Sea Change, A Journal of Reflections and Waves

Full fathom five, thy father lies,
of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding dong, Hark! Now it hear them.
Ding dong, bell.


William Shakespeare, of course, sung by Ariel, I believe, in The Tempest, one of my favorite of his plays. For those of you who know the quote well, I'm aware that the punctuation is a bit off. Perfectly functioning keyboards are a bit of a rare commodity in Peru. This one doesn't do anything but type arrows when you try to use the upper symbols on the keys.

In any case, I can correct them when I return home next week to the States! Hurray! The exclamation point works at least!

I had the idea last spring to start a journal called Sea Change, A Journal of Reflections and Waves that would focus on the subject of change on Block Island. I want to include all aspects of change, both the good and the bad. How it affects our life and how we want to affect change on both a personal and collective level. For me, specifically, I see this as an opportunity to focus our intention on our ability to create the world we want through our emotions, on both a personal and political level. I am interested, as Martin Prechtel puts it, in awakening the indigenous soul of Block Island. You may remember the Manifest Manisees Manifesto I created last winter. Some of you were in the beautiful ceremony with me at Jill Helterline's house last Lammas....Groundhog Day.....where we spoke our wishes for the island aloud as if they had already come true. In case you want to review it, or to read it for the first time, go into the archives on this blog for Feb. 2007. It can be read there. And if you have anything you would like me to consider adding, please leave your suggestions in the comments or write me personally at jenlighty@hotmail.com.

Why Sea Change....

Well, obviously, we live on an island and are surrounded by the sea. There are few places on the island where you can't hear it, unless the wind is very still, which happens rarely. We sleep to the sound of the sea. We don't need lullabies, or we are haunted by the sound, kept awake, confused by our dreams. I want the journal to be a call to clarity. A place where we examine the different reflections that death takes in our lives, and a place where we envision reflections we would like to see. We live in a paradoxical time, participants in a dying culture that is also coming vibrantly to life. My recent experiences with ayahuasca have helped me to actually go through the process of death. It was both terrifying and beautiful, peaceful and full of contentment, a quality I find is missing so often in contemporary life. To be content with change.

And what does Shakespeare have to do with all this....

In this little song from The Tempest, Ferdinand's father is dead. The father is associated with the patriarchy, a system controlled by men based on domination of the feminine earth which scholars say has governed most of our planet for the past 6,000 years or so, I believe, replacing the matriarchal cultures, which some other scholars say, was more peaceful and egalitarian. This is misplaced thinking in my mind which continues to place the blame for our current ecological crisis on someone other than ourselves.....each of us is responsible for what we have created through our emotional bodies, whether we be in a male or female body. Truth be told, my teacher Maria opened my eyes to this erroneous and accusative way of thinking, turning my whole thought process around when she informed me that all of acts of creation are female. All acts of creation include the atomic bomb and chemical weapons. It is time to look within ourselves and heal the schism between the male and female which has caused us to project our unresolved anger onto a world that is patiently serving our needs.

I don't believe the world is in crisis. Dead eyes become pearls and bones become coral, which is a living organism, filled with thousands of miniscule polyps sharing space like a colony of undersea bees, working together to sustain life in all its wondrous mystery, rich and strange. And sea nymphs, of course, are notorious for their ability to seduce. That great explorer Ulysses survived them only by strapping himself to the mast so he wouldn't throw himself into their arms when he sailed past on his way home to Ithaka.

It is time though, perhaps, to throw ourselves into their song. To let ourselves die and be reborn as naturally as waves breaking on a shore who are pulled back into life by a force they can't see, something beyond eyes, something hidden but fully known the way a pearl inside an oyster is sure of its own beauty.

See Change. It didn't even occur to me until after I'd come up with the name for the magazine. So obvious it slipped by me, through the song of my unconscious to my fingers who began typing, letting the ideas come in clear currents that will take us home when it is time for us to get there. It doesn't matter when, really. That bell that's always tolling isn't doesn't have to be marking time past, or time remaining. It could be the siren's have decided against drowning, or maybe they want to teach us to breathe underwater, to bring the darkness into the light and let them play, rolling on the surface like otters.

What do you see......

Southern Cross

Wherever I go in this country I keep meeting people who tell me (or imply) they know more than me, like the woman this morning who told me the poverty here doesn´t bother her because the poor, like all of us, are choosing their own reality.

I feel you stirring within me, the rage that wants to lash out and tell her she´s full of shit and I don´t believe for a second she´s as disconnected as she claims to be.

Also, I am tired of people telling me I must become more unattached and that I should ¨do¨more ceremony, as if surrendering was as easy as taking a pill or a drink, or a weekend course on shamanic healing taught by a wrinkled old man who wants all of your money, and I understand that I am attracting the old women who keep following me around asking for money, like the one the other day who followed me halfway up the mountain I wanted to walk alone because she knew I would give her money just to get rid of her.

I just want to be seen by these women and by the cabdriver who keeps trying to sell me condor feathers I suspect are fake. I haven´t seen one condor in this country. How can there be so many feathers for sale? They are either not from condors, or the vendors are killing the giant birds to get them, because I know, as a feather collector, that there are just not that many giant feathers lying around on the ground waiting for cabdrivers to walk by.

I suspect vultures in every sense of the word, surviving off the dead, though there´s nothing wrong with that, or with killing to eat. It´s the deception I object to. I want someone to tell me the truth in this country. Then I get angry at myself for attracting all these negative experiences and want to smack the smug new agers who tell me that is what I am doing.

One thing I am good at is feeling. I feel the judgment coming at me. It is not a projection of my own feelings, although it is a reflection...I feel what people are thinking and it hurts me. I have also been attracting people who say hurtful things to me in a passive aggressive way. Like it´s funny to tease me about how sensitive I am.

I know my reactions are my own and are what I need to grow from right now, that I need to learn how to respond instead of react, but right now I am lost in the hurt and don´t know how to get out of it. Part of my personality is to admit my weaknesses in conversation. I think I genuinely want to talk with people, but I keep attracting people who judge me when I do this, so there must be something I am missing here. Maybe it is just that I, who admit my weakness, am stronger than I think.

I don´t want to ask my feelings to leave me alone, but would like to transform them into something a little more serene.

I could resolve all this with some fakery. Call in a condor to drop his feather´s at my fet, but I want you, right now, to see me. How ugly I am in the middle of all this beauty. Green mountains and fertile clouds seeding the fields of maize.

Medicine Poem

This is the beginnings of a poem I wrote after my first ayahuasca ceremony on New Year´s Eve. I thank the plant for the insights it gave me and offer my words back to it in gratitude for the beauty and knowledge it shared with me.


Medicine Poem


In the round room

with our backs to the red adobe walls

we prayed to our own darkness,

flowers torn apart by fear

and the losses caused by the lies we´d been told

and all the betrayals necessary

on the path

to becoming whole.


Gunshots cracked above us

like blessings from the king of lightning

on the earth below

who held its breath and wondered

if our prayers would be enough

to keep the darkness between stars

turning.

It was New Year´s Eve,

most of the world stumbled

under fire

in celebration

but the dogs knew the bombs

weren´t far away

barking as the sun flamed

in the black sky

and then collapsed in a fan of colors

that tickled their closed eyes

when they fell to the ground who shook

with fear at our blindness

unable to understand why we wanted

to give our eyes away.

And the fire fueled itself

with shattered eardrums and severed fingers

while the water waited to see

how we wanted it to fall

ready to answer our prayers with drought

or drowning

flowing toward open mouths

with all the answers

and more questions to keep us spinning away

from the sound

then toward it

so close to God

we forgot ourselves

rushing past our ears
like waterfalls.

My death happened

without my knowing

the shape of my life arcing like a rainbow

between two black holes

a raindrop held by a leaf

that breaks as it falls

crushing butterflies and demons

with their own blindness

reborn on the other side

equal and unknown.


A leaf falls, releasing the song held

in a raindrop

and a woman gives herself away because she knows

she is always full

and the silence after is as gentle as an old doe

at dusk

who bends to drink at a mudhole

torn apart by love

immersed in the dark between stars

greeting the wolves.

Tsegihi ( Navajo Cantinela Noche)

This is my translation of the Navajo Night Chant, recited in the ceremony of the same name of the Dine´. I translated it for my new friends who live at Alonso´s. They are very interested in the prophecy of the eagle and the condor and in North American indigenous culture.

If the phrasing seems awkward, it is because I followed the phrasing in the translation from Navajo to English by N. Scott Momaday. If anyone who knows Spanish better than I catches any glaring errors, please let me know! And last, but certainly not least, Walk in Beauty, as the Dine´say.


Casa hecho del aurora,
Casa hecho de la luz velada,
Casa hecho de la nube oscura,
Casa hecho de la lluvia masculino,
Casa hecho de la neblina oscura,
Casa hecho de la lluvia femenina,
Casa hecho del polen,
Casa hecho de los saltamontes,
La nube oscura es a la puerta.
La trocha irse de este nuba oscura.
El relampago zigzg se levanta alta le sobre.
¡Dios masculino!
Una ofrenda de tuyo yo hecho.
Yo prepare´una fuma para ti.
Restaura mis piedes para mi.
Restaura mi cuerpo para mi.
Restaura mi mente para mi.
Restaura mi voz para mi.
Este dia mismo saca el hechizo de tuyo para mi.
El hechizo de tuyo se aparta para mi.
Tu le sace´ para mi;
Lejas se fue.
Con la felicidad, yo recubro.
Con la felicidad mi interior se pone fresco.
Con la felicidad yo se voy.
Mi interior sentiendo fresco, puedo caminar.
No mas largo doloroso, puedo caminar.
Imerpemeable al dolor, puedo caminar.
Con los sentimientos animados, puedo caminar.
Asi´le ser hace mucho tiempo, puedo caminar.
Con la felicidad, puedo caminar.
Con la felicidad, con las nubes oscuras abundantes, puedo caminar.
Con la felicidad, con los aguaceros abundantes, puedo caminar.
Con la felicidad, con las plantas abundantes, puedo caminar.
Con la felicidad, puedo caminar.
Asi´le ser hace mucho tiempo, puedo caminar.
Puede ser hermoso delante de mi.
Puede ser hermoso detras de mi.
Puede ser hermoso abajo de mi.
Tal vez es hermoso sobre mi.
Tal vez is hermoso por todos lados de mi.
En la belleza se termine´.

Sea Squad South America

To my esteemed fellow members of Sea Squad, and future members, I am pleased to report from Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. The lake it truly immense, and when on it, seems like an ocean, complete with rolling waves, although no tides or surf breaking on its shores.

I am currently writing from Puno, the largest city on the lake, which is the home city of BI honorary member Aymar Ccopocatty. Aymar, being from North America a well, is highly aware of the pollution problem that is developing here and is documenting the algae blooms due to nitrogen overload close to Puno, caused by dumping raw sewage into the lake, on film. He is doing his best to educate his people about this problem, but reports that it is frustrating because the people don´t really have a concept of pollution yet. I am happy to report that the pollution only seems to be in Puno. After a two day excursion on the lake, I can report nothing but pristine water and thriving cultures on the islands I visited.

Becky Hogan and I set forth from Puno with an international motley crew on a boat that looked like the one from Gilligan´s island. Our goal, Amantani, the island of the magenta, bell-shaped Kantuta flower, 15 miles out from Puno. First, however, we made a stop at one of the legendary islands of the Uros, a pre-Inka people who escaped into the totora reeds when the Inkas came to conquer the area. Eventually they began to build rafts to survive on, and the rafts became islands. Today there are still many people living on these floating islands with a unique language and culture. Many of them subsist on tourism, so it was a bit depressing to visit because there were many requests for money, but some are anchored deeper into the reeds and do not receive visitors. The totora reed, like our native cattail used by the Manisses and other New England tribes, supplies them with many building materials, including reed houses and boats. We took a ride in a reed boat which was quite stable, although some of my fellow passengers seemed a bit nervous that we were going to tip. All the island children jumped on the boats with us and entertained us enthusiastically with songs in Aymara, Quechua, Spanish, English, French, German and Japanese! They passed around their hats after, of course, but I was happy to give them a couple of sols. Our guide mistakenly told us that one of Sea Squad´s heroes, Thor Heyerdahl, learned how to make reed boats from the Uros, but I didn´t correct him, not wanting to appear to be a know it all in front of the very attractive and hip Uruguayans. Heyerdahl did learn the technique from some legendary Aymara boat builders from the lake, however, and proceeded to sail them on the Ra Expedition which began in Egypt, I think, and went on to Asia? Any Sea Squad members know? Our guide also informed us, correctly, that another Sea Squad hero, Jacques Cousteau, discovered the worlds´ largest frogs when he explored the lake.

I wasn´t lucky enough to see any frogs, but I was lucky enough to spend two nights on the stunning island of Amantani. While there I was privileged to dine on one of the four native species of fish remaining in the lake. The other 32 have been wiped out due to the introduction of trout and kingfish. The fist looked like silverfish and were fried whole, which means they had eyes to look at us. I didn´t mind the eyes so much, but Hogues did. I, however, was not so keen on the taste. The remaining fish were quickly scooped into napkins and carried down to the lake as an offering to Neptune. Hopefully the seagulls had a party. We were staying with a local family and felt it would be an insult not to eat the fish, especially because our host was so proud to serve them up.

Amantani was an inspiration in so many ways, and we on Block Island could learn much from the way tourism operates there. The island is about the same size as BI, but has no cars. Everyone walks up the very steep stone pathways, often carrying heavy loads, to work in the terraced fields of potatoes, corn, beans, and quinoa. The island operates communally. A 5 sol ($1.50) fee is collected from all tourists which is distributed equally among the 4,000 residents, and tourists are rotated among the families on an equal basis so everyone gets a little income, although I think in Peruvian terms it is probably not so little. Of all the rural places I have seen so far, Amantani has the highest quality of life. All the houses were large in Peruvian terms, with tin, not thatched roofs, and had beautiful gardens and bright green outhouses out back. Also, the town had a windmill and many houses had solar panels for electricity. With no cars, no dogs (and their wastes), no internet, and no phones, Amantani is the most peaceful place I have ever been. Becky and I hiked up to the two highest points on the island, Pachamama and Pachatata, where there are shrines to mother and father earth, and also circumnavigated the island during our stay. I know that I will treasure those two days there for the rest of my life and feel so lucky to be sending this report to my fellow members. See you in a couple of months when the water is warming up and the stripers are starting to run!

Whitewave