Dancing With A Naked Butterfly.

I am 10 meters below the surface, and once again I feel that small trickle of failure as air begins to constantly accumulate in my mouth. I know this error and do not take it lightly in the 4 C water. I choose then not to go any deeper, retrace my swimming distance at a slow pace and breath. If I should go deeper, I can have a total freeze or free flow regulator. I take this chance as an opportunity to experience this under diving instead of taking my octopus ventilator to use. It does not hurt to practice and learn under different experiences. There could be a day that I have no choice - to be ready and know what will be experienced is better than not knowing.

Since this is governing my dive in a way I cannot control, I slowly make my way back to the landing zone. So slow, that seeing the life in between the rock surfaces and under sea fauna was the biggest pay off yet.

I was under several rock ledges and had the opportunity to see dead man's fingers growing on the underside. In addition, I found several brittle starfish camped out in little holes along the large stone surfaces. The tidal waves making the large sea grass glide to and fro, revealed different crab species milling about with their daily lives. There was even a fish who hung around checking me out in the distance.


As my regulator slowly turned to free flow, it was getting more difficult to breath. I had finished my three minute safety stop and signaled to my dive buddy I was cold and surfacing. I begin the ascent slowly, still looking around at the little creatures the oceans keep hidden. My buddy was on the landing zone, and I awaited my turn a couple feet below. Suddenly, I realized I had a very tiny visitor right in front of my masked view. It had a bright pink head and body, yet the rest of its physical makeup was translucent. It had wings that flew in the waters and two antennas that moved as if in communication. I could not see any eyes or orifices as this beautifully magnificent creature waved its delicate wings at me. I could feel that it was intelligent in a manner that it was just as amazed to see me, as I it. The Naked Sea Butterfly stayed right in view as it studied me and we danced with the surface waves. Then as quickly as it appeared, it vanished in between foam and current.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Ar_mNVNLQ
(New Theory - Washed Out)

Impelled.

Lives of tragedy...

Compelled by thought...

Driven by words.

Answer Me.

Despite today's news, this happens periodically all over the entire world. If countries like Sweden, Norway, Britain, USA, amongst countless others are taking in "refugees" from warzones, then why are these "political asylum" persons blowing themselves and others up inside the country they have chosen refuge???? Why do they complain about where they are currently living and why do they not appreciate the rights they have been offered? Why do they create environments and living conditions no different from whence they came? They are given a chance. An opportunity to educate themselves, work, provide, and live in a safer - functioning society. If they have not figured it out in time, then mentality should be accessed for each person given this. It is possible they are not capable of such, as countless times prove just that. Maybe as a whole they have limited intellect?

The outside countries gave them chances, and they repay that with death and destruction. Can any one person answer me why?

It is clear to me that if another country attacks another, it is a declaration of war. Why doesn't any one country take the extremist groups seriously, and call it like it is - war????? The only response I have gotten to this question is that the groups under that title are living all around the world, so where would the countries attack at this declaration?

My next thought was... are the extremist parties too coward to come up and face their own declaration of war? If they declare these actions in the name of power, religion, world regime, whatever - then why are they not brave enough to face the front and not hide behind the countries who have given them freedom? I shake my head. If I were proud and fighting something for a cause, their are greater ways to do such - which include human rights (including their own).

(November 2010)

The Vault.

My feet touched ground mid morning, but you can't tell on account of the daylight. Everything is hazy, as it were the sun lingers right below the horizon. Only peeking a few hours of the day this time of year. I am used to the climate by now and prepared myself well with what I brought. Those movies about large fur lined parkas and snow goggles fit the picture. Without the goggles the wind chill factor would freeze your moist eyeballs. Not to mention what ice crystals feel like when forming in the inside of your nose. Fortunately today the breeze was warm-ward and just crisp seeping cold.

I met up with the guide, for the scientific group, that would take me across the white plains and to my destination... the vault. The ride over was in that of a high tech ice vehicle, conveniently warm and faster than a standard terrain snow vehicle or snow mobile.

I had arranged the visit the week before, and surprisingly found that they were honored to have me. I was greeted by a small staff of biologists and even an archaeologist. But it was the physicist, Charlie, who warmly hugged me and stated that he was sorry for the loss of my father and his good colleague. Intriguing... here was a world I had not even once been informed of. My father's life and work away from home, not to mention 78 degrees north.

I was taken to a dining salon to eat a meager fare with those who I had just met. Over coffee and the traditional dessert, I was briefed on the facility and its purposes. Accordingly, the chosen location of the Global Seed Vault (to house green specimens) was that of the cold, frigid, never changing arctic tundra. The archaeologist looked at me eagerly as if to say there was much more to it than that, but she only mentioned how there were STILL ongoing excavations under the very place where we ate.

In the course of my stay I would be educated by each member and their duty at the site. Tomorrow I would be in the care of Charlie, as he worked closely with my father, and that he would be explaining my dad's purpose in the whole project. After chit chat and laughs of the past, I took a walk around outside before I retired. No one can possibly describe what it feels like to stand underneath the aurora borealis, but I was fortunate to catch its raining stardust of chemicals on the very first evening I had arrived.


Evidently, during my birth year, my father was commissioned to create a lighting atmosphere to house the world's seeds. Nothing out of the norm there, aside from the project itself being monumental. What a landmark in someone's life to have been a part of! I looked at a few pictures of The Scientist along with Charlie and others that were no longer working the area.

I was also told how the original site underneath us was already developed when found. During land surveys and coring, the small team that was entrusted with this area discovered a profound archaeological find relating to our whole existence. It was the equivalent of Onkalo (the vault for radioactive waste), but we were its future. No wonder the archaeologist had a twinkle in her eye.

So I asked point blank putting 2 together, "The vault here was already in existence then?" Charlie nodded his head, but his stiffed curled mustache did not budge. My next thought and question was, "What was in the vault?" His reply was the same thing that is contained in there today, but our generations we added in the last 20 or so years. As always, answering one question in the world of science only leads to a new one.
"Is it man made?" He shrugged,
"That's partly why we are still here."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMOkORxF4JA
(1901 - Phoenix)

78.

Years ago... As an inventor and archeologist, The Scientist owned his very own library - minimal 500 books. On that day I was to sort out his possesions, I remembered thinking this is his legacy. I sat alone in his study full of dust and web, as the others could not understand why I wished to have the books. They could not possibly understand that all these manuscripts, old and new, were knowledge. It was quite a task set out in front of me, but at the same time it was getting to know the man himself better than I could of imagined.

The book shelves were white washed cinder blocks, with green painted planks to hold the weight. Additionally, the green carried over into vines that were painted in his very own robust strokes, which incompassed the stark white of the blocks. I would of taken the shelves, but the blocks are weight, yet the idea lingers to create such shelving once again.

Nearly a month had passed, and I had kept all the books that I wished. The others were sold or donated. Amongst the books, I was able to decide on other objects I wished to keep. Ah, there... on the top shelf of the stack closest to the paperwork excuse of a desk. Another hand painted item, a canvas of a lighthouse, oil possibly. I picked it up with both hands and gazed at its stark robust coloration. This is the way he saw things... as this was his creation by eye and hand. I turned it over to read any inscription and found that it was actually dedicated to me! The year being that which I had been born - 78, yet 6 months later. How interesting, that I had not known this or seen this picture before now.

The shelf below contained gadgetry and inventions, chocked full of lights and prototypes. But the very top shelf was stuffed full of spiral notebooks and notepads. I started to take a few out and scan them to see what the content was. They were stories of science, data, diagrams, fantasy, even submersible information. I was tickled to find his own handwriting on these projects. I thought that maybe one day I could publish something he had completed in honor. When i had pulled all the paper out and packed it away for shipping, I found one lone piece of paper, scribbled in his doctors script hand. It read, "Out of everything I have accomplished, how does one define the impossible? ". Beneath it and well hidden was that dusty leatherback. Possibly a compiled work of fiction, yet the diagrams and scientific background based on physics were staring me in the face - and as for the rest of it, I surely wished to find out.

I was so intrigued by this piece of work, whereas all the other items were just thrown together and in common writing devices, and most of his scientific lighting work was in one of his four computers. When I had gone through everything and prepared for my return with all of my momentos in tote or by post, I had not let that journal out of site. I even had it on the long plane flight back, where I could not keep my eyes off of its pages. Some places were clearly designated, locale and degree. I looked at all the derivatives of such information to see if any were close to my current home. Well, well, what do we have here at the very end of the journal... 78 degrees north. Further than the Arctic Circle, but just a short flight.


The diagrams were of a building with geometric sharps and then other diagrams of lighting devices, which obviously would support the building structure, no doubt. Then as I moved my vision to the pages previous, I realized that an archeological site was involved as well. Surely the lighted building was not to house a dig project, was it?

When I arrived at my current residence, I looked into the location and what could possible be at this site. To my amazement, the Global Seed Vault resided there. And the pictures were that of the rough drafts in the journal. The vault was constructed in 1983 to house every imaginable variety of seed and legume on the entire planet. In preparation for a planetary disaster and/or to ensure survival of all our greens, not to mention us as a human species.

I booked the next available flight to the Arctic island of Svalbard. In my transit, I thoroughly studied the leatherback journal in regards to the information depicted about the area. The journal noted that the year this had been written was 1978, yet the facility itself was not opened until 1983... 5 years later. I closed my eyes and awaited touchdown, thoughts filled my head about what I might encounter or if I was just on a dreamer's wild goose chase... And for what, to know more about the man I looked up to and had lost.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaCRT-uq8d0
(Take A Picture - Filter Hybrid Remix)