Good Times @ The Green Parrot!

Holidays...

It's long overdue...these fingers that type some letters to loved ones...a delicate denial.

It doesn't mean what it should, and who said it should anyway, as the infrastructure falls to pieces and is left with rubble and respite no matter the roads and seas in sight. Forget, forgive, a day that's gone brings another to live. The hand of a clock that's too fast to hang on to anyway, so why is this idea of seconds and time so clad and irresistible in it's fashionable stare? One reason only, it knows we've no choice, as a color refracts the light, so does our groove attract the notion of flight.

And we desire a falling off the edge of the earth, a reaching out, a looking up as the wind rushes past our ears to see it all falling away... But whatever we have given, so too will we give away.

I've got post-it's littering my wall that tell me I've got to do things, and every day I look up at them and even though my arms have raised them to the wall I still refuse to accept their structured stares. To be different, to be wild. I am here now, and as close to the notion of being as I've ever known...purely because I feel right with that which is around me...my surroundings...the ones I've helped to create, the ones I've had no control over, the ones that have surprised me, the ones that have become immaterial in their frail and hopeful light, the serendipitous seconds that have led to an incomprehensible sense of place.

May our days be merry, may our days be bright, may our days be inundated with a sense of light. Whether alone or overcrowded, stoned or lost without it, know there is everything you need just there under your nose, just beyond the door you've closed.

Only half a world away...

Michael.

The Whitsundays

Just over the tops of those trees and down the slope on the other side is Whitehaven beach, probably the single most recommended stop for anyone cruising these pristine waters of the Whitsundays, in northeastern Australia.

These feet once again are crossed and propped up on the wheel house dash, and the view from our anchorage is cropped by channels and islands, all blue and green just past my toes. It's always the same for an instant in my mind when I have to remind myself I'm at work and there's a job to do and I must get going and I must ask if we're ready for the day's excursions and events. It's easy to get lulled in to the comfortable space between vacation and obligation during the times when the seas and winds are calm and favorable, & the cruising grounds provide so many options that to worry about where to go would only be a waste of precious head space.

How would this human existence be without water? It's hard to imagine the repertoire of gear in a typical garage to be pulled from in preparation for an outdoor fun fest. I for one am very pleased with my dear Mother Earth's innate ability to inspire and rejuvenate, and once again feel blessed with each moment as a feeble mammal on it's way to the ether.

M.

Sunday morning, November 29th, 2009.

Messages...

It's 5 a.m. and I've just made my early morning, steaming coffee, hopeful way up to the bridge. Just beneath the hovering mist & rain clouds I see the beaches clearing with the falling tide and wonder about the shells that have been exposed, & wish I could go out and find them. Our best anchorage to date in PNG waters and we're leaving this morning to have one last look at the swell at Gona Bara Bara island before we head out across the Coral Sea to Cairns.

These adventures, as surely by now one can call them, are becoming a way of life, like an afternoon stroll through the orchard to check for messages in the mailbox at the edge of the property. And I am beginning to see that it most definitely is not the messages that make the man but rather his optimistic stroll to go out and check them. May we always skip out to gather our messages.

A wrinkled, weathered man paddled out to the boat yesterday selling pearls for which I had no Kina to bargain with but still was able to marvel at their universal appeal. An islanders diamond. We are all selling these little fallen stars I think, showing them to each other in our bravery and pride while we ask a price to an inquisitive face. A desperate paddle out into the rain to place our gemstones on display as emotional entrepreneurs searching for love in a crowd. Strange how we all charge a flat rate - this love.

There is more light in the sky now, enough to see the white horses galloping over the top of the sea out in the channel. And we swing...the water moves white and clean over rock edges & coral; the day comes anew.

This alone time, on a ship with ten others, has become worth more than anything to me. I find perspective in the open contemplation of the possibilities at the day's beginning. Without this genesis, the clarity of time and her magnanimous potential would merely be a comet's passage rather than the light-speed, inter-galactic ride it most certainly brings.

To the day, I lift my eyes and heart.

M.

November 2nd, 2009