Dark Rainbow Bliss

I told you in my last post that I had the incredible experience last week of seeing a pod of orcas. I stood up in our small boat and took bunches of photos, but most don't do any justice to these incredible mammals.

I think whales are near-erotic, to tell you the truth. The words strong, glistening, muscular, sinuous, fluke. 

Here's a poem by D.H. Lawrence that a friend sent me:


Whales Weep Not!

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge
on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.
The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers
there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!

And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages
on the depths of the seven seas,
and through the salt they reel with drunk delight
and in the tropics tremble they with love
and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.
Then the great bull lies up against his bride
in the blue deep bed of the sea,
as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life:
and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale-blood
the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and comes to rest
in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale's fathomless body.

And over the bridge of the whale's strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales
the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth,
keep passing, archangels of bliss
from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim
that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea
great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies.

And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young
and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.
And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring
when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood
and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat
encircling their huddled monsters of love.
And all this happens in the sea, in the salt
where God is also love, but without words:
and Aphrodite is the wife of whales
most happy, happy she!

and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin
she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea
she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males
and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.





Perhaps a tad overwrought, but whew!

All Retch and No Vomit

How long has it been since you've listened to Alan Watts' cool voice and been mesmerized? Have you ever listened to Alan Watts' cool voice and been mesmerized? I read Alan Watts when I was just out of college, when I lived in a white farmhouse on a country road in North Carolina with a boy I loved. While I might have been a tad too earnest in my explorations, an earnestness that tipped precariously close to pretension, I learned about Zen Buddhism from Watts' books as well as the more mystical aspects of Catholicism, into which I'd been baptized but had lost interest in somewhere around age fourteen. The two titles that come to mind were Myth and Ritual in Christianity and The Way of Zen, and I might be able to rustle up my dog-eared copies somewhere in this house in this life that I live right now. Both books affected me profoundly and gave me the beginnings of what I might call a more settled approach to religious belief and practice. I might, perhaps, delve into them again and see if the fuss they provoked then still carries weight now.  I listened to countless tapes of the man, too, because so many of his lectures and talks and teachings were recorded, which leads me to why I'm even writing about Watts here. I stumbled upon this recording of a talk that Watts gave, one of many hundreds that are now accessible on the internets, and as a parent frequently called upon to impart some kind of sense and wisdom, I found it resonant.

Guerrilla Pothole Gardener

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Monika on Pinterest

Doesn't this brighten your day?

Messing Around

I lifted these two videos from the website I Feel Unmotivated. Watch them if you have a minute -- and not because you feel unmotivated.






My friend Moira of Dog Art Today posted an entirely different but beautiful film of a man and his dog, his thoughts and the beauty of the world around him. It's peculiar and stunning, particularly for artists and those who love dogs. I highly recommend taking the time to watch it.