Navarro Beach & Rivermouth

Checking out a future paddling and fishing spot.

Captain's Log

Feeling Like The Captain:

I've felt like Captain Jack Sparrow for days now, having spent enough hours on the water last Thursday and Friday -- those bright, surgy days -- to absorb those rhythms and motions! I love that feeling.

By feeling like Captain Jack, I mean feeling wobbly and tilty and one with the sea.  He had the Black Pearl, and I have Sofia

 Log Jam:  While kayaking last Thursday, I was startled by a shape in the water, by a long brown shape, that I took to be a mature sea lion that I was suddenly much too close to.  Not a harbor seal, for the shape was too too long and broad, but a sea lion, and at close quarters, a full-grown sea lion could do plenty of defensive damage.  That brown shape was just a log, however, a carved-off tree-portion about six or seven feet long drifting in the cove.

Now, having been surprised by that log, that shape, I back-paddled furiously and avoided any collision.  Which would have been the right action, particularly if it had been a marine mammal.  Still, I am struck by how much my startled response came before any rational sense of "Hey, that might be a sea lion, so avoid hitting the creature"; and, from reading and teaching Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival, I am well aware of the dynamics of amygdala trumping hippocampus, of emotional reaction before rational decision, but still I would like to have not been so afraid of a shape.  Haven't I trained for these situations?  Haven't I paddled and visualized enough to respond more thoughtfully?  Or, at least less fearfully?  Was this a failure of grace?   Or should I appreciate how much my core self, the body/emotional self, worked to take me out of (perceived) danger?

More Frog Than Fish, More Log Than Frog

I am just back from the pool, where I was more frog than fish, and more log than frog, I think.  Still, another start toward fitness and joy.

Viking Wisdom: "Fire Kindles Fire"

Flames from one log leap to another;
      fire kindles fire.
A man learns from the minds of others;
      A fool prefers his own.

--from "Words of the High One"--
one of the many Poetic Edda poems
translated from the Old Norse
by Patricia Terry

There are many reasons why I like this stanza and why I've quoted it to many a class.  I like to discuss with the class the governing concerns and imagery, the communal intelligence and the kindling fire.  And, I like to ask my students what happens if you substitute "tree" in place of "log" in that first line.  This stanza and that juxtaposition of wild vs. domesticated "fire" provides a foundation for worthy discourse in the classroom and out.