Grendel's Mother's Cave

Last night, I had a series of vivid, disturbing dreams. I only managed about four hours of sleep between coming down from teaching my night class and getting up early to finesse the day's teaching plans: The Outlaw Sea and Romeo and Juliet. So, between almost-midnight and 4:14 a.m. I slept and dreamed, often waking, but also slipping back into dreamland, into the same two or three sets of dreams again and again.

Anyway, one set of dreams involved the landscape of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, but factually considered, as is the way so often with dreams.

What I mean to say: I was suiting up for a scuba exploration of the undersea cave of the monster Grendel's mother. Just as the hero Beowulf swims down and encounters the monstrous mother, I was set to swim down to tour that cave as part of an archaeological expedition. What struck my dream-self was how matter of fact everyone was being about a matter of folklore, of poetry, of myth. But everyone else took this wonder for granted, and all the talk was technical: how to dive this cave.

I pulled on my wetsuit and checked my gauges with everyone else, but my mind kept shifting between a slight bewilderment that they could be so accepting that this cave was in fact that cave from the poem and a growing apprehension that we could encounter something monstrous down there. No one seemed worried at all, but it's a monster's cave, I kept thinking, as I shouldered my heavy tank and defogged my mask. The water was clear, but dark and cold.

Diving Grendel's Mother's cave: a tense dream, disconcerting, disturbing the silted base of the mind, the psyche. The other dreams were equally outlandish, equally aquatic, but without so much ominousness and wonder. Oh, I woke while en route--swimming downward, dive-light cutting the darkness--so maybe I've something to look forward to in tonight's slumbers. Wish me luck and a magic sword, if I need one, just as Beowulf needed when he paid his visit to that cave.

Beauty's Echo

Amazon: sculpture mix; cobalt carbonate oxide.

And, Head and Egg (shore rock).

(I value the piece, the pieces, though my own rough execution is hard to miss.)

Books: the Davenport Seven Greeks and almost any Neruda are particular favorites.

I'm looking forward to ceramics work this summer: sculpting and throwing bowls and pots. I need to improve, need to develop my skills more fully, yet each piece speaks to me, telling stories of the past, of what matters, and of what I must do to work better, to be that better artist.

Such pieces do not let me forget anything, not a single failure, not a bad choice or misstep. Such echoes spur, goad, and guide me.

Octopus Alert!

(You can see the octopus rising up from his hideaway, just below the fish in the photo above.)

(Here, the octopus is holding still and watching me as I approach.)

(Now he--or she--is pulling back into the safety of that hole, though watching me as I hover.)

(We watch each other, warily.)

A handful of shots from last summer on Maui.

The octopus was moving, rising up a bit from that hole, and that's the only reason I spotted it. I took these shots, free diving, and then moved away before the creature could become too perturbed by my continuing presence. Or, so I reasoned.

Attempting to be tricky, I ended up hovering at a distance, hoping the octopus would rise up again and even leave the hole, but that didn't happen despite my moving further and further away. He, or she, watched me the whole time. So, I swam away, only to return and hover again, but no luck. I eventually grew cold, even in Hawaiian waters, and headed to shore.

Bluefish

Doesn't it almost look like a painting rather than a photograph?

No photoshop here. Just a photo shot from the depths.

The Authority of Foam

I don't believe I've posted this particular shot on the blog, though I have posted other shots and sequences featuring this mask--the Drowned Man--and this beach before.

I like how dry the beach looks, though it isn't. I'm struck by the integrity (for that's the word, I feel) of those rocks and thick grains of sand, as the foam arrives. Look at the push and heft of that foam, the lip flying, the snake-shapes lunging, the body flowing and folding forward. Or, that's how I see the scene caught in this shot: authority exerting itself.

I probably held off posting this picture because of the room for the ridiculous as that foam shoots from the eyeholes, and yet there's a haunting quality here too, isn't there?

Humor? Or, horror?

How afraid of drowning, of such whelming foam, are you?

Van Damme State Beach, just south of Mendocino: way back in November 2009.

(Actually, I think I have posted this shot before. I'll have to recheck the blog. But even so, this entry--how shall I say this--still counts.)

On The Battlements

Elsinore.

I need to start rereading Hamlet and viewing all those different videos for use in class. But however I'm reading and whatever I'm viewing, for me Hamlet is the portrait of a man and a society with too too much push and not enough trust.

Hence, the tragedy.

Here, I'm fooling with idle thoughts, a camera, and one of my masks. Pacific Grove: Lover's Point. On a bright January day. One of the laws of this blog: to have fun.

Asilomar Coast

A January afternoon: surgy, with a swell running, but sunny topside.

It's raining today, so I'm dream-beachcombing.

A Sailor's Dream

Berkeley Marina: January 12, 2011.

"A Visitor": A Poem By Mary Oliver

A VISITOR

My father, for example,

who was young once

and blue-eyed,

returns

on the darkest of nights

to the porch and knocks

wildly at the door,

and if I answer

I must be prepared

for his waxy face,

for his lower lip

swollen with bitterness.

And so, for a long time,

I did not answer,

but slept fitfully

between his hours of rapping.

But finally there came the night

when I rose out of my sheets

and stumbled down the hall.

The door fell open

and I knew I was saved

and could bear him,

pathetic and hollow,

with even the least of his dreams

frozen inside him,

and the meanness gone.

And I greeted him and asked him

into the house,

and lit the lamp,

and looked into his blank eyes

in which at last

I saw what a child must love,

I saw what love might have done

had we loved in time.

--Mary Oliver,

from her volume Dream Work

Gymnast: Dona Quixote

Garage art; unfinished.

Tangled Up In Blue

Self-Portrait #49. January free diving. Look at that sun.

(The Bob Dylan title is a nod to a worthy song and points to what stands out second-most in this photo, blue and blue and blue and blue.)

Watershot

For me, another reminder that the texture of life matters. (Look at those bumps, warbles, and ridges.)

Going coastal.

Or, watershot: to feel driven by water, drawn to water, called on by water. To feel most comfortable in, on, or beside the sea, the changing tides, waves and beaches.

In folklore, an affliction associated with mermaids, selkies, and other waterfolk. In sports, an addiction to swimming, diving, surfing, sailing, and fishing. Other symptoms? A special fondness for fish tacos.

(Compare with elfshot.)

Wish Upon a Star

Or, Starfish in Motion?

Actually, the seastar was holding tight; I was flying by with the surge.

A Glass of Scotch, Shakespeare's Earring, A Good First Novel, and A Big Head

1. Journal Note: Really good day for school and at school--been busy since 4 a.m.--so the Glenlivet in the glass is partly reward and fully earned. Trying to recall what I've read about Shakespeare's earring. The gold ring as a talisman against drowning, a popular hope of the day? Or is that reading too much into and out of The Tempest? Where did I read that? In Fowles' Shipwrecks? Note to self: track the errant thought down. First thing, boss.

2. I'm rereading Ian Rankin's first Rebus book, and I'm enjoying the special pleasure of a solid first novel that is trying really hard to be clever and good. A lesser book would be less enjoyable because of how hard it tries, but Knots and Crosses works, and Rankin's rather noticeable efforts to make this a good experience for his reader is certainly part of the charm. (And I hope my first novel, if I ever complete one, is half as good; no, as good, that's my hope, or better. Why not?)  

(*Note: Ian Rankin had published The Flood before Knots and Crosses, so I'm wrong about the first novel thing here.)

3. A Memory: Two Weeks Ago.

Fellow working the counter at the dive shop down Monterey way as I enter: "Man, your hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger." Maybe he recalled my sudden buzzcut last Spring; maybe he had me confused with another diver.

(If you check the mugshot at the upper right, you'll see the fellow's comment was apt. If you check the mugshot at the lower right, you'll see the buzz. If you care . . . which I don't expect.)

I decided not to ask if Bigger Hair is good or bad. We had a fine conversation, I thought, about his spearfishing with tanks, free diving in general, the dangers of solo diving, and the specific conditions of the day. He recommended against solo diving and pointed out the heavy surf; I listened politely as well as carefully. How do I say it? I may act foolhardy, but I'm no fool? I valued his experience, but I have my own experience, especially free diving solo, to value also.

A grab-bag of thoughts, emptied out at your feet. Still, sometimes a blog entry is more for me than for you. I'll aim higher next time.

P.S. April 30, 2011: I'm shifting my photos for the right-hand column of this blog, so I'll put two "hair" shots just so this entry will make sense.

January 2011 (above): '70s Hair.

April 2010 (below): buzzzzcut.

Memorial Lane

Or, that's what I call it. Right next to my mom's viewpoint when she was still alive and checking the coast--clear or not--as often as she could.

Almost head-high wave, I'm thinking, and a few weeks back now. Maybe a bit bigger--but only knee-high Hawaiian, of course. Looks good for body-surfing, if I could improve my entry and dodge all the rocks on the way in. (There's a line of toothy bits and boulders beneath the white water there in the middle of the scene.) Gorgeous view; glorious in motion.

I'd like to dive out there, to dodge some breakers and the rocks, to shoot some fish and a crazy surfer or two with my water-camera. To search for shards of the sculptures sacrificed out here. Mermaids; duck-heads; masks. I'd hardly expect to find anything still whole, not with that pumphouse working through the seasons.

I ought to take a look, though. Maybe on a flatter day. Slightly flatter. I wouldn't want to miss all of that energy. Would you?

Passages: Stevenson on "How" in Literature

Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but I think they put it high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both which is not immoral, but simply a-moral; which either does not regard the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy relations; where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of the practical intelligence, in clean, open-air adventures, the shock of arms or the diplomacy of life.

--Robert Louis Stevenson, from "A Gossip on Romance," an essay I find useful and influential when I consider how literary arts truly work and what I feel such arts should aim at.

I've written about Stevenson's Treasure Island also; here's the link:

http://mattduckworthunderwater.blogspot.com/2009/04/touchstone-stevensons-treasure-island.html

Blue Repose: Two Views

"When A Hammer Sings . . .

Its head is loose."

You know, that ringing piiiinnnnnggggg when the hammerhead hits metal or concrete or even very hard wood, that noise that tells you to seat and secure the head before it flies off and hurts something or someone. (What's that saying about anger and breaking things? Don't fly off at the handle.) That pinging is singing.

Harrison and Kooser, from Braided Creek: A Conversation in Verse or something like that. I love that slim volume, but the subtitle isn't quite coming to mind.

I had a student once whose father, a carpenter, wrote poetry, published poetry. I always wondered if she let herself--for that's how it felt, that she wasn't letting herself--what poetry she could write. As a bystander, I knew she had something to share, observations to deliver. And I'm sure she's gone on to do that, whether or not she's producing poetry specifically.

Carpentry is another form of poetry, after all, and so's every other craft.

I considered getting hammered tonight, so I could sing, but I'm diving or kayaking or something tomorrow. I'll settle for my basic articulate (or semi-articulate) self and save singing for my birthday, the anniversary of Lord Byron's death (just missed his birthday), or something. Hangovers hammer back, after all.

Still, if you need to get hammered, Flor de Cana is not a bad way to go.

Mostly, I like how Harrison & Kooser's original verse gets me thinking--and smiling--every time: "When a hammer sings, its head is loose."

For some reason, rereading Elmore Leonard's Unknown Man #89 makes a lot of sense to me right now.

Pit-Fired Abalone

Attempting--and failing--to mimic one of the ocean's many beauties.

It was fun trying.

Abalone shell: Sculpture mix; pit-fired.

(The darker red coloring came from kelp I'd picked up on Ocean Beach and had placed against the form in the pit. The lighter red coloring may have come from some of the chemicals tossed down into the pit during the firing, and some may have come from the fumes of that kelp we'd put into the pit.)

Copper and Clay

The Oatmeal Bowl

One piece in the puzzle of comfort.

Depth is everything, at least with oatmeal or soup.

Frog-Man

Or, Were-frog looking at the moon.

Sculpture mix; glazed with transparent brown and (lightly, quickly) sea-foam. I was expecting more green from the sea-foam, but that was a misjudgment on my part.

"Keel or Reef": Four Poems by Louise Bogan

I've been reading around in Louise Bogan's The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968, and I wanted to share a handful that definitely hold my attention. I hope they please you too.

TO AN ARTIST, TO TAKE HEART

Slipping in blood, by his own hand, through pride,

Hamlet, Othello, Coriolanus fall.

Upon his bed, however, Shakespeare died,

Having endured them all.

CARTOGRAPHY

As you lay in sleep

I saw the chart

Of artery and vein

Running from your heart,

Plain as the strength

Marked upon the leaf

Along the length,

Mortal and brief,

Of your gaunt hand.

I saw it clear:

The wiry brand

Of the life we bear

Mapped like the great

Rivers that rise

Beyond our fate

And distant from our eyes.

ZONE

We have struck the regions wherein we are keel or reef.

The wind breaks over us,

And against high sharp angles almost splits into words,

And these are of fear or grief.

Like a ship, we have struck expected latitudes

Of the universe, in March.

Through one short segment's arch

Of the zodiac's round

We pass,

Thinking: Now we hear

What we heard last year,

And bear the wind's rude touch

And its ugly sound

Equally with so much

We have learned how to bear.

MUSICIAN

Where these hands have been,

By what delayed,

That so long stayed

Apart from the thin

Strings which they now grace

With their lonely skill?

Music and their cool will

At last interlace.

Now with great ease, and slow,

The thumb, the finger, the strong

Delicate hand plucks the long

String it was born to know.

And, under the palm, the string

Sings as it wished to sing.