42 Degrees of Fire: The Eternal Embers

 

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~chenry/images/fig2.jpg

art  

/ärt/

Noun

1. The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: "the art of the Renaissance"
2. Works produced by such skill and imagination.                           ( Google.com)

The question: does a muse ever truly disappear from the inspired?  Why can we not view our relationships as art?  How long does it take to mix the colors and find the right hues for a masterpiece, a rare mysterious arrangement of colors that is completely original.?   I write so many ideas down to examine how I feel, what I think and maybe how I project my own imagination onto a canvas.  Yet how did I get that imagination to come forth? I needed a mirror.  My friend, the Jypsy, was that mirror for a short time.  I created something from nothing.  I was intensely aware of his nature for a short time or was it really my nature?   

The attention of the other provokes something within us, especially if it is directed with good intentions.  I think underneath all of our fears and past experiences dwells our souls with an intense longing to express itself.  The soul is a hidden charmed intelligence that bears all, yet is so unknown to our everyday lives.  Sometimes it is hard to figure out what comes from our souls and what comes from the external expectations. 

I feel most aligned when I am inspired and I feel it is a gift when someone comes along and provokes my imagination.  When I think of 42 degrees I  think of a sphere.  If our paths are not really linear, then this might work.  I feel I have entered a new circular path, a sort of spiraling.  When I think of the entire meeting and how it seemed as if we stepped into a sphere that was already there pulsing with its own energy.  We were the creators.  The nature of everything was good like we were traveling on a particular pattern of energy.  I hope I am not so naive to think he was true.  The strange thing is that it really doesn't matter.  The only thing I can be sure of is my experience of it.  

  Before this path was born, I was in a long relationship and for 12 years I devoted myself to this commitment.  This was one complete circle, one sphere.  A 360 degrees of burning and it moved out in all directions to fill up the volume of that circle.  It might have burned too many things down. As I start my new spiraling path, the old one wants to merge into it. Maybe spheres overlap.  I have reached 42 degrees on my new path, and these are a different kind of burning. If you can picture a circle and that I traveled 42 degrees around, but I did not stay only on the line...I went inside the sphere, exploring the depths of that energy and nature.  The sphere is ultimately myself and or the other.  I am not sure how it works exactly, but that world is complex and dynamic.  You cannot stand on the edge and look into a world.  You must dive and or sail through the entire adventure. I explored islands, tempests and monsters all along the way.  In the evolution of this journey is where the sailor and I merge and poetry- art is born. 

So when these 42 degrees began, degree by degree my imagination and inspiration took flight.  While I allowed my nature to rise again like a phoenix, I began to know myself again.  I was provoked by a male and or I projected things outward.  I needed him exactly at this precise time on my path to shift, to remember, to see myself through a mirror.  I had to listen and do the work.  He was a reflection and a gift. 

 I don't believe in accidents.  The charm of this union was especially pure at the start.  The ending maybe not so much, but the fires sometimes die out and we push beyond what is right-Buddha right.  Buddha right- is not a moral right, but a spirit right.  It is one hard to master because of our external influences. 

I believe that life is so much more than what appears in front of us.  This meeting however brief or long, was a mystery as is each encounter.  I could dwell on its fading or ending but it is not creative to do that.  I have many musings about it on this blog and I am glad of this.  If we could live by inspiration, imagination, creative endeavors, being each others muse maybe our relationships would be different. We could release them easier.  I am not even saying that I want it to return because it is not the truth.  If the intention is pure all will burn bright and true.  

The mysterious igniting and chemistry that brings two people together is like art.  If the timing and approach is right as in a Buddha's right action, then the world that is born from two souls can transform, heal and take on different shapes.   What I mean by shapes is that we have this one prevailing idea about souls meeting, especially romantically.  This one procreation-ideology might need to shift to allow for a more spiritual idea, thus more shapes. Maybe more of an artistic idea.  I hope my expressions here captures just a couple of degrees of my experience in the last 7 months.  

When I write poetry it feels like I keep an ember burning for those that touch me somehow.  Some of my greatest loves like my father, who has passed on,  inspired me so even when I felt lost.  Some part of me still burns brightly like a pulse with a certain rhythm formed from that one love.  A poet's heart is hard to stop especially when a kindred spirit holds up a mirror. The embers burn eternally in a poet's heart, sometimes foolishly, but always deeply. 


Peter Gabriel- I Love to be Loved

34 Degrees of Fire: The Gypsy Fire Returns

http://paganpages.org/content/tag/poseidon/

 
(Zeus:) “For his sake Poseidon, shaker of the earth, although he does not kill Odysseus, yet drives him back from the land of his fathers. But come, let all of us who are here work out his homecoming and see to it that he returns. Poseidon shall put away his anger; for all alone and against the will of the other immortal gods united he can accomplish nothing.” (1.74-79)
                                             -The Odyssey by Homer

 34 days out of 42 
ETA: Feb 5th, San Pedro Port, California 
Jypsy Returns Home...
 
Since I have  a good imagination, I am weaving a tapestry.  One magical thread of the days out at sea for Jypsy with another magical thread of the days on land and my pondering.  My pondering are enmeshed with my teaching.  Since I am teaching the Odyssey, and ironically dating someone who travels out to sea, there is a strange similarity.  Like Penelope, I have no word from him until he enters the port of California.  

(It is strange how life evolves with strange synchronicities if you allow it.  It takes some magic and thinking out-side-the-box, yet it will yield strange magnetic and wondrous experiences.  Isn't that what we all really want.  We can say this and that...but we want to experience the magic, the synchronicity- that feeling that all is connected and that we have a purpose.) 

There is something mysterious about a sailor.  He loves the sea, but he also loves land.  So it is a strange combination of extremes.  He must go out, way out, far away from the known, but when he returns the land is something so longed for.  It is not about women or drinking, although those are a good bonus.  It is more about being in love with land and realizing how precious it is.  Maybe a sailor is aware of the entire movement and marriage of land and water.  He travels the globe on the Giant River and comes home to soak up the dust and tree. Maybe he is like a lost Greek.  This might fit into the Gypsy style of existence.  A Greek, the Renaissance man...that man who can do many things with purpose and style.  Maybe????

Fate and The Modern World 

While it would seem that Jypsy lives between the world of extremes, that is luxury of land and working out at sea, he is master of his own fate.   Poseidon has not prevented him from coming home.  Only Jypsy determines his suffering or does he?  It would appear that some of his bosses have ulterior intentions, thus making Jypsy suffer acutely within a very short intense amount of time.

Then there is the superstition- modern view- law of attraction.  This would be very Greek.  This is saying there is some outside force, yet wielded by the vibration and or energetic pattern of the hero- thus personified as gods.  It is possible.  Does this determine his fate?

What is the mystery of the Greeks and their ability to harness some kind of belief in human potential.  It was not New Age...like law of attraction....but it was something.  They bypassed the elementary beliefs that stunt the average modern man with fear and loathing.  This fear and loathing- existential view -is just an extension of the Puritan mindset without the element of god.  The Puritan says all of humanity is in need of cleansing-through hard work and not being tempted by the evils of the world.  Man was born in sin...and thus repentance and cleansing the inherent dirty self -is the only way to redemption.  This is a sad way to wander through the world.  The Greeks could never have created such great artwork, great warriors, great science and philosophy(thinking) with the heavy burden of Puritan Christian values.

Jypsy is returning home.. He has been out wandering for two months.  Odysseus' Mediterranean Wandering for 20 years seems like child's play in comparison to two months in a the belly of a steel monster.  If you are the one monitoring that machinery day in and  day out....your suffering is acute.  Now since everyone believes in complete free will over our destiny...then Jypsy chose this fate.  So people say it his choice to suffer.  At one level this is true, but it does not give this free ticket to industry and men of high rank to punish or make others suffer.  Most of this is unconscious.  Men who are stunted with their petty egos and power plays are like children with power- using big toys. That is honor, respect and integrity are not qualities that exist on these steel ships, thus they are monsters. 

Somewhere in our development between European humanism and America's Puritan mentality we have created monsters in our work environment.  The human element is erased for the American Commercial industry.  Profit is the angry god and we are dirty born in sin - workers trying to redeem ourselves. 

Returning to the Natural World







Returning home is the treasure, not being out wandering the world...or working on a ship.  Home is where you can erase all the trauma of the dysfunction of the God- Profit.  Profit is a sick god nowhere close to Poseidon or Zeus.  At least they had purpose.  Profit is an empty virtue falsely promoted.

Returning Home is the bliss...where the hero, Jypsy can escape to the unencumbered Natural World, with its sweet subtle balance.  The Natural World is Calypso - welcoming, exotic, loving and a bit possessive.  But oh how sweet it is to be possessed by a goddess.  She brings balance back to Odysseus.  He was healed in those watery caves where he could be nurtured as a man, not a king, husband, warrior and father.  There was no role for Odysseus on Calypso's Island.  He was completely free to sleep, love, rest and participate in the luxury of the Natural World.

The return home for Jypsy is only days away.  He will land on shore with achieving an amazing work load in this modern age.  He will put on his play shoes and seek out his other water, the frozen powder on the high mountain side.  He will seek her and she will receive him like she always has.  

22 Degress of Fire: A Quiet Ember

http://lh3.ggpht.com/-V3ubQqmv0XM/SAJzJTxffYI/AAAAAAAABAc/QvBAdZjaWXE/TFD_1208.jpg

22  of 42 out at sea.  In the Far East...

 

 APL Philippines

Vessel's Details

Ship Type: Container ship
Year Built: 1996
Length x Breadth: 276 m X 40 m
Gross Tonnage: 64502, DeadWeight: 65642 t
Speed recorded (Max / Average): 13.7 / 10.9 knots
Flag: USA [US] 
Call Sign: WCX8884
IMO: 9077276, MMSI: 368684000

---

Last Position Received

Area: China Sea East
Latitude / Longitude: 31.3125° / 121.7453° (Map)
Speed/Course 28.7 knots / 0˚
Currently in Port: SHANGHAI
Info Received: 0d 0h 2min ago (AIS Source: 830)

	Current Vessel's Track
	Wind: 17 knots, 142°, 8°C

Itineraries History

---

Voyage Related Info (Last Received)

Draught: 10 m
Destination: CN SHA CJK
ETA: 2013-01-20 00:30
Info Received: 2013-01-19 18:10 (0d, 1h 31min ago)

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


I must be a gypsy too.  I find it very provactive-positive-if -travel-equals-life-affirming- in- love-with-this-life-erotic-on-the-highest-love-not-romantic-or-sexual-level-all-the-highest-potential-sea-water-mystery-loving-journey....the Jypsy's Journey to the far East on a massive ship. 

My degrees of measure on this trip have been less.  What if my first 42 degrees of writing burned away all obsessive feelings and healed me.  So now I am a calm -waiting, but not a desiring, sad, or even compulsive female pulsing with the other's energy.  I have returned to my aware self- glad of myself- and of the Other, the mystery, how life is in the here and now.  

I have a friend who travels to the far east and works extremely hard for 42 days.  That is the end of the story and thus my degree of burning seems low and almost to have no fire...but here is the good part.  

The fire is that quiet and deep heat-  a penetrating ember of fire -the underneath red glow, it doesn't really smoke, crackle or jump high in the air.  It is the low Earthy pulsing kind.  
When you close the wood burning stove...after the fire has really taken off and it is hot and the logs are half burnt which makes the heat form...and you lock it in...cut off almost all air...down to the point where there is just enough to make the heat of the embers last a long, long time.   It heats the whole house, sometimes the tile around the stove is so hot you cannot even step on it It even appears that the fire is not moving, but it it is...
I am the starter of this fire, the sustainer, the reaper, the keeper....I just need an Other(a water gypsy-kind) sometimes to ignite It once in awhile. 

15 Degrees of Fire: Ancient Flame

15th Day of 42 out at Sea

 the Jypsy-APL Philippines, first engineer- merchant marine...

 

Measuring of time in creative degrees

http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Ethics/Virtue.htm

 

"This association between the human being and the architectural column indicates that the Greeks identified the human being with the characteristics of the column: strong, orderly, proud, erect, beautiful. The column symbolized the human being, while the human being symbolized life, the intellect and the human spirit. 
  Thus, we think of the Greeks dedicating their many-columned temples not only to the Gods, but also to the idea of the human being. The human being was indeed the measure of all things, even of his Gods. And just as each column contributed to the support of the whole structure so each human contributed his support to the whole community. 

Greek theories of virtue are based on the term arete, which means "goodness," "excellence," and "virtue." The goodness or virtue of a thing is that by which it performs its function well. Thus, the function of a knife is to cut; a good, or "virtuous," knife cuts well.  
  Plato argues in The Republic that when reason rules the soul, as is its function, the soul is virtuous; as such, it possesses wisdom, bravery, temperance, and justice. 
  For Aristotle, the ethically virtuous soul habitually chooses its path of action according to a rational mean between two vices. Thus, when faced with a fearful situation, it chooses the mean, which is courage, rather than wallow in an excess of fear, which is a vice called cowardice, or proceed heedlessly and fearlessly, which is rashness. "

http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Ethics/Virtue.htm

The Hero (center) led to the Temple of Virtue (top)

by Athena (left) and Hermes (right),

the three Graces are near (bottom left),

           Rubens (1625). 

The amazing Greek philosophy and theology is the mixture of the two.  The human being is the measure of how the gods have exceeded in their creation.  To honor the human being, with its reason, physical performance, soul, potentials to create, invent and have compassion is to honor the gods.  If you pursue Arete- the virtue, excellence and goodness that is innately within you then you are an embodiment of the highest possible conclusion.  The Greek’s understanding of life with their fate and or tragic view makes death a quality known from the beginning.  They know that the human has a limited path and must stay within the virtue of their qualities.  Thus when faced with hardship, monsters and the such one must be like Odysseus- brave, yet cunning, give thanks to the gods and especially Athena your goddess of wisdom.  This can be a personification of male and female qualities united in one human being.  Odysseus listens to his wisdom, but acts bravely with strength and skill.  Human beings can be everything as Homer and the Greeks show us.  We are divine, yet limited.  We can create great works of art, yet we should know that our inspiration comes from a higher source.  It is a balance of attributes that requires that we do not deny any part of the human being.  If we start to mark ourselves as evil, or born from a wicked union, we are paralyzed by this tainted view of life.  We will live in fear, and are unable to shed this deep feeling of inferiority.  We shall never rise to our potential of creativity, peace, balance living within the mean between the gods and the vices of our limitations.  It is ultimately a quest for the middle path-a temperate way creating harmony towards our fate.  Our fate is death, yet we have such amazing potential.  The question is how do we travel with the knowledge of both of these ideas, and take action.  How do we use our reason and allow the muses to inspire us.  It requires our full human beingness…that is our natural inclination to believe in a higher power, but also our natural tendency to be curious and use our intellect. 

Is it Ironic that I am teaching the Odyssey, with the epic hero Odysseus seducing my every thought?  And my friend the Jypsy traversing the massive N. Pacific in an exaggerated commercial ship.  The Hubris exists of such a ship, thus it is out of balance.  A Greek would be enamored by the creation, yet appalled at the nonharmony and excessive resources it uses.  Now on the other hand they would wonder at the Engineer who must keep the beast going on a second- by- second basis.  They would think it tragic and a comedy.

 Does Jypsy, the first engineer, act with arête, virtue, goodness and excellence?  I am not sure.  I think Jypsy might be a lost Greek, unable to fit into this modern world with its crazy excessive-consuming nature.  Yet his pursuit of excellence is one part that he takes seriously.  If a Greek was well schooled in intellectual knowledge, had skill as an athletic being, and pursued art as in music and other endeavors, then Jypsy might be part Greek.  His awareness on the ship is wide- eyed and nervous.  As in his virtue, that motivation to do the right thing according to Engine room is obvious.  Does Jypsy have too much hubris, pride?  It does not appear this way so far.  The research is still ongoing.  He does not show gratitude to the gods or Athena for his grace in the engine room.  This is our modern position.  We do measure ourselves by exclusively human ideals, yet with this position we are left empty in some parts.  We feel a bit lost on the whole.  It is a battle ongoing to find the medium between scientific life and the nature of inspiration and some mystery that continues to astound us.  We feel something, but we are afraid to cross the threshold to embody our whole potential.  The purpose of the gods is lift man to this height.  If the Greeks teach us anything, it is about the creation of art, architecture that reflects the highest potential of man, but he could not do it without the gods, they show us the way higher.  It could be an illusionary circle, but it is required to move to a higher state of being. 

   Let us as it were celebrate the first God, not as establishing the earth and the heavens, nor as giving subsistence to souls, and the generation of all animals; for he produced these indeed, but among the last of things; but prior to these, let us celebrate him as unfolding into light the whole intelligible and intellectual genus of Gods, together with all the supermundane and mundane divinities - as the God of all Gods, the unity of all unities, and beyond the first adyta [the highest order of intelligibles], - as more ineffable than all silence, and more unknown than all essence, - as holy among the holies, and concealed in the intelligible Gods.  

-From Thomas Taylor's Introduction
to The Theology of Plato by Proclus

9 Degrees of Fire: Fire & Ice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Okhotsk)

9 Degrees of Fire: Fire & Ice 
9 days of 42


Another Journey of 42 days that my friend the Jypsy, First Engineer on the APL Philippines Commercial cargo ship, must travel.  It is the same journey as before.  He goes from Oakland, California to China and back again.  

APL Philippines left Oakland California on January 30th, 2012, 5 P.M. and as of today January 7th, 2013  is somewhere in the Sea of Okhotsk.  APL Philippines ETA to Yokohama, Japan is January 10th, 2013. 

2013-01-04T15:08:00 (UTC)

Lat/Lon: 54.29451 / -167.1749
Speed/Course: 19.7 kn / 260°  = (MPH- 22) They traveled across the Bering Sea at 22 mph.  All the while Jypsy maintained an engine room that is five levels or more.  I mean the belly of the beast has a lot of stomachs digesting all sorts of fluids, exhaust and oil, and whatever else your imagination conjures.  If you can think of it they probably got it.  All the equipment is bus size or man size. 

Sea of Okhotsk
The Sea of Okhotsk covers 611,000 sq.mi. (1,583,000 km²), with a mean depth of 2,818 feet (859 metres). Its maximum depth is 11,063 feet (3,372 metres). It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin: on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf and the Gulf of Tartary; on the south, through the La Pérouse Strait.
In winter, navigation on the Sea of Okhotsk becomes difficult, or even impossible, due to the formation of large ice floes, because the large amount of freshwater from the Amur River lowers the salinity which results in lowering the freezing point of the sea. The distribution and thickness of ice flows depends on many factors: the location, the time of year, water currents, and the sea temperatures.   ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Okhotsk)


Daily Vessel's Itineraries:

Time (UTC)	Vessel's Name	Position Type	Port	Area	Latitude / Longitude	Speed	Course	AIS Source
2013-01-07 12:31	APL PHILIPPINES	Midday position		Okhotsk Sea

0 Degrees of Fire: Entering the Fire

0 Degrees:  Time Paused .....Entering the Other World

APL- Philippines in Long Beach Port

Belly of the Whale and its Dimensions


The ship ported in Long Beach California on December, 26th.  It was out to sea for 38 days.  I was invited to stay on the ship with Jypsy for two nights and they were going back out on the third day.  Another 42 days out.  The same route Oakland, California to China and back again.

My journey to see the Jypsy was a strange mixture of beauty and everydayness.  I traveled through the western desert in winter.  Rain, dry air and light was a storm of beauty.  The rainbow was not one of storybooks and unicorns.  It was a display of nature on a high.  I saw violet and orange clearly.  At one point I thought I would get into an accident because of the brightness.

I do not know if this was anything, but it felt like an omen.  The rainbow stayed with me for more than an hour.  Sometimes pieces, sometimes a full one across the sky and one time two rainbows appeared.  Now you can pay attention to the flow of energy as you travel.  You can pay attention to nature as you travel and how things seem to flow.  The flow was a constant gravity pulling me calmly to the center.  Everything was in sync for my meeting.  He had an hour for lunch and I was there perfectly on time.  The directions were clear and I did not get lost.  I have not been to Long Beach since I was a kid, so I was a little bit worried.  Sometimes we only notice the bad flow, such as car issues, getting lost, traffic jams, being late and or other unforeseeable situations.  But I want to notice the good things also.  It sets a tone for the meeting.

Engine Room APL Philippines 

I was escorted by Jypsy onto the mammoth vessel and could not help the overwhelming presence of such a ship.  It is a little city unto itself.  There are monsters and bellys deep on this floating caravan.  Monsters lurk in the bright modern day offices and disguise of mortal men.  Men who have become so empty, unhealthy and dumb that there ego rages in every direction like a Hydra.  They become large with inauthentic life.  They eat in excess.  They let the toxic material of our modern world snuff out the natural light that would shine if they were healthy, exercising and spirited men. On this ship the monster is ever ranging, seemingly quiet and calm, yet plotting its next chaotic scheme.  Or is simply unconscious of anything that he is doing.  These are both dangerous.  The hero can be aware and even slay the ego-head.   You cut off one head and two more pop up-just as chaotic and venomous as the last one.  The pettiness is insurmountable.  You can only do your best.  Try not to get bit, burned, and or eaten.  It is all very dangerous.  A ship of this size has man-size or larger machinery.  It will swallow you and or your limb if strange jobs are requested.  If the chief does not allow proper rest and constantly frustrates his engineers it become a serious situation.

Carlos Castaneda speaks of this fortunate fate.  The problem is that in our modern scientific existence we do not have any identifications or understandings of the petty tyrants, monsters, hydras, ego-raging maniacs or warrior path.  All are unknown to us.  We are fools bumbling around each other.  Jypsy is not a fool, but never had any training to be a warrior.  He is a very aware, intelligent, caring and conscientious individual.  He wants to do a good job, and works tirelessly on a vessel that has been neglected.  It is run by a tyrant...at least the chief engineer is a out-of-control-unhealthy-monster in the first degree.  If the hero, Jypsy, stays with this mundane existence and just sees everything as is, with no hidden lessons, trials and or understanding of these freaks that cross our path, then he becomes lost and or so discouraged that he cannot survive and or slay the monsters.

This scenario is not just about this ship and this hero, it rings a bell in all of our lives.  We can be as scientific and evidenced based as we want, but it does not change the nature of our psyche and unconscious.  If we ignore our own possibilities, potential, and short-comings by living in a scientific world then we will be lost.  And lately lost means people ignoring nature and consuming entirely too much.  We we become radical consumers we inflict this way of existence on everything we do.  It becomes our mythology, our psyche doesn't understand anything unless if fits into this worldview.  Therefore if we are not buying a three bedroom house, working 9-5, having 3.4 kids and going to church every Sunday, we do not exist, or we are failures.  So the stories from Greek times and all of the ancient cultures were not about just the simple story, it goes much deeper.  The Greeks told stories of human potential and the psychological aspects of human life.  The hydra, Hades, Medusa and all of these myths are signposts to all the human energies.  Somehow we must bridge the gap between our modern individual, the hero, and the world.  

Jypsy is a good monk to beauty.  It is not the surface kind of beauty, but he has an intuition of quality.  Every time I have been around him, he is like a door way to something beautiful.  It it can be landscape, buildings, choices in what he pays attention to and more.  I don't know how to explain it.  After I see him something lingers that has quality.  Getting by is not enough.  Attention to details, but not so much as to be a slave to them.  

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.