Lost Voyages, Lost Dreams

Dip, dip, dip,
my blue ship
sailing in the water
like a cup on saucer
dip, dip, dip.

Thats the ditty I sang to clapping hands, with friends, when I was a little girl.

This is my fourth day at sea on Eldemer-a sailing catamaran that is set on a long voyage up the Indian coast to Goa and then to cross the Arabian sea for exotic lands- Oman, Djibouti, Eritrea. The ocean is the deepest blue with depths of clear dark sapphires-swells take us up and down, bobbing, throwing up white frothy chiffon waves from the sides-the two sails stand tall and proud-beauties in white and blue. I seem to be living my childhood song "Dip, dip, dip..."

This is what I have dreamt of- for as long back as when memories merged with dreams. I remember long childhood hours lost in day dreams. What did I dream of then? Atleast some part was dreams of oceans wide and blue, imaginary lands, and adventures featuring both.

Over the last few days I have struggled with an incomprehension- a lack of joy, fulfillment, at dreams finally come true. The open infinite sea does not fill me with an unboundedness of freedom. I am confined to the 50 feet length of my vessel, set on a course, limited, confused, why the littleness of the vessel is becoming more important than the vast, empty, surrounding space.

I do not miss the ones I have left behind - I just miss the me that I have become in the long journey from childhood songs and lost daydreams. I miss the ability to change the course of my day- the freedom to walk away- to live life on a whim, the fancy of today, now. Is that control, or lack of control. Am I becoming a control freak or am I a mere dilatante? To allow continuous, connected moments to chart the chart the course of my day, life, not always unusual, exotic, but deliberate, conscious.

Tomorrow I get off at the first port- Mangalore- to head back home.

Migrations

As we leave the Cochin harbor,the water in the channel is jade..the harbor is filed with naval ships, long and skinny traditional fishing boats, small dingies, gulls - hovering over fishing crafts, and...dolphins. The sun is harsh in a white glare, tossing silver mirrors on waves to reflect the pale blue sky.

I stand on the back deck, and my thoughts turn to the migration of hummingbirds-those tiny irridescent fliers that migrate from central to north America on journeys of thousands of miles. If those little suckers can do it, fly and so be free, so can I, across unknown oceans to where my sails will take me. But the question that haunts me is what drives these migrators so? What drives me constantly to seek new shores?

The water has turned a glittery teal on the west with a lowering sun and and bounces in opaque cones of blue on my east.

Migration in the wild is driven by instinct for survival and procreation-neither of which drive my migration from the nesting ground. My goings in and out, for short or long durations are often rudderless, searching, arbitrary exploration of external spaces to guide internal journeys, in small miniscule progress towards a search for myself.

At a different level, isnt movement itself a direct manifestation of life? All living things move- and in my migratory movements I experience life - most alive. Is then stopping to move- death? Movement versus stillness, animate versus inanimate? And yet, all great sages, seers, have practised this stillness- in body, and then mind, distilling slowly into spirit till existence itself is purely and consciously experienced-a fully conscious awareness of living - of life force surging through one's being, pulsating, vibrating, fully alive in this stillness, deadness, pure awareness. And thus Bunan wrote:

Die while you are alive
and be absolutely dead.
Then do whatever you want:
it is all good.

I watch fires turn gold and red in the western skies- I stand still in a rocking boat-void thoughts-past, future-I stand still and attempt to die.