Guided by the Lonely Star,
Beyond the utmost
harbour-bar,
I’ll find the heavens
fair and free,
And beaches of the Starlit
Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the
West,
And fields and mountains
ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth
at last.
I see the Star above my
mast!”
"Bilbo's Last Song", J.R.R
Tolkien
On Thursday it was
Halloween, or Samhain, the Celtic new year and the time when the
veils between the worlds are at their thinnest, the time when we
remember those who have gone before us, and in joy and celebration
become that which scares us.
In neo-Pagan tradition,
the West is often the direction of the water, and of the dead. It is
the realms of the deeps and the setting sun. The way West across the
seas is the way home, to the home beyond home, the Isle of the
Blessed. In Irish tradition, the sea god Manannan Mac Lir guards the
gates to the Otherworld that lie beyond the sea. That last and final
journey across the seas is part of our myths and dreams, as Tolkien
well knew.
In culture, dreams and
stories the ocean is our trusted infinity, the depths from which
nothing returns, the great vastness that enacts our ending.
On Tuesday, my sister
linked me an article about the oceans, written by Greg Ray in the
Newcastle Herald.
(http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/) It
describes yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen's journey from Melbourne to Osaka
to San Francisco. When Ivan made the journey ten years ago, there
were fish to be caught every day. This time, because of over-fishing and pollution, he caught
just two.
From Osaka to San
Francisco, Macfadyen saw one whale, 'rolling sort of helplessly on
the surface.' Here, the rubbish was so dense that they were afraid to
start their motor for fear of the propellers getting tangled in
buoys, ropes, nets and plastic rubbish. They returned to Australia
with their yacht dented from the trash, it's yellow colour faded and
bleached from the chemicals in the waters. Recalling his previous
journeys, Macfadyen said:
"In years gone by I'd
gotten used to all the birds and their noises.”
"They'd be following
the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again.
You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the
distance, feeding on pilchards."
This time, apart from the
waves, the wind and the thudding of debris against the hull, the
voyage was made in virtual silence. For 3000 nautical miles there were
“No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.”
The responses beneath the
article, and to friends I had linked it, were similar. What now? Is
there any appropriate action to take to this article – ideally, an
action that doesn't turn us into freaks and social pariahs, biting
off the head of the supermarket clerk when we're offered plastic
bags, lecturing families behind us who have forgotten theirs, raging
at our friends for eating packaged salad and drinking from plastic
bottles? (I don't do these things. I don't want people to hate me.
But I think them.)
And I don't want to eat
fish any more – except I do, and I'm a little afraid I might turn
into the mother of Oskar, from Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum, who was so
sickened by the thing she saw fished from the seas (a rotting horse
head), that she died from gorging herself on any fish she could find,
as if disgust and desire were – when it comes to the oceans –
quite the same.
And maybe if we knew more
about the relationship between disgust and desire, if we understood
why we need – why we want – to get rid of all the things we are
endlessly creating – to make and make and make and then shed and
forget - then we'd know something more about what we're doing.
Is there any action we can
take? And where – when we remember our dead – can we find a place
for remembering that distant awful present that is our dying world?
Not to be depressing, or
anything.
I just want to end these
contemplations by thinking about darkness. This winter solstice, I
broached the darkness of Ditchling beacon alone for the first time in
my life, and danced under the stars. I dreamt that night that I had
cut off my own electricity and what I loved was falling from the sky,
and the next night I dreamt that I had eaten of the Nile, and life
couldn't return to it.
These dreams seemed larger
than my own stuff – and I think I only had them because I danced in
the darkness. What I mean is – what I'm trying to say is – it's
all very well to enjoy the dark at Halloween with companionship and
celebration - otherwise how would we get through the winter?
But what if there was a
way – a necessary way - to find that dark space inside ourselves
and to step into it. I mean – the space that isn't full of stuff.
That space that isn't about having. The place that is just like the
infinity of the oceans – that we mistakenly think is somewhere
outside ourselves.
Examples? I eat more than
I should, and I know that I do it because beyond doing it is the
hunger that feels like a cold night outside alone. I have been
frightened of losing my partner to others – because beyond that
duet of complicity is the space that reminds me of death.
What are our points of
safety beyond which we can feel that infinite darkness, and would it
make a difference to the oceans if we could step past them?
That's my Samhain thought.
