necessity

  Every once in a while a picture, a photograph or just a momentary glimpse will inspire me. Often I find that I am inspired with what I hadn't noticed the first time I looked. I discover that later on. Maybe that is what people see in those abstract pictures, I rarely take a second look at them. I much prefer real life when it comes to art. This morning as I browsed my memories page on Facebook there was a picture there I had taken some years back. I remembered taking that snapshot and even a comment someone had left on it after I posted it. I took the picture because of the redness of the sky that particular morning. I was reminded of an old adage, often repeated when I was growing up, "red in the morning sailors take warning, red at night sailors delight." Taking that picture from my front porch, or deck if you prefer because it is on the second floor, the tops of the telephone poles and all the associated wiring shows up in stark contrast to that sky. Perhaps it was the sailor reference that inspired the thought of rigging. It is that rigging that connects us to the world these days. There are electrical supply lines, telephone lines, internet cables, television cables and probably others that I'm not aware of. Those poles are the masts of today. It isn't lost on me that they are cross shaped either, unintended but still there nonetheless. A design of necessity. 

 When that picture came up on my page all those thoughts came to me simultaneously. That's why I'm trying to write it all down. It's a method of sorting through it all. I can't help but think about discoveries I have made about my ancestors and the sea. Turns out quite a number of them were whalers. Yes it is an occupation that has fallen out of favor in the modern world and they did attempt to hunt those whales to extinction. There were only a few species of interest to them, the sperm whale and the right whale chief among them. I imagine an ancestor of mine staring through the rigging as he clings to the mast scanning the horizon. Looking for the days pay to just come swimming by. How they must have loved a red sky in the morning. That red sky was evidence that just over the horizon, to the east, was clear skies. The suns' ability to illuminate the haze to the west is that proof. 

 I thought how the rigging of today connects us all and how the rigging of yesterday did the same If you were looking through the rigging of a sailing ship, you were likely at sea. If you were a whaler the time of your return was uncertain. The voyage ended when the barrels were full of whale oil. That could take a year or more, You did have to maintain the rigging to continue the voyage. Today we have to maintain the rigging to remain in touch with each other. Hard to imagine living today without all that rigging. Of course we are pushing for wireless methods just as sailing ships were replaced by engines. Then we could go ever farther and faster. I'd say the world in general has taken that path, ever farther and faster. Lines, rigging, running everywhere, connecting and leading, some we follow to unknown destinations. It is a maze. Sometimes we are lost. 

 I don't know I was just inspired once again when I saw that picture. The background attracted my attention but what was in the forefront inspired the thoughts. How often that happens. The background catches our attention and we fail to see the whole picture. We focus on the background and not what is right before our eyes. You see it was the sky that caught my attention, the rigging was just in the way. Yes the sky is inspiring all on its' own there is no denying that. But viewing that sky through the rigging of life is another matter altogether. The meaning becomes much deeper. Instead of enjoying the simple pleasure of a morning sky my mind is occupied with other thoughts. Thoughts of the journey. A journey without a set destination, we really don't know where we are going, yet we continue to sail on trying to fill our barrels. And when the barrels are full? Another voyage awaits. Keep your eye on the horizon. It is easy to become focused on what lies directly in front of us. a sort of attraction is created, like a moth to the flame. That can make the voyage almost untenable if we allow it to happen. Look to the horizon instead and chart your course carefully.