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PER MARE PER TERRAM

Chant du monde boréal
Shoormal.
Sandshifter, 60N.
Where it all makes sense.


CHRONICLES FROM ARCANIA

Preamble

Through Chronicles from Arcania, I shall attempt to share walks with you, this poetics from 60N, where I feel at one with our Earth, my sense of place so maritime.


Sunday 20 March 2011

cosmic rite of passage

clockwork world


Our universe in perpetual motion, as we, in our turn, are rotating through this precious Vernal Equinox. 





On the last day of winter, in our boreal world, we enjoyed 12 hours and 2 min of precious light. The Island bathed in winter tones on its last day... So I went off and wandered, as freely as the wind.
And I admired the vastness of our ocean, sky and imagined the other stars that need to wait for dusk and night to shine, reflect light from our sun.
Under my feet, the ground was still waterclogged with those recent days of rain. Moss traps our precious liquid so exquisitely.


And then came night, mother of transition.



That supermoon, our Full Worm Moon, rose at around 1830 [GMT] and shone through thick layers of clouds... Luna's power felt so immense, I watched those clouds traveling at moonlight speed and remembered how gravity, this universal force that binds us all together, keeps us in one place whilst our planet waltzes around our star at something like 6,000 mph. That put my heart back in perspective! As night progressed, our atmosphere turned a pea soup, so I abandoned my moon watch and yield to the call of Dreamtime... 


Spring Day on the 60th Parallel


Today, Sunday, Spring Day, began with light and hissing wind. Spring Day, Spring clean, as the wind sweeps the final remnants of darkness... At last, we glide though Equinox! The wind feels cold and gusts like mad, but it stays dry and I don't mind! So I knotted my prayer flags to my washing line and communed with the world this way.




 For all the peoples, who face the harm from the artificial world, and those who face adversity in the light of natural disasters, those prayer flags float in the wind for you.
Too often our ruling classes want us to forget that we live in an amazing world that is living as we are. 

haiku de transition 

Winter's last day -
skylarks still wait in starting blocks,
as winds still skelp ocean & land.
#geopoetics

Door on the world -
listen to the wind through the wood,
winter has come off its hinges.
#geopoetics

Sunday 13 March 2011

in the name of our world

blue & white denomination


Winter far from over...




There, a few images from a wander around the southern edge of the island. So animistic in my heart. 
From my northern Atlantic edge... 



To fellow Pacific dwellers, I feel for you.
And light candles.



Namaste from 60N.

Thursday 3 March 2011

Rendez-Vous with Fire

luminous
All day I looked at blue through a myriad of windows...
All day blueness hanging around shore & school gates.
All day I walked to this moment.


simple pleasures

summed up inside simple triptych , palette of our shore

a bit of honey glazing sand,

like copper-plated horizon ...
Weaver of dream  or just treasure.


Today I know my heart's at home.

Tuesday 1 March 2011

And talking of cartographers...

Nordic world scatterlings


I still have very much in mind that famous song from South African artist, Johnny Clegg,  and its first line from the chorus, "We are the scatterlings of Africa..." , as I keep staring at any world map. To my nomadic  heart, it resonates as an anthem. 
Animals of all kinds migrate... They go where food and water are.   
And when I look again at this Nordic map, it illustrates the very nature of mankind: movement.  Nationalism has gradually overriden nomadism with geopolitical  boundaries, with the exception of a few pockets on the planet. Our world is more or less partitioned by imaginary lines on paper... The most frightening ones notably scarred Africa, the luminous continent, and (North) America.  Massive squares, rectangles criss-cross both continents, as old empires collided over fates of other cultures they once thought irrelevant (or out of place).... In the name of prestige, national expansion and notion of property, (a notion unknown to entire aboriginal societies), subsequent world powers have re-mapped the planet, or invent inexistent countries - Somaliland remains an example.


However, movement - or man's migration - has many facets and, since there is no yin without yang, it contributes to the very essence of our species. One could argue that when it (movement) does not annihilate, it adds to another culture. Multi-linguistic (cultural) societies can live in such ways, as long as they can reach and preserve a consensus. Living in harmony with the world can be attained in absence of war. I recently read in an article that Costa Rica had renounced to its army and favoured national investment in her people through, notably, education. How courageous is that? 


Closer to my world, I have learnt to appreciate the "positive" legacies from "past conquerors", such as the Romans and the Vikings... Their respective cultural heritage contributed to some forms of progress, which cannot be neglected. Roman, Viking architecture, farming, language, literature, Arts, technology - their respective geopoetics, savoir-faire and expertise in many fields are notable examples still visible today. 


Funny how traveling men persist through time. A recent visit to the Gadderie at the Shetland Museum & Archives in Lerwick during the weekend notably prompted a fascinating tête-à-tête and window onto another world. Needless to remind anyone that Vikings were renowned seafarers and that their culture reached from over the North Atlantic (a thousand years before Colombus) to the WNW to Constantinople (today Istanbul) in the SE. 
Those little guys, carved in whale bone, were dated back to the 12th century. They originated from Trondheim (Norway) and they were found on the island of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, in the 17th or 18th century... Their very craftsmanship and significance intrigued scholars over quite some time. Research was undergone to, not only crack the mystery about their very existence, but over the history of the game of chess and other board games. They have prompted a lot of curiosity wherever they have traveled around Scotland since they have been on the road. They are a delight to see as artifact, or human signature from another time. Their symbolism as game pieces never ceases to amaze.


Fascinating allegory, chess, as men could be seen battling for power over a checkered board, that symbolic, miniature battlefield! Food for thought, as if conquering ground was perceived as a game, or sport... So human.


In any case, the Lewis Chessmen, as they are known, inspired my heart for a haiku.


Lewis Chessmen -
king, horse, bishop carved in whale bone,
wandering, on traveling show.
Haiku fae 60N