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Why a Voyage Stilled My Pen
~ Sometimes silence is necessary for music to rush in ~
It’s easy to believe just about anything. it was a perfect storm. I mean, for my growth spurt, so to speak. I boarded a leviathan of a ship which seemed to be still as it raced endless waters. I saw. I listened. I palpated. With breast flung wide open to mysteries I didn’t know existed, I forgot what Annie Dillard calls ‘the writing life.’
Bewitched by sky-steeped waters of Norway’s Fjords, it’s easy to believe in the existence of Asgard where Nordic gods love, fight, strut and orchestrate mortal dramas.
No doubt the Himalayas and Alps are breathtaking. But as you pass from one fjord to another, and forget to breathe, blink, talk, ancient vistas of snow-glazed peaks pierce cobalt skies, and you want to become an eagle. Chains upon chains of ranges holding hands. Chains wrought by Odin, to imprison fjords created over time where Thor dragged his hammer. Brooding forests, home to ritualistic dance and hewn stone.
And hundreds of chilled waterfalls! Like unrolled bolts of pale blue organza they flowed and whispered an unending offering to the gods. In rare half-light, from my aerie on a ship’s deck, as I watched with a slack jaw, luminous blue-green folds of Aurora Borealis swayed, raced, dipped to cosmic winds, and became a…
