Jack's Rowboat

I listed the prototype of the rowboat for sale at etsy.com today.  I stated in the description that I had a number of associations with it, and that I would write them here:

• As I wrote in the description, the morning at 3am I woke up and had this powerful vision in my head.  A little rowboat, heading out into the ocean.  It was too far out to sea for him to hear me calling to him from the shore.  I started making the rowboat the next day.

• A separate association, there is a lovely old song, maybe Irish?, called "The Water is Wide" - here is a lovely version by James Taylor.  Part of the lyrics say,

"Build me a boat, 

that can carry two, 

and both shall row, 

my love and I..." 

• Around the time of Hurricane Katrina, there was a... what would one call it?  A story?  A fable? I'm not sure.  But it goes like this (this is how I remember it, it may be different in its original form):

A storm is coming.  A man's neighbor knocks at his door, "I have a car, let's go."  The man refuses - "No worries, God will take care of me."  The neighbor leaves without him.

The storm arrives, and the city is flooded.  Rescue workers come in a small boat, knock at the door, "We have a boat, let's go."  The man refuses - "No worries, God will take care of me."  The boat leaves without him.

The flooding worsens, and the man climbs to his roof to escape the waters.  A helicopter arrives, and the rescue workers shout down, "Grab the rope, let's go."  The man refuses - "No worries, God will take care of me."  The helicopter leaves without him.

The man drowns.  He stands before God.  "God, please, I was counting on you to take care of me."

God replies, "I sent you a car, a boat, a helicopter - what more did you want?"

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nearly done

A little more filing, getting a mold made, and then it is complete.

slowly....

slowly......

careful....

ooh, careful...

This is my third attempt at carving these very tiny oars.  I have broken the last two, they were too small and I was not delicate enough with them.  This third time I started in a different way - so far so good.  I also drove to Albuquerque yesterday and invested in some new tools, so hopefully that will help.  The goal is to get them completed by Monday and off to the caster.

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how to float

I am a visual thinker.  For the most part, I can't understand or learn anything without seeing it. When I was trying (and failing) to learn Spanish, I had to visualize the words and sentences in my mind in order to comprehend them.  My teacher, who was very good, cautioned the class against doing that, but I couldn't help it.  Consequently, I got as far as the conjunctive tense and felt like I couldn't go any farther.  Maybe someday, I'll try again.

So, I have a tendency to mentally see things in visions or imagery, but not in a predictive or supernatural way.  Not even usually in a dream, although these things come to me sometimes just as I wake up.  It's just the way my mind functions.  It's how I understand and process things, lots of visual analogies and metaphors.

This is the vision from the weekend.  I pictured someone in the bottom of a well.  Terrible.  Dark, slimy mossy walls, damp, a circle of daylight and sky above faraway out of reach. Cold. Then the well started to fill up, water seeping in at the bottom, wafting around her shoes and creeping higher and higher.  Touching her hem, rising, rising.  She panics, starts to claw at the walls, trying to get a grip, but the rock and the moss are unyielding to her fingers.

The water gets higher, more volume, so it's swirling around her, and she's frantic, and suddenly I realize!  Don't panic!  It's water!  Don't struggle!  Just float, and it will raise you closer to the top...  float...  FLOAT... please...

I realized later, this is what I hope this Buddhism study does for me.  I hope it teaches me how to float.

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I have started listening to some lectures that are offered by a local Tibetan Buddhism center online.  I liked what I heard, so I have gone ahead and contacted them about a meditation class. I start next week.

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The rowboat is the result of a similar vision.  I'll go into detail about that one when I finish it, and post it for sale.  As I move forward in this charm business, I have the feeling that many of my pieces will have stories like this attached to them.  I have already added a "well charm" to the list - the ever-expanding list! - of charms I need to carve.

A bit of a backwards step working on the rowboat over the weekend though.  I attempted some texturing, I'm not entirely happy with it, and I may have made it too thin for casting.  I may have to start over.

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work in progress

A quick post before I go to class:

rowboat (c) beeanddew

The photography continuing to make me crazy, so going after class to see if I can find a solution!

Here's to better photos!

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