Where Are You Headed?

Sentinels in Blue and Green

Sentinels of the imagination?  Guardians of the bookshelf?  Okay, so they aren't the Ruritanian palace guard nor Strider's ancestors guarding the river approach to the southern kingdom . . . .

Greeters?  "Hello, fellow reader!  Pick a book, any book.  Or, we can suggest one for you, if you'd like?"  That's the duck talking.

The dragon?  I'd like to say he'd caution you against dog-earring favorite pages, but I do that myself.  He may look somewhat goofy, but he does have teeth and fire at hand--as do most books, the ones worth your time; or they should do, if you're lucky.

Welcome to the Gates of Ivory and Horn.

Self-Portrait #50: sculpture mix; blue (with a bit of green) glazing, layered.
Green Dragon (Somewhat Goofy): sculpture mix; green glazing, layered.

Looking For Earthsea

There's the portal up ahead.  I just have to get there.

(Where's Le Guin's Sparrowhawk when you need him?)

"The story of the book is essentially a voyage, a pattern in the form of a long spiral.  I began to see the places where the young wizard would go.  Eventually I drew a map.  Now that I knew where everything was, now was the time for cartography.  Of course a great deal of it only appeared above water, as it were, in drawing the map."

--Ursula Le Guin, writing about the evolving, unfolding, organic genesis and composition of her masterpiece The Wizard of Earthsea in her essay "Dreams Must Explain Themselves," a worthy read in its own right.

Thank you, Ursula Le Guin, for sparking so many spiral journeys of the imagination. 

Reprise: Bay-Henge

Kayaking the Berkeley Pier: November 26, 2009.