Worn, gray glacier ice plows past mountains
Ymerbukta’s high point, an esker at the foot of Esmarkbreen
Minuartia, maybe? Still blooming under the first fall snow during the first week of October.
Esmarkbreen and Ymerbukta
The face of Esmarkbreen
Deck of the tall ship Antigua
Northern lights play over Antigua’s bow
Iceberg on sand
Arctic Circle residents exploring
Ice and mountain
Bow and ice
Landscape number x. Brown and russet, gray and white, tundra and mountain.
Purple sandpiper
Glacial ice boulder at the edge of Esmarkbreen
Boulder in perspective
Glacier’s edge at mountains’ feet
Ice and rock = rock dust
Scale
Tall ship Antigua at anchor in Ymerbukta
We left port yesterday afternoon with the motor but put up the sails quickly and fairly flew across the fjord. We helped with the sails – a token effort by the guests. Ropes everywhere, sails pulled up front to back and staysail in the bow. The wind was high and rough and almost everyone felt it. I did well outside but inside was pretty queasy. Eating helped and the food was good. I didn’t eat a lot and went to bed almost immediately.
Someone pounded on the door to say the aurora was visible. Lena (my cabinmate) and I got dressed and went out but there was little activity and after 10 minutes I went back to bed. By the time we went up for the aurora the crew had pulled down the sails and dropped anchor in a quiet arm of the fjord with a wall to protect us from the wind bombing out of the north. The water was calm, and the boat rocked gently for the night.
We did a landing this morning and a hike up the glacier edge. The grays and greens and blues are satisfying and intense. The glacier was growling and grumbling. Thunder came from within the glacier, massive rolling peals as it shifted and creaked into a new position. It calved audibly but we couldn’t see it from where we were, though we watched the wave from the calved iceberg cross the bay and wash up onto the shore.
The landscape is wide open and at the same time constrained within the walls of glaciers and the surrounding mountains. The beach is gravel and sand with gently lapping water. There is a tide, but it seems very small. Black guillemots in their winter attire were on the water and a few purple sandpipers along the beach. Two seals followed us when we first landed; they barked at us.
Ant-sized humans cross the gravel outwash plain at the foot of Esmarkbreen
Arctic Circle residents hike along glacier’s edge
Sublimate. Dissipate. Eliminate. Obviate.
Retreat – Sublimate, v.: to pass directly from the solid state to the vapor state; archaic: to improve or refine, as in purity or excellence. As the world we created spins out of our control, it is time to recant. We know the Past and the Present, they hold no secrets, and no amount of blame or negotiation will change either. As a species watching our suicide drama play out in slow motion, we must withdraw from the feudal and futile, selfish and rapacious, allowing light and air to supplant notions of dominance.
No time – Perhaps I overestimate. The universe, here long before humans began their journey, will remain long past our term. As humans fade into the geologic past, our constructs, physical and metaphysical, will be of no consequence. Like thousands of species before us, we may become a sedimentary layer, or a fossil pressed in rock. Unlike our predecessors, we can choose our course of action. It is not beyond our ken to initiate a new design, accepting global shifts as they occur, choosing to remain a part of the universal configuration rather than apart from it.
Outside the human realm, independent of water and ice, Past and Present, the aurora borealis sways and glows in the Heavens. Indifferent to the vagaries of the human ego, the plasma flow viscerally draws us to join the dance. It is within our power to redirect Present Chaos. Necessity obviates the need for further debate. If we want to know the Future, we must create it, and we must nurture it.
Our path then is this: move toward the light. Collectively overcoming inertia, seeking the light, we can pull the Future out of thin air.
Impetus.
Ascendant, adj.: directed upward
“…real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.” Barry Lopez