Here and there and yonder.

Out over vast expanse of mountains, gullies, ravines and canyons, all covered with snow, a white landscape as far as the eye can see. Flying over western Colorado, Utah, Arizona and California where the land turns to the dark blue of the Pacific. We are on our way to an island sticking up out of the deep.

An island, the feel is that being on an island gives the sense of being centered on a spot on this earth, we are always on a spot on this planet, but on an island you focus on it. You know the longitude and the latitude, you are standing in the crossing of lines marking this place the here and now of "being in this moment".

We walk along the oceans edge, pressing weight deep in the sand for miles, we watch waves of patterns being formed before us, ever moment being made at once.

The horizon is jagged green strung out side ways below the blue above. Clouds billow big and roll toward their center, catching themselves, gathering in from their edges. Telling us we are here, we are all here. Same as days gone by, same as the night before, same as the morning after, same moment again and again, over and over. Here comes the sun again, here is the moon again, on the water again, as far as waves can stretch. Action begets action and vision begets vision, how many moments can we live again and again.

A dove walks across a pressed table cloth, around and among the wine glasses and silver ware. The dove knows freedom and flight. The rainbow knows moisture and light. The wave knows the moon and terrain and the weight and wash of moving mass over great distances to crash here in this place. I wash my feet in the deep grindings left by a world returning to world, going back into the dust and silt again and again,

We set high over the shine, waiting for the rise of a dark spot to show itself through the reflection, ever so brief and it is gone. I saw it out there and left it out there, it was and I say it so, a spot, a spot. Where did it go when the surface is still?

Back a few months, while at a formal gathering in New York, a young sculptor came up to me and ask, "do you touch your art"? At first I didn't really get the question so I just looked at her. I was baffled for a moment. The silence was broken by someone saying, "there are those who don't". Some do not touch their art, I thought and pictured all things touching. Today we stand where all things touch, and we witness the grinding of time. What seems the state of steady is in motion. To touch and retouch, the tide pool lives by the moon, we are touched and we touch.

Charmaine and I make our way in a line of people, moving toward a big boat, we are going for a ride from the south side of the island to the west side of the island. It starts smooth and we are thrilled to see up close turtles, dolphins and whales, but the farther we go the rougher the water. As we round a projecting beach and start for the west side of the island, the surface of the ocean turns to mountains, mountains of rolling water pushing to the shore line of black rock reaching thousands of feet up like giant spires of  great cathedrals.

The beauty is broken by the reality of the mix of ocean and mountains, the open ocean brings water the size of rolling mountains and I loose the bottom, I loose the top, I loose the edges, there is no level in my ears. Up is gone, down is gone, I turn inside out, every thing is gone. I watch me dissipate into vapor.

I am ready, a new reality is close at hand.