, gone and missing for so long

What web am  I entangled in?

Am I caught by water, by a wanderer

By an adventuresome soul?

it has been endless seduction 

of either the sensual task of sailing

either on a far away sea

or the sea of ideas

for not all travelers are ocean bound

some travel high and wide with their 

thoughts and heart

Far West vs. Far East

 An Endless circle

A divine round dance

More mystery than reason

If we are here

We are all gypsy sailors

Obsessed with time and space

Traveling upon oceans of existence.  

kori 12/12/12 

http://thegoldenawakening.com/

22 Degrees of Fire: 1/2 Way Home

22 Degrees of Fire: The Journey Home 

http://danbracewell.wordpress.com/tag/heros-journey/

Last Stages of the Initiation...and then the Return

Apotheosis: A hero's apotheosis is achieved when he comes to a realization about the purpose of life and himself. With an expanded consciousness, he views the world in an entirely different way than when he first started his journey. Usually, the hero at this point becomes a selfless person who always cares for others before himself.
 http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00212/monomyth.html


The mystery must be kept alive by your own opening of possibility.  To view life like a Greek who had Mt. Olympus is the only way I can exist.  I will seek and make my own way through a world that is wonderous.  You must realize that the gods were metaphors for the mysteries of life.   

Now we live in the postmodern world.  This is the anti-Greek world of demigods.  We don't even have an Odysseus to give us hope.  I have had heroes in my life because I choose to see those little mysteries, the intense feelings of doing the right thing, and those whose adventure outweigh their submitting to the status quo.  Jypsy in all of his woes and faults sails on a massive ship, takes responsibility for his work, and is gone for 3 to 4 months. 

The last part of the initiation stage is when the dragon is slayed and the treasure is attained.   Jypsy has reached his destination, faced the giant machinery and now will return.  His journey may not seem epic like Luke Skywalker, but it is still significant psychological and meaningful journey.  Most people don't know that they face their own shadows in the careers or people they choose to interact with.  The more unconscious our being is, the more we face our dark side in strange things during the day.  Then most people wonder why their life is so hard or not pleasing.  The more aware one is of his personality and unconscious tendencies the more they will understand when someone strikes their chords. 

Jypsy was thrown into the deep end of the pool.  I am pondering about his state of mind and feeling right now.  He is in the Far East on the ship either feeling semi-relaxed or not.  The Belly of the Whale is no longer the nemesis.  He has become familiar with the workings of this engine room.  The return should be easier than the separation.  Yet obstacles can still present themselves.  A good warrior never becomes too confident about his situation.  He becomes a master at reading and staying alert for those little signs and warnings. 


 Crossing the Return Threshold:
At last, the hero returns to home turf, where they are safe from further pursuit or woes.
Crossing of the threshold may not be an easy task as one last challenge may face the hero. This may range from one last fight with a foe thought vanquished.

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/hero_journey/return_threshold.htm

20 Degrees of Fire: Destination

20 days of 42: Arrival to Destination

Shanghai Port

 

Last Position Received

Area: China Sea
Latitude / Longitude: 31.2553° / 121.9496° (Map)
Speed/Course 8.8 knots / 282˚
Currently in Port: SHANGHAI
Info Received: 0d 0h 0min ago (AIS Source: 830)

	Current Vessel's Track
	Wind: 12 knots, 348°, 5°C

Itineraries History

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Voyage Related Info (Last Received)

Draught: 9.2 m
Destination: CN CJK SHA
ETA: 2012-12-09 18:00
Info Received: 2012-12-09 18:10 (0d, 3h 10min ago)

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=368684000

18 Degrees of Fire: The Quest to the Far East

 

17 Degrees of Fire: The Quest to the Far East 

 Fire/Jypsy in the far East....

 APL - Philippines - The mysterious location???  

6 Days ago they left Japan. 

Destination: China

Last Position Received

Area: Japan
Latitude / Longitude: 34.9068° / 139.6103° (Map)
Speed/Course 18.9 knots / 206˚
Last Known Port: YOKOHAMA
Info Received: 5d 22h 8min ago (AIS Source: 505)
 http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=368684000

Why is this is this so interesting to me?? 
Am I a closet-sailor who has never sailed the high seas?  
It must be the blue planet that so enamours me...
sometimes I feel like a foreigner ....I mean a real one from another 
planet and the ocean, vessels, sailors, whales, moon, mermaids 
are so enticing, so seductive I can hardly stand it....

Is there a mental illness where you are addicted and or obsessed 
with water, ocean, salt....

I have a secret...when Jypsy and  I were hanging out...I noticed he put a lot of 
salt on everything...at first I thought it was over the top...but now I think 
I understand....if you are a creature of the sea...really...like temporarily being human 
because your true nature is to breath salt water...you might always be needing it or wanting it.  

I am totally convinced that salt water is magic...first regular spring water is amazing on so many levels 
but then there is salt water....and it surrounds us and sustains us....

18 Degrees of Fire: The 7th Day of December Flame

http://www.wallpowper.com/pheonix-bird-phoenix-of-fire-38843.html

17 Degrees of Fire: The 7th Day of December Flame  

17 days of 42 


What fire was I born from?  
What degree does love burn?  

What fire was igniting in the 
souls that conceived me?  

they stoked their own fire within
they were beauty
life had not burned them yet

What fire was I born from 
there have been a million 
births and deaths
ash, embers and flame
a constant rhythm of 
transformation 

What fire shall I need from now on?

I do not even recognize the my 
flame of youth it has been ashes for so long

now only a slow ember that is stable, 
sustaining, intense and loving

  the serpent ever hidden
is waking