Writing & Voyages

~
NORTH PACIFIC
ODYSSEY

Poems from the Black Ship Heraclitus
MICHEL LIPPITSCH
~
Poems written at sea aboard the Heraclitus, crossing the North Pacific — from a volcanic island landfall, through storm and doldrum, past coral reefs and whales, to the open water beyond.

CONTENTS

I. PAGAN
First Blood
Kronos and Vulcan
Sea People
Pagan Teaches Us to See
The Southern Cross
We Are the Biosphere
A Toast
Whirling with Fire
II. FIVE THOUSAND MILES
The Journey of Five Thousand Miles
No Waves Are Ever the Same
The Emergence of Planetary Man
The Webs of Man
Artist of the Sea
Kujira
The Gods Are Dying of Solitude
Long Swells
Heave To
Open Sea
Mystic Mist
Zone
Swells Invade
Ahoooo
The Samurai in the Sky
III. DEEP PACIFIC
Fog
Cloud Names
The Ship Recharges
The Seal
The Feast
Waiting for the Wind
The Grey
You Cannot Learn Less
The Black Ship
I Am Water
Blue Pearl
Tea for Two
Learn to Listen
Dolphins, Can You Tell Me
Every Everies
Neurotica
Sailor Spirit
Incarnations
Infinite Mystery
My Goddess
Hawl Away
Still Waiting
IV. HERACLITUS
Heraclitus
V. CORAL REEF
Coral Reefs
I Worship the Sun
Whales!
The Orca
World Without Colors
The Big Ride of the Open Sea
Cosmic Emergency
Tears
A Peach and a Lover
Visage
Never Ending Story
There Was a Man
Yellow Pages
Courage to Sing
That Blue
Simbiosis and Simplicity
I Carry the Reef Within Me
I Am a Kid
VI. DRIFTING
Once Upon a Time
Breathe Deep
I Want to Be
We Have Been Taught
The Dolphin in the Pool
Pacifico
Space Age
The Pacific Has Now Become Our Life
Inexaustible
Steer 030
Walking Through a Sea of Eyes
Sailing We Are Sailing
Hummus Lunch
Explorations
We Are Celebrating Freedom
Bouncing Hearts
Time of No Time
Drop Reality
Hand Clapping
The Sea Reflects All
Oceanauts
To Know Is the First Step
Like a Banyan Tree
Fingers Feed
Paradise Alley
Could Would Should
Hiding Behind the Glow
Midnight

I
PAGAN
~

FIRST BLOOD
--
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,
The sound resonate,
We are already programmed,
A fish is on the line.
The line runs fast,
Sailfish.
The game start,
Pulling, letting go, pulling,
Sensitivity in realing the fish in,
Eibes and stinj on the gaffs,
The fish is brought close to the stern.
6 hands are pulling the fish in,
All together,
Ensemble,
40 pounds of fish,
And enough adrenaline to wake everybody up.
Camera, trophy, pride, excitement,
Sea people in action.
I speak to the fish,
Looking in his eye,
While I stick the knife in his head,
Telling him my respect,
He will be eaten with delight,
He hardly struggled,
We released two baby sucker fish that clung to his side.

KRONOS AND VULCAN
--
The ocean is welcoming us,
We are welcoming the ocean in.
Kronos and Vulcan made a alliance, geological tempo,
Read on the cliffs of pagan,
Layers of rock, lava flow and ashes,
Blanket of pine tree forest,
One way hour glass falling into the sea.
The energy of wind and rain,
Reminding the land that everything flows,
Like castle of sand falling into the ocean.
The ocean takes it all back.
Beauty shines,
Destructions and rebirth,
Tongues of destructive lava took over all life,
Now life creates,
Once again.
A seed finds a crack,
Growing into tree,
Hosting birds.
Guarded by the lava fortress from the wild pigs and cattle.
The plains show scars,
A field hit by a shower of meteorite,
Man made meteorite from the second world war.
The plains look like a gruyere cheese,
Coated by a mantle of green mold.

SEA PEOPLE
--
Man left,
A tribe of sea people came,
Anchoring at the edge of a black sand beach.
Self made specie of man.
We strive to recover our heritage,
Hunter gatherer.
Not for immediate survival,
But to regain wealth lost along the way.
Without guns,
Playing with evolutionary scenes,
Reactivating our essences.
Dolphins visit,
Flying fish take off,
Dream light of blues, galactical dives.

PAGAN TEACHES US TO SEE
--
Huge spider webs on overgrown path,
Shifting the eyes focuses.
Pagan is teaching us to see.
Pagan is teaching us to hear, smell and taste.
Our hand touching, caressing.
Biospheric understanding,
Moving from one ecozone to another,
Always aware of the whole.

THE SOUTHERN CROSS
--
The clouds pass over the volcano,
Getting caught at time and releasing rain.
The southern cross keep pointing south,
Point to where we have been,
And give us direction for our futures.
A wasp bit me twice,
Enough to alter my vision at times,
Traces of poison.

WE ARE THE BIOSPHERE
--
The body fights back,
And the mind take the opportunity to explore.
New connections.
A blue bird sit on a branch,
Watching,
I watch, he watch. We meet.
Everything meets you here.
The voice feels free, chant to the landscape,
Chant to the sky and the trees.
Trampled on, walked over,
Quiet!
Do this do that,
We are in charge here,
But we know you can't be in charge every where.
We are blessed to be away from the grip of "terror on individualities dragon"
Our ensemble reconnect with the biosphere,
We realise we are the biosphere.

A TOAST
--
And a toast
To our friends around the planet
Clink, stainless mug filled with white wine and smiles.
To the hospitality of the biosphere.
Clink, a peak in someone eyes.
The wind picks up,
And a toast,
To keeping alert.
And laughter,
What if it takes,
Clink to the right, clink to the left,
Meet eyes,
The bottom of toast
To all and everything.

WHIRLING WITH FIRE
--
Hands pick mango from the tree,
Carried over our heads,
Tongue of black lava in the background,
Highlighting the greens of plant lives.
Eddie climb the coconut trees,
Gathering for our odyssey.
The crew of a Saipanese fishing boat,
Roast a fresh caught male turtle.
They harvest the seas,
With know how and respect.
Sharing stories and tales,
The coconut breaks open,
A fish, smiles, attention as gifts
Hospitality of true sea people.
Whirling with fire,
The black sand holds the energy of the day.
The moon plays with the foam of the sea,
Meeting the land with grace and fluidity.
A cloud cover the moon,
The sea changes,
Dancing, dancing,
Shadow puppets trees,
Dancing the beat of the wind,
We dance to the stars,
We dance to man and woman,
We dance to freedom,
We dance to the sky, the ocean, life,
Magic dance us.
Mermaid mutates into fire goddess,
A dead tree comes to life,
A comet juggler plays with gravities,
Others with breath and beats,
Senses, oh senses,
Stocking the land.
Moonlit skins, fire lit faces,
Fire madness, screams and shouts,
Totem poles ignited,
Visions, perceptions, projections,
The fire can take it all.
Wishful intention,
Keep the best,
Improve the rest,
Dance fire dance,
Incarnated in heated bodies,
Freed in a moment in and out of time,
New programs only available on pagan.

II
FIVE THOUSAND MILES
~

THE JOURNEY OF FIVE THOUSAND MILES
--
The journey of 5000 thousand miles,
Is starting with the plays of pagan incarnated gods.
Fire, water, Air, wind, space, seas and seas,
Sky and skies, planets, universes, infinities,
Time after times,
Emotions, dramas,
Values, friendships,
The journey of 5000 thousand miles,
Need to start with a ship of friends,
We are a ensemble around the fire,
With our wits and squicks, and moans, and rrrrrrrrr,
We are a ensemble around the fire,
Caressing each other with dances, smiles, laughters, worlds, gestures, touch,
moods and dreams.
Wahoo, wahoo
Mahi mahi, wahoo, mahi mahi
Tuni, tuni tuni
Bite the hook, bite the hook bite the hook.
Come on, come to the hook,
We will honor you on our seapeople ship.
Wahoo, wahoo,
Mahi mahi, tuni tuni,
We need your help,
To feel real, to feel real, to feel real.
Iha, iha,
Pull in, don't give slack, keep pulling in,
Where is the gaff,
Come on, bring it in,
Oh it's a big one,
Tuni tuni,
Thank you for your visit,
Do not worry,
Somehow you are feeding the sea,
Through the bodies of your emmissionary,
Keep them strong, keep them seaworthy.
Wahoo, wahoo
Mahi mahi, tuni tuni
Bite the hook, come on, bite the hook.

NO WAVES ARE EVER THE SAME
--
Sensual moonlight caresses the waves,
A child rise out of our mind,
A child born from the sea,
Can you see, it is always new.
Faces and more faces,
No waves are ever the same.

THE EMERGENCE OF PLANETARY MAN
--
Sirens lament in the rigging,
Swells, from far away,
Beyond the glow of the lady moon,
Call, a call ........
The emergence of planetary man.
Ocean connects us all,

THE WEBS OF MAN
--
Knowing that we are.
Everything is permitted,
The mind can know no limits.
As a spider catches with her web, carefully placed in frequented path,
So does the ideas and memes of man,
Catching.
Some get to know the spider, and learn to escape.
Then you watch out for the web,
And jump all out to the one you want to explore.
There is no way to live constantly outside the webs,
But it should be a right to try.
Man, organising themselves, creating huge indomptable energy sucking dragons,
Are fabricating the most complex web,
But as the web master are getting ever more efficient,
So does the freedom explorer,
Recognising the webs,finding new escape routes.
Becoming more man, and more man, and more man. Here right now,
Buzz in my ear,
Water songs trailing along the hull,
A valve keeps a tempo,
Float inner and outer,
Attention to the one.
Then descending,
Line of attention connected around the world,
Time bends,
Everything i think, i think.
Watching, like a hawk,
Ready for all.
It is always dealing with the given circumstances,
Using space.
Repeat over and over and over,
Memes of my own brand, cocktail for the moment, to sometime sip slowly,
Or drink in one big gulp, for that space, tranquility that emane For consumed
eternities.
And,
Start over,
Again, again, again.
And ? One of man essences , and?
The "ands" and hands that keep the motion in direction.

ARTIST OF THE SEA
--
Silver shinning trails of incandescent moods,
Hidden in every waves.
A impulse can set a fire,
In those play learn as well to play synergetically with water, Air, earth, time,
space, matter, flow,
Learn to cook with cosmic forces,
Artist of the sea,
Sea of art,
Nothing but everything,
Now.
Listening to our planet,

KUJIRA
--
Getting away from her cyclonic centers,
Where structured matter break, recycled by the whole.
You can't rest for too long,
The sea demands all.
At your service and whims,
I bow to the power of "nature",
To our nature.
To shy to call it god.
Kujira taught us,
Now,
Acting the teaching.
Another typhoon menaces.
Information gathered with the help of thechnics,
Nothing in the sea and sky hint the beast away,
Slowly approaching at 6 knots.
Keep the ship in the North east quadrant,
I hear a small voice say,
But then again,
Keep as many option open,
Before you know where to run with certainty of mind and body.
Don't confuse emotion with intuition,
Don't let any center run you,
Run centers at the service of the survival of the dream.
Sharks,
Respect, fear triggered by subconscious memory,
Respect for geological time survivor,
Adapted to survive,
Possibly the most efficient biological machine ever created by our universe.

THE GODS ARE DYING OF SOLITUDE
--
The gods are dying of solitude,
A god need energy from man to exist,
It is his fuel.
Out of a last resort he might put on a fit,
Can you see me?
Now they got real smart,
Possessed man to create the most brilliant sculptures, drawing, and monuments,
and prose and dramas, and songs, and melodies,
So they would have a chance at immortality,
As long as man thought of them.
A few lay buried in dusty cubard or hidden place.
Others departed long ago.
Some others, waiting for the right time right place,
And others in the process of creation, mutating, changing forms.
As long as man talks to them,
Dialogue,
One of my god is the god ocean,
Oceanic dialogue,
Thyphoona maybe jealous, decide to scare us,
Meanwhile ocean is kind, sending messengers,
Dolphin leaping in the long dreamblue swells,
Moving east, showing direction,
And offers a tuna.
Thyphoona in need of attention takes possession of a few minds,
She got a grip, and doesn't let go.
In this pantheon,
The alliances are crucial.
My respect to Thyphoona.
I do not wish to play to close with your mighty powers,
I bow to your presence,
But i long ago gave my soul to the ocean.

LONG SWELLS
--
Long swells, the messengers of the storm,
Dressed in deep blue,
A gift,
The sky above a circle of blue,
Invaded on all side by dark clouds.
A few dolphin leap, and leap, a hello and a good by,
The sky turns gray, then dark grey,
The swells swell, wind picking up,
40 knots, maybe more,
The wind reader fell out of Eibes hand,
The mizzen mast bend,
Xtine call the shot,
Quick, lower, under full strength,
Arm stretched, all muscle contracted,
Together we pull.
The foresail flaps,
Lower.
Huge waves crash on the bow,
Knees under water,
All porthole and hatches are closed,
The wind 4 point before the starboard side beam.
Contemplation,
Feeling privileged to witness such a face of the ocean,
Beauty, strength, power,
We are small, humility and reverence,
Today the sea is my temple,

HEAVE TO
--
The dragons are fighting in the sky,
We merely get the outside puffs of their blows.
The show goes on, the ship keeps dancing with the pacific ocean,
We are merrely voyeur,
The ship on heave to,
Waiting for Chan Hom to pass.
Many body on heave too as well,
Paradise bunks are full of sleepy bodies,
Senses sharpened,
Smells traveling throughout the ship,
Chocolate brownie advertising tea time,
Fresh baked bread,
Farty smells from egg overdose,
Sweat and damp clothes drying in synestesia,
Diesel fume escaping the air vent,
All trapped inside,
We need to keep the sea outside,
Shake it all back and forth,
Et voila,
The perfume of the day.
The pancake priest performs his nightly ceremony,
While the navigator goes for a therapy session on the bench,
Mission impossible babes, at the service of the cause,
While 2 old timers in 2030,
Rap on the past future.

OPEN SEA
--
Open sea, sharpening senses,
Open sea, dive ever deeper in,
To let out,
Clean up of perceptionary channels,
For better reception,
But watched the channel you tune to,
What you are seeking,
Is also seeking you.

MYSTIC MIST
--
Spaces,
The physical universe,
Bodies,
Biospace,
Cyberspace,
New evolution,
With human as coauthors,
Of artificial intelligence.
Mystic mist,
Time's in transit,
Nowhere for the eyes to exit,
Mystic mist,

ZONE
--
Zone ?
Going nowhere,
Being everywhere.
Mmmmmm,
Galley's alive,
Mmmmmm,
Frying drizzle,
The fish singing, can you hear me,
Flipped by the alchemist of the day
Smells,
Escaping through the port hole,
Meeting the sheltering skies.

SWELLS INVADE
--
Swells invade,
Swells invade,
Slow, invade,
Minds, body, invade,
Ocean dream setting in,
Fluid,
Faces keep on smiling,
To the sky, to the moon, to the stars,
To the planet,
Swells invade,
Swells invade,
A caress from the sun,
A cold slap from the wind,
A caress from the sun,
Reptile, laying on the deck, taking in the heat,
While,
Swells invade,
Swells invade,
Body moves,
Body grooves,
Swells sensual,
Keep the body move,
Swells invade,
Swells invade.

AHOOOO
--
So many prophets,
Chanting revelations,
Illuminations,
Absolutions,
Revolutions,
Ovulations,
Caravans of thoughts,
Caravans of chemical experiences,
Shake shake it,
Lost in the seas, lost in spaces,
Lost to be,
Reality is a game comunicated in sensory codes,
Resurrections,
Detentions,
Liberations,
Realisations,
Me here,
Now, now, now.
I speak,
Ahooooooooooo,
I speak the thousand tongues,
In the screams of salvations,
In the screams of simulations,
In the screams of stimulations,
In the screams of titiliations,
All for some attentions,
Ahooooooooo,
Ahoooooooooo.
The muses delight in my weakness,
Sirens,
Why not die in the sound of temptation,
Rather than resignation.
Nothing last forever,
But a kiss.

THE SAMURAI IN THE SKY
--
All hands on deck,
Body moving,
A samurai in the sky,
Hovering over the Kujioro current,
Descided with his sword to decapitate our bow,
Cutting clean our foremast and sail.
Too clean a cut to be anything else,
But the gods playing our fate.
No one got hurt,
The shock woke everybody up,
We could have lost it all,
The mast piercing through the hull of the Heraclitus.
The hull is untouched, as strong as ever.
The crew unite, committed to keep on going.
The weather teases long enough to allow careful weighting of Thoughts,
Japan lures,
We decide not to bite,
The pacific test us a few more times,
Then let us go,
Our biggest trigger removed,
We passed humanly unscratched through the invisible gate,
Our good ship in great shape.
Go on our journey of 5000 miles,
Continuing our parallel odyssey.

III
DEEP PACIFIC
~

FOG
--
20 sperm whale's blows echo around the hull of the ship
Fog, a cocoon around us,
Beyond time,
Floating in a cloud,
Clouds,
Dream clouds,
Vision clouds,
Storing water in the sky,
Weather fortune teller,
Nimbostratus brings rain,

CLOUD NAMES
--
Cirrus beware,
Cirrostratus, rain to come
Altocumulus, sunny breaks,
Cumulonimbus, thunder
Stratus for a drizzle,
Stratocumulus, dry but dull,
Cumulus and sunny spell,
Cirrocumulus, undescisive,
Altostratus, mutating
Milky, fluffy, foggy, ripply,
Smoky, hazy, misty,
Simply clouds

THE SHIP RECHARGES
--
Frothy pacific,
Steered by the motion of a thousand dolphins,
The right whale dolphin, finless,
White sided dolphins frantic,
Laughters,giggles,
The crew in rapture,
Interspecies communication of emotion,
New spaces,
The ship recharges,
And we feed on radiance.

THE SEAL
--
A seal,
Open sea dream,
New found totem for Xtine,
Laughter, comic relief.
Roars and flips and dances.
A seal visits and perform.
The show a success,
Full house,
14 people on deck,
Moving around,
Game of seek and hide,
The bite the anchor scene,
Finally a flipper dance we can delight on,
After clapping and a few encores,
Substained the attention of the humans for a hour.
One little seal.
Who is watching who?
The show over, the crew below decks,
The seal departed,
Beyond the horizon.
The spirit of the seal, traveling as memes,
In dinner themes,
In conversation,
In imagination.
Xtine found dreams in a seal,
I keep finding scenes from my dreams.
Indigo seas in ocean blues,
Turning gray, turning white,
Shading blues,
Motion, always motion,
Gods pulling out brushes,
Painting with light through the eyes of man,
We are the canvass,
That paints the sea.
Ocean reveals himself to himself.
Bioluminescences,
Galaxies upon galaxies,
Sea reflect sky, sky reflect sea,
Dolphins cosmic dancing on the bow waves,
Mind dancing the waves of timelessness.

THE FEAST
--
Watching in a broken car mirror the progress of "Native America" braiding hair of
old world spacy German girl,
Tumbi and his "art critic" yellow hat peaks in.
Meanwhile rhum intoxication opportunity enter the scene.
Hands are sawing a theater costume, the needle performing from the intent of a
sailor/actress,
Summertime for summer solstice,
Space lounge in the happy 40's,
The bell ring,
The watches change,
Nicole holds power with the only can opener still able to perform in her swiss
army knife,
With 2 more month and 100's of cans still to go,
But Xtine stand in as back up, with secret army knife hidden in bunk.
Gypsy Reka reading taro card from Broome Australia gypsy liar,
It is not cool to be a gypsy and not lie warns Reka while telling carol her new
fortune,
Ferdi's muscles all out, sending out not so subliminal messages,
Lavender invades the sense of smell,
Heather puts Kira, Orla and myself into bliss with expert face massages,
Fingers opening, loosening, flashes of red circles, played by pressure and
heathers intention,
Peace while miles blows the horn post mortem through the boom box.
A kreteck cigarette appear, saved since Indonesia, filing lungs and minds with
clove essences and triggered memories,
Xtine teaches the art of Vodka drinking a la Russian,
Take in a breath, let the whole breath out, drink, let more of the breath out and
refresh with a sip of lemony juice,
Then concoct as the feelgood shaman a brew,
Chilli, nutmeg, coffee or tea, ginger, kava kava, sugar vitamines,
Sipped and everyone shows up for more.
Ferdi knit the bread , full make up on with red wig,
The make up artist station busy, nails painted, eyes lashed,
Reka reads the hands of sebastian,
Dream cocktail,
The rhum bottle emptied further it's life at sea with a message sent on the
sunset deck,
The only visible sun since days.
The low pressure front is on us, 995mb,
But the wind died, even the lows are tamed, too tamed.
The sun brings a photo frenzy, all high tek toys on deck,
Posing,
Then take a ride on the space hammock,
Pass around Orla's chorizo pizza's, and cheese toast.
Stinj and Eibes the hot dog chefs, spiky hair, the work of hair ferry Nicole,
With special buns from bun master Ferdi,
All retrieving bellow from the bites of the cold on deck,
Waiting for the winds in the right direction, strong enough winds.

WAITING FOR THE WIND
--
Sunday to Sunday,
Waiting for the wind,
Teased, pleased, teased,
Waiting for the wind,
Fog, and fog, and fog,
Wishcakes,
Night q beam exploration,
Revealing the creatures from the underworld,
Swirling jellyfish wagons,
Fluorescent eyes,
Hunted by seals and dolphins.
Meanwhile seapeople playing with essences,
Call the shot and see what we can dig out,
Transvanguarde, Homer's odyssey, summer celebration solstice,
Main Halyard block brakes,
Acrobatics on top of the mast,
Adrenaline pumped in,
Trigger removed,
Visualisation of what if.....
Waiting for the wind,
Contemplations,
Meditations,
Incences to warm Nemo's loneliness,
Memories highway, full speed on the past,
Brought back to the present.
The jewels of moments,
Chronoramas,
Under the water line,
In the safety of army blankets,
Away from the bites of the weather,
Seasonal chronorama of childhood berries,
First the blue berries, then rasberries, then blackberries,
And late summer, the delicate wild strawberries, closing the rama till next spring.
A circle of life, a circle of senses navigation,
Still waiting for the wind.
Patience a game learned in the field,
Too much patience makes you a fool.
Waiting for the wind.
Waiting for the right wind.
The sea picked up.
We are drifting south east.
The captain can't take it anymore,
Passing frantically up and down the ship,
Electrified with his own created chemical.
"we need to get out of here".
Time is taking it's toll.

THE GREY
--
"It is just a matter of time"
Reality check on yourself,
The sea and ship mirrors all,
Sunday speeches spot on.
The engine goes on,
Eibes on a recruiting mission to motor,
Like a priest spreading the gospel and finding followers.
Still 3700 miles to go,
And as yet the longest voyage so far, 50 days at sea.
New sound become suspicious,
Careful inspection reveal a small crack in the mast,
Other minds busy with depression and goulag stories.
Yes the north east is grey, constantly grey,
The colors have deserted,
The grey taking over, shading the moods, and emotion, and minds.
Man finds the way to enjoy the grey,
Find exctatic bliss in gloom and sad songs,
Taking about the pain of the world,
Letting the weight of the world resting on their shoulders,
Taking on the role of Greek Atlas,
"we need to get out of here",
While a soup boils on the stove.
Be here right now if you can,
At the mercy of the elements.
Remembering to be a actor, not a reactor.
Acting the grey, not reacting the grey.
The voyage keeps going.

YOU CANNOT LEARN LESS
--
You cannot learn less,
Says bucky in my ear,
A mantra for living.
The french want to know what the glue is,
The glue is synergy.
Ship of fools,
Undompted by the establishement,
Running wild ,
In pacific spaces,
Beyond compares,
Between times.
Who is steering?
Is there any who?

THE BLACK SHIP
--
The black ship that got away,
Beware to not go too far away,
Beyond the lands of never back.
With space,
From seapeople to space people,
The heraclitus host,
At your own risk,
Soul that seek the new,
Soul that seek.
You will never be able to rest,
Evolution is evolution.
The sun is new everyday,
Heraclitus
Sea people dream
Dream sea people
People dream sea
Sea dream people
Dream people sea
People sea dream
We dream the sea,
The sea dreams us,
Mirror of our seas,
The unfathomable depth of our inner ocean,
We dream our sea.

I AM WATER
--
Dive,
Weightlessness,
Illusion of no gravity,
Sensation of no gravity,
No up or down
With
I am water,
Water is me.
Pschychedelic realm,
Colors and patterns,
Fluid,
Fluid mentality,
Become the element,
Caresses,
Water caress,
Skin in rapture,
Being one,
Being.
To do to do to do
To be to be to be
To do to be to do
Dobe bedo
Silence,
Can you ever meet silence,

BLUE PEARL
--
Sensual universe
If I could drive straight up,
In less than a hour,
I would see our home,
A planet we should call blue pearl of our universe,
Then,
Driving back,
I could tell everyone to go and see for themselves,
My word isn't worth shit compared to the experience.
A few men have driven up,
But not enough.
Once you see beauty,
You will never forget,
Once you know how to love,
You will never love the same way again.

TEA FOR TWO
--
I must confess,
I am a happy man.
Tea for two
Water songs caress the hull.
The ship delights,
Baggy o wrinkle doctor,
Called to get high up there.
The mind curses the swells,
I stay grumpy for the rest of the day.
Birds laughting at our fate in the mist,
Cold slaps from the north,
A blows bring the body on deck,
Diverting the mind from the charts and strategic possibilities.
A cake baked by the captain to the gods,
And intentions written on strips of paper,
To call for the right winds and what we will never know.
Lust sequence in acting class,
Not to get stuck in despair.
The wind plays it well,
Desire,
Tittiliation,
Despair,
Jalousy,
Spite,
Hate,
Loneliness.
I found myself in rapture,
In union with the sea,
Since i can only let go,
I might as well do so,
There's no need to cling on what isn't there.
You can never hit a clown in public,
Although the tonge spit arsenic,
A clown can kill,
And everyone will laugh at the dead body,still.
Watch out for the wrong clowns,
There are the most dangerous creature in towns.

LEARN TO LISTEN
--
Learn how to tell the story.
What is the point of telling,
If nobody is listening.
Learn to listen to yourself.

DOLPHINS, CAN YOU TELL ME
--
Baracuda crown,
In the hair of the blue gaze,
Looting attention,
By ensemble dance kinetic beauty,
Lures the body in the dance,
The mind let go,
The man becomes other,
One in one among one.
Exposed,
You can't hide from a dolphin,
Sonar pierced,
Sonar beeped,
Sonar transformed,
Alter the chemicals,
Reprogram,
Fakeness hurt,
If unable to strip the masks.
Dolphins,
Can you tell me were i am at?

EVERY EVERIES
--
Migration,
We are migrating to spaces.
The tresor is now,
Every point along the journey,
Every breath,
Every thought,
Every emotion,
Every cup of tea i drink,
Every word i speak,
Every song i hear,
Every sea i see,
Every memories i can summon,
Every clouds i meet,
Every atom i steer,
Every kiss i steal,
Every kiss i recieve,
Every times,
Every space,
Every everies,
So that the journey becomes inexaustible,
Timeless, time bound, and eternal all at the same breath.

NEUROTICA
--
Body heat,
Easier to keep warm with two,
How easy would it be if everybody would keep everybody warm.
Neurotica,
You can always look at the wrong side of life if you want to.
There is enough of everything to feed all of us,
At all time,
All the time,
Wherever you want it to go.
The question is to define it.
She, mad with polyps virus in her brain,
Unable to reconsile herself without the compagny of zoozanthely,
Manic,almost in panic,
A glimpse of hope in her eyes,
Because he didn't know,
That corals can survive and freeze their polyps off.
3 miles deep.

SAILOR SPIRIT
--
Indian and chiefs,
All at the same time.
Conversations,
Motivations,
Creative energy,
Eibes and Xtine rigg a jib.
Magic.
The ship keeps in position,
We are heading in the right direction.
We can steer, tack, sail.
Dreamt of the mizzen becoming the foresail.
Sailor spirit,
Teaching.

INCARNATIONS
--
A seal visit in the middle of the night,
Drizzle dance in the light of the q beam.
Molding,
Find the donkey,
Ride the donkey,
And let the donkey go.
Eibes cheer leader,
The voice that keeps everyone going,
Wind metaphores,
Poet in the mouvement.
Incarnations,
For liberation.
What if
There was no gods but the gods i create,
They still are gods.
There are no other gods but my gods.
There are no gods if i don't believe in any.

INFINITE MYSTERY
--
Light sparkles infinite mistery,
Your scent intoxicate my memory,
Flashes of splashes in open warn sea,
Sensual skin delight rapsody,
Caresses, desire the sun extasy,
Lips and kisses in melody,
Ondulation of kinetic harmony,
All to dream of moonshaped insanity,
Over my love to your infinity.

MY GODDESS
--
My godesse a moi,
You are to me as
I see you,
For I can only see,
What I can see
And what I choose to see
Is up to me.

HAWL AWAY
--
Ready on the snotter,
Ready,
Ready on the sheets,
Ready,
Ready on the capstan,
Ready,
Hawl away,
Hawling away,
Hands pulling ropes,
Feet going round the singing capstan,
Muscles contracted,
Together pushing on.
Cease,
Cease.
A line caught need attention,
Gets attention.
Hawl away,
Hawling away,
Battens by battens,
The sail unfurls
Gliding along the aluminium mast,
The parrels squeak,
The sail puffs,
The block moans a bit,
Cease.
The sail is up,
The wind picks up,
The bow slice through,
The hull, caressed by the sea,
Delight,
Sending ecxtatic songs through the hull ,
To serenade the dream catchers still asleep in bio,
A fishing line trolled on the stern wake,
Give me a mark,
Mark,
Keeping a good course,
The helmsman steers with the wind 4 from behind,
Deck watch all senses alive,
Keeps the wind sharp in attention,
Hourly checking for triggers,
Watching out for obstacles and spectacles,
Fins and blows,
Any clues in the clouds,
Any messages in the sky,

STILL WAITING
--
If you want to know where you are,
Simply look up.
Horizon plays with the eyes,
What's our speed?
6 knots,
Going east.
I wish I wish I wish,
Projecting,
The sea is off glass,
The wind to weak to even define a direction,
The sail flaps,
Although we are in the roaring 40's,
We live the doldrum since 2 weeks,
Every now and then testing our patience,
Trying to reach it's limits.
Still waiting for the wind.
Expert hands on my knoted back,
Heather unlocks strains,
Another seapeople art,
To loosen the acumulated tensions and pulled muscles,
Holistic natural healer on the North pacific,
Albatross gliding pass the bow.

IV
HERACLITUS
~

HERACLITUS
--
She is a chinese Junk in ferrocement,
Three masted,
A night black hull,
And a red deck.
85 foot of her,
Dancing with the seas since 28 years,
A old lady with enough memories,
Dramas, sweat, tears, laughters,
Riding moods,
Creating her own legend,
Always seeking,
In a race against time,
To witness with her eyes the extinctions on planet ocean.
2000 miles up the amazon,
Riding dreams and visions,
From Indian shamans, feeding her powers beyond reasons,
Around the world, tasting the vanishing cultures of our humanities,
Releasing dolphins back to the freedom of the open ocean,
Circumnavigating south america,
Reaching the continent of Antartica,
Sinking in Puerto Rico,
Rebirth, and retirement in Belize,
Brought back to life to fullfill her destiny,
Coral reefs around the world,
Evolving humans,
Dreaming and giving birth to Sea people,
She meets and faces chalenges,
Creates heros, scientist, actors, poets, captains, seaman, dreamers, seekers,
Synergists, artists, talents, seapeople
Without ever loosing a human life,
For above all she cherish humanity,
Never cheats, never lies,
Her devotees are rewarded with wealth,
The wealth of unreplicable experiences,
Unique,
Still with humility,
For without the spirit of freedom that she incarnates,
She would die.
Dolphins, whales,seals, fishes all play with her,
And she watches with her two bright eyes.
She makes you wonder,
Bring you to raptures,
Test your limits,
Teaches you to be human,
She tirelessly teaches, never giving up.
She brings misteries, magics, realities to men,
That can stand her honesty.
She is beyond compares,
She let men dream, she helps men fullfill their dreams,
Guiding,
She is the black ship that got away,
She is the black ship that isn't scared to get caught,
For she knows one day she will get away,
Almost her curse,
Condempt to roam the seas,
She chooses her home,
A flag ship to the oceans,
A flag ship to the coral reefs,
A flag ship to the quest for the origins, past present and future of human
cultures
A flag ship to sea people,
Always creating,
Her name is Heraclitus.

V
CORAL REEF
~

CORAL REEFS
--
Coral reefs
Builders of underwater cathedrals,
Coral reefs temples,
Sacred space,
I salute you.
You the little polyps and zoozantelly,
The master architects,
Buiding over and over your predecessors,
For millions of years,
Not loosing focus.
The kingdom of the reef came down four times,
To extinction in it's 2 billion years history,
But always came back,
With more vitality, more diversity, more shapes and forms,
More vibrance than ever before,
Radiance,
A look at you and one is transformed,
Chocked by beauty, estetic arrest,
Gardens of sculptures,
Deep valleys incrusted with a thousand colored stars and coral flowers,
Ametist purple, turquoise blues, rubi reds, yellow saphire,
In perfect estetic harmony,
Musical colored symphonies,
Masterpieces after masterpieces,
A infinite tresor chest of wonder.
Entering this oceanic cities,
With rush hours, regular feeding times,
The one that munch all the time,
The night feeders, cleaners, street "seacumcumber" vacum cleaners,
Like shoe shiners, or hairdresser, cleaner wrasses take one customer after the
next,
Often entering mouth of sharp teeth that could devor them,
2 octopus dancing, transforming in front of your eyes in texture, form and colors,
A herd of grazing parrot fish move by, sound of crunch,
The cementing algae,
Keeping the limestone together,
Sponge covered walls and crevasses, interiror decoration,
The citizen of the coral reef city,
Often exuberent,
Multicolored, multidesigned appearances, parade, flashing their costumes to the
World,
The wildest fashion show on earth,
One think one has landed in paradise,
A world of perfect harmony.
But life is fierce on the reef,
Competitive, ruthless.
Each little polyp tentacles, armed with batteries of stinging cells,
All carnivores, designed to seize animal preys,
Feeding on everything pasing over them,
Some use chemical warfare to kill and destroy invaders,
Some poisons to paralise their prey before devoring them,
The scorpion fish rely on camouflage,
Motionless, most of the time,
Sudenly at the speed of light strikes,
Only to resume his posture like nothing ever happened,
Mass invasions treathens every one,
When armies of the coral enemie #1 acanthaster planci alias crown of thorns
march on,
Night and day sucking liveflesh of the corals colonies,
Leaving fields of dead skeletons.
Plagues of diseases decimate entire species,
Black band deaseases, viruses,
Infections,
Thermochanges, the coral bleaching, often dying,
The reef rely on a eternal dance of life and death,
As soon as it is created that forces try to destroy it,
Typhoons, ripping reefs apart,
Then the little polyps and zoozanthellea,
Come in to rebuild.
And soon the reef takes shape again,
An endless cirle that worked until.....
The badest of them all decided to mess with the biological rythm ,
The cosmic tempo,
Destroying faster than all typhoon and crown of thorn and plagues combined,
Chemical waste, dinamite, poisons like cyanides,
Keeping a few reef fish in a tank for private entertainement,
Scooping everything alive for miles and miles,
Genocide of life,
None theless the little polyps and zoozanthellea,
Keep on buiding,
Repairing,
Erecting their cathedrals, temples and monuments,
Never giving up.

I WORSHIP THE SUN
--
In that spirit,
They will probably outlast man,
Keeping building and rebuilding long after the virus created the virus that
exterminated them.
The sun appear
I workship the sun,
Giving my skin in offering to the biosphere,
My body recieve the heat,
To warm the core of my cells.
I workship the sun,
Sensual,
A conscious union,
Simple,
Recharge,
I am because of the sun.
As the sun burns,
I feed, energy,
Sun, water, atmosphere,
Basics of life,
Obvious simple and delightful,
Aware,
Sun fish join the scene,
Birds are everywhere.
An albatross, resting on the surface,
Watches the black ship and it's creatures.
"why this big bird never fly?"
After the sens- ational sun,
He sets along a ring of clouds,
Dark thick distant clouds.
The sky becomes the roof of our temple,
We have entered a pacific sea temple.
Colors, hues, water like silk sheets ondulate,
I workship the sun with my body sacred spaces.
Competition to claim exclusivity of totems,
Kira threatened by Nicole in dream space,
Fire words so soft, but with the cunning inscisiveness of blades.
But there isn't any competitions.
The spirits are everywhere,
In every one.
Like seeds they grow if you feed them,
Energy of thoughts, conscious magic invocations within oneself,
Not for gaining power over others,
But to gain power over oneself to create,
At the service of your totem.
You are at the service of your gods,
Not the gods at your services.

WHALES!
--
Whales!
Always a rush of bodies racing through the hatches,
Moving with the lighting speed of fairies,
Eyes scouting the sea,
For the sight of a blow.
And when the whale is near,
The airs saturated with her breath, oceanic breath,
Time arrest,
Wonder and silence,
Then laughters.
20 sperm whales blows echoes on the hull of the ship,
Thousands of dolphins leaping, dancing the sea.
Right whale dolphins, finless, ride the bow wave,
Bioluminescent trails of tails and motions,
The careless caressing bodies make love,
But above all,
Here they come,
Tall towering dorsal fins, erect to reach the stars,
Slice through the wave.

THE ORCA
--
The orca is commanding respect.
The fastest, fiercest, smartest creature of all,
Feared around the oceans,
The orca rules the seas.
Nothing compares to the tenure of a male orca,
Surfacing, at the head of his pod, proud,
With the arrogance of invicibility,
Undisputed.
Behind, more fins, and blows, and breaches,
Revealing the elegance and ensemble of the whales,
They move on.
Long after, their spirit remain,
In the legends of our odyssey,
The orca enters our dreams,
Patience till our next meeting,
The orca have come.
How far do we have to go to realize?
Should we send everyone to sea,
Like thai send their young to monasteries,
Fewer and fewer man live with the sea,
The time of the clippers, and traders, sailors,
Is a art of the past, with few survivors,
A culture on the brink of extinction,
Because it is nowadays hard to survive,
Trading can't compete with the big dragons anymore.
What to do?
The sea reveals all,
Good and bad,
To realize that good and bad don't exist,
We choose

WORLD WITHOUT COLORS
--
Would you want to live in a world without colors?
The revolution that the reefs created in the world,
Is not yet comprehended.
The impact of the fluidity of colors, designs, shapes, forms,
On art extend beyond reason.
Millions of people attempt to reproduce in miniature,
The world of the reef via aquarium,
A fish in a bowl.
From a fish in a bowl probably came biospheres,
With the lesson that life goes on,
Find a way,
With or without man,
And man should think as keeping on the life train,
We are the last wagons,
We will not be the last forever,
But we might not be attached to the train anymore,
If we keep on hammering, molesting, abusing, exterminating the other wagons,
The mechanics will find a way to stop us,
Sending armies over to our wagon/body,
Viruses, plagues, geological disaster,
Or not having to create any since we are doing it already.
The reef becomes a magnifying glass,
To the collective stupidity of a specie.
Taking over blindly.
And yet the individual member of the specie evolve,
Create new alliances,
Create new dreams.
The dream of seing the end to the destruction of the worlds reef,
A necessary dream,
The more on the same dream,
The more the dream becomes real,
Infecting like viruses the mind of man,
By contact.
It is cool to want to protect what you love,
But you have to love first.
So love the reef,
Because the reef is the most beautiful place on our planet.
Go there,
Don't rely on a film or picture,
But experience the reef,
Floating, weightless,
Leaving behind the laws of gravity,
And fill your minds with your senses,
All of them.
Once you seen the coral live,
You will not want to display a skeleton,
No water how beautiful they might be,
Surround yourself with life,
Even life in a picture.
Life is what it is all about.
Life feeds on life.

THE BIG RIDE OF THE OPEN SEA
--
Down,going down, more down, further.
High, high,higher,higher,
By going down to the sea,
The sea that can never be dry,
A heart assured of plenty,
Always enough for another cry.
The big ride of the open sea
Is a ride of open memory,
Deep, going deep and deeper
The sea refuses no rivers

COSMIC EMERGENCY
--
Cosmic emergency,
Biosphere under attack,
By the minds and hands of a single specie,
That created a undomptable monster.
What is it, the color of an angel?
I ask because I am scared of the silence that never comes.

TEARS
--
Tears,
Staying behind the doors of my eyes,
Not wanting to see the day,
They know that by stepping out,
They will die.
Cry, sky, cry,
Wash with your sweet tears,
The salt of my oceanic skin.
Fire,
Too close you burn,
Too far you die.
Artificial intelligence,
The utopia of man's intelect,
A mind that could be kept "alive" forever and ever,
The exilir of imortality.
Competing with life,
Dying without life,
Racing to create robots,
The information gatherer,
The enginer,
The bodies that can perform the motions,
Harvesting the raw product,
Playing with bio mechanics,
Keeping a few brains in plasma,
Connected to the machines,
At the service of the machines.
But as long as there is a tree, a fish and a man to feel,
To cry and laugh,
To create beauty with his mind,
Art will survive for art is immortality.

A PEACH AND A LOVER
--
A peach and a lover
Blossom
Of
Sinuations,
At
Risks
In
Saturation,
To
Memory.
But
Only
If
The peach
Is fresh
From
The
Tree.

VISAGE
--
Stare,
Smiles,
From man to the world
Visage,
From life to death,
Courage,
Of foly without remorse.
The buddha on the shelf meditate,
A khmer scarf still mourn the past,
Climbing shoes resting for too long,
And a spear gun,
Waiting for a opportunity.
Restless,
Engine on,
Sacriledge to tea time,
For no reason but to blasfeme,
To the sea and our dignity.

NEVER ENDING STORY
--
The ancient greeks didn't need bother writting about polution,
Ozones layers, co2 emissions, and meteorite collisions or space travel, or plane
Schedules, or tv tonight.
They were to busy inventing us,
Laying the foundation for future genius madnesses.
We are here now,
At the foundation of the new future,
And if not today,
We can always start tomorow.
Never ending story,
Specially if you never start it.

THERE WAS A MAN
--
There was a man,
Like any other man,
But he knew he was a man,
And that made him more than other man.
Words,
Blades,
Caresses,
Slow burning spells,
Or thooting prayers whells,
At our disposition,
To use,
Often abuse,
Abuse to use more,
Till it fuses,
With the sound of the word.
Man is making himself out of words.

YELLOW PAGES
--
What does it all mean?
Any meanings any one?
If you cannot answer a question,
There is always somewhere somebody inventing the answer.
Any one for a answer?
Here we go, and one story of creation one.
We got another question coming on our right,
Why do fish keep on swimming after midnight?
Here a phd for you mam,
Just make sure that you put it in 300 pages please,
And make it hard too read,
So we won't get the same stupid questions again.
What's god phone number?
Not listed in the yellow page.
If it is not in the yellow page then it doesn't exist, right?
Maybe there's a private line,
There's lot of people wanting to reach him.
I heard there's a guy that takes messages,
And pass them on.
But the list of request is so big that the chances that you get a answer in your
life Time is slim,
So some guys invented reincarnation,
That always gives any god more time,
Since he can't answer, and there is so many souls waiting,
You better invent some games to keep all these questioning minds busy.
It took a millions years to figure out that you can entertain forever with some
zero's and ones,
All mathematically probable combinations possible as realities,
Finite,
The death of infinities,
Therefore the death of immortalities.
Confusion is a dish always better eaten hot.
Hey, what's in a voice?
Don't ask, start by listening.
Identity,
Give me a identity mister.
All right,
But it will cost you your life sir.
Ok.
Corporate identity n# 3492 under the title of manager of departemental affair for
phisics and poetic illusions.
Thank you, thank you.
On tv tonight, the wheel of fortune,
A possible dream to win to get out of that identity,
And ivent the sand, palm tree and dump your fat wife for a mexican big breasted
young godess,
Only to realise that she can't cook.
Lunatics on the run,
Looking for a full moon to justify behaviours,
But the full moon shows up only every 28 days,
Enough to pack enough dinamite,
To blow ones brain out.
Full moon tonight,
And here they come,
Bigger, brighter, carzier than ever,
The full moon lunypolytuti brothers,
Live,
Without nets,
Here they are.......

COURAGE TO SING
--
Courage to sing,
Chartering new chemical highs,
For instant emotional ride,
The voices came out,
Discovering themselves,
Feeding from a audience,
In turn we dance the voices of sea people.
The eyes of a dolphin told me to go and see,
See where I come from,
There are world out there,
Beyond compare,
To be explored and experienced.
Millions of years in the making,
Dramatic geological events,
Volvanic explosions,
Giving birth to atolls,
Island rising,
Island sinking.
Storms and Thyphoons.
And here I go,
First the blue,

THAT BLUE
--
That blue that becomes you,
That blue that will color your dreams ever after,
That blue that will hypnotise you,
That blue that is the blue of blue.
Underwater gardens,
Reaching for the surface,
Piercing through to the other side,
Giant field of acroporas,
Forest of staghorn corals,
Branching out to receive all the sun it can gets.
The hardest organic builders on the planet,
Biospace ships,
Creatures that decided to return there,
And the polyps keep on building,
Infatigable, relentless,
Garden upon gardens,
Cathedral upon cathedral,
Animal flowers,
Creation of dreamy seascapes,
Evolution playing with forms,
Patterns,
Multitudes,
Architects masters of colors,
The polyps erect temples,
Relatives come in to fill in tentacular beds,
Sureal tables.
Half in, half out,
Relying on it's bounty,
Man,
Inspired,
Feeding on moods,
Vibrant,
Trenscendent,
Comical grace,
Miraculous,
Competitive,
Playfull, the eyes of the dolphin where right,
Estetic arrest,
Spaces beyond compares,
Fluid brotherhood.
Plagues, and deaseases,
Fearless predator,
A dramatic universe.
And then man came,
At first playfull, gratefull,
Evolving with the sea,
Evolving in the sea.
The reef was brought up,
Grinded powdered for kiks,
Harvested for survival,
Reveared for artistic experiences,
Inspirational extravagance,
Meditation of our relationships,
Simplicity,
Till the balance tipped over,
Greed,
Grabing, abusing,

SIMBIOSIS AND SIMPLICITY
--
While some still remembered,
Simbiosis and simplicity,
But the rape goes on,
Sensless, apocaliptic,
With bigger nets, and bigger nets,
Scouping , and scouping and scouping,
Scouping all the fish,
Not thinking of any tomorows,
While some still remembered,
Simbiosis and simplicity
Meanwhile the extinctions, blindness goes on,
Some rushing still trying to see
Before there will be nothing left to be,
But a few shells on dusty shelves,
Trophys of long gone species,
Plundering the rest.
Meanwhile some still go by the old way,
Taking only as needed,
Calling out to the rescue,
With the blow of a conch,
The sea is crying.
Now the fish are gone,
No worries we can still get some slugs,
To feed the hungry dragons of the cities,
Resemblance of life to remember,
Life before the techno dragons,
Too late for the one that remembered,
Still trying to live in armony
Teaching tha art of living with,
One with the sea,
None the less the polyps keep on building,
Cathedrals and temples
Not giving up,
Keep on going little polyp,
Keep life going,
And going, more sacred places,
Come on little polyps,
Keep on building for our dreams,
Building to the name of beauty,
Inhabited by time tested evolutionary survivors,
All living under the cities of the master architects,
The little polyps
Holds no grunges,
He will forgive,
So we can still dream toguether.

I CARRY THE REEF WITHIN ME
--
I carry the reef within me,
Connected till my for ever,
We all are connected to it,
That we see it or not,
That we want it or not.
We are performing in this century the biggest, stupidest amputation of our own
body,
Mutilating our soul,
Senseless,
A genocide.
I carry the reef within me,
And like any experiences,
You have to be there to feel anything.
Sensing with all our beings,
Our own beings,
More than connected,
I am one with it.
My body becomes a vehicule,
A transport system,
A medium,
Talking about myself,
I don't like to be molested,
Although molestation is part of the world.
I am what i despise,
I am what i love.
I am born out of planet earth,
She is my mother,
I am her,
She is me,
We are together i,
I am falling in love with you everyday,
Why do i choose to speak about corals,
And not about cars, or computers, or movies?
Urgency, a state of emergency,
Like a wound sending out pain signals,
So the focus shifts toward the troubled area.
The coral reefs are in trouble,
Serious trouble.
Who cares?
Letting something go, destroying,
Is destroying one possible self,
Destroying potential,
Reducing the flavours of ourselves,
Becoming poorer and poorer,
I want to be able to see myself in it's most outrageously decadent beauty,
And nowhere else but in my coral garden self can i experience such vibrant
exuberence,
There are forces that like a bad virus,
Sweeps over ourselves,
Feeding on colors, moods, emotions, vibration,
Only to leave behind a straight line without a pulse.
The corals reefs are going,
Oasis of pristinity are becoming increasingly rare,
What i call essence reef,
Those sacred places,
Those spaces that create spaces within oneself,
Not just to survive,
But evolve with as many colors on our pallettes that we can discover,
So we can paint our worlds,
Within the world
With the full scales,
Not reducing ourselves,
But ever expanding as life itself dictates.
Befriending life,
Is befriending yourself.
I am the coral reef,
You are the coral reef,
Trying to save reefs is saving oneself.
The coral reef are resilient,
They have survived a few geological desaster.
We the new kid on the block of evolution,
Playing games at deleting ourselves.
Realities,
There are many games,
Played simultanously,
Nobody wins, nobody loose,

I AM A KID
--
You can't judge yourself judging yourself judging yourself forever.
I am a kid,
I want to keep playing with the reef,
I refuse to let anyone destroy or steal my toys
I will not let you destroy me,
I am greedy for experiences,
I am greedy for beauty,
I am greedy for myself.
I can have it all,
Why settle for less,
It is there already,
Why spending so much energy destroying.
Ok ,
Life and death,
Rebirth,
Destruction, creation.......
But if we all play at destroying,
Faster than the others can rebuild,
We are going for disaster,
I can bite off my fingernail, but i start to get into trouble once i keep on going
biting my fingers, then my hands,
How far are we going with that game?
I am the coral reef,
And i refuse to die.

VI
DRIFTING
~

ONCE UPON A TIME
--
Once upon a time,
There was a ship on the open sea.
A seal, a broom and a mop,
Performing a dance,
Climatic build up with a touch,
Human hands entered the dance.
Songs of laughters,
Sparkling eyes.
Like a torero,
Bust hanging low over the side of the black ship,
Fingers instead of a spear,
The mop act as the cape,
Ole, the seal is touched.
The dance over after 2 hours of non stop performance,
Everyone retreat,
The seal to the open sea,
The crew to the comfort of the mother ship.
The song of the open sea,
Ruthless,
Yet compassionate,
Hiding will only mean retreat,
And the sea doesn't accept but the most faithfull, truthfull lovers.
Glides on albatrosses wings,
Pirated rides,
The whole exposed,
To the eyes of the ocean.

BREATHE DEEP
--
Breathe deep,
Deeper in a row,
Higher towards the center,
Reaching the place where no center exsists,
All in one,
One in all,
Repeated in single eternities.
From the albatrosses wings,
To the playfullness of the seal,
All spirited,
There's only essenses,
To different degree of dilutions,
The medium is life.

I WANT TO BE
--
I want to cry,
I cry,
I want to laugh,
I laugh,
I want to feel free,
I feel free,
I want to love
I love,
I want to scream,
I scream,
I want to be,
I am.

WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT
--
What if i can't do what i want to,
Well you can't.
We have been taught to put th weight of unwanted words and gossip to the tip
of our fingers,
Then let them go and fly as the albatross on the open sea,
We have been taught to troll a bait to catch a wahoo,
We have been taught to eat raw tuna, dipped in salt water, feeling the swells,
becoming the sea,
We have been taught to spear a fish, catch a coconut crab, with claws that could
take your arm away,
We have been taught solidarity,
Men braving huge swells, breaking over a trecheous reef passage, loading taro,
to send 30 miles away over force 7 waters food to a island that lost it's garden to
a typhoon.
We have been taught to play, with dozens of kids under the sea, without words
but laughters,
We have been taught simplicity,
In the art of a canoe,
We have heard the songs that call the wind, on a carved and painted canoe, with
pandanus sails,
We have been taught to sail outrigger canoes, catching fish, calling dolphins, not
giving up with a mast break, navigating over reefs, to meet eye to eye with the
heraclitus,
We have been taught by the reefs themselves,
Arresting time,
Finding the exilir of immortality, for a moment,
Like gilgamesh in the origins,
We have been told stories, of white whales and friendly sharks,
Of demons and spirits and heroes,
We have been taught not to give up.
Despise the deserts,
Reef dsstroyed by the greed of man.
We have been taught to recognise the big dragons,
The mad techno dragons feeding man with worthless goods,
In exchange of precious life,
A bad trade for the benefit of a few monsters,
Slaving minds with cheap drugs,
We have seen beauty destroyed by the tentacular dragon.
We created our monsters,
Let them loose, feed them, enslaved by our own emotion,
The dragon knows, out to exploit our stupidity,
Feeding on our greed , vanity,
The big monster that we created is eating us,
Killing values, replaced by,
Dumping cars on a 5 mile strech, traffic jam on a small island,
Can't walk without inhaling fumes,
But would still walk faster,
Walking between piles of dumped trash,
To drunk by imported beer to see,
No reefs but spoiled cemetary,
Of algae and oil spills.
The crown of thorn is a baddy, sucking live polyps living dead skeleton of coral,
But in a balance of death and rebirth,
Nothing compare to the big dragon,
Sucking life with his continental size,
Infiltrating the last sacred spaces.
We scout and scout,
And dig and dig,
Like miners, to find jewels.
We dove thousands of hours,
Everywhere, without prejudice,
To see,
Because if you want to see something you have to be there,
And we found jewels among the apocaliptic thruth,
Enough to fuel our hopes,
We have danced with mantas,
Interspecies underwater ballets,
Swam with a hundred sharks, in deep blue canyons,
Dreamt with thousand of dolphins riding our bow,
Fell in love with magic reefs,
So busy with life that for a moment we thought of nothing but rejoicing.
We have seen reefs recovering from dinamite blast, within 5 years.
We have seen the same rubbles dinamited over and over to scoup half finger
sized fish,
We have cryed to see previously unspoiled island,
Invaded by dozens of tuna factory ships,
We have seen dead sharks rotting away, intact but for their fins,
We have heard of cyanide being pumped into the ocean, extracting a few
nuggets of gold to fill some imaginary vaults,
We have seen transcendent dances and ceremonies,
Sunsets and full moon rise,
We have been taught new constelations,
We have watched the stars for no purpose but to feel closer to them,
We have dreamed of aliens,
We have seen inexplicable event in the sky,
We have seen inexplicable event in the sea,
We have seen inexplicable event in man.
We have felt the ocean invhading us, possesed by the spirit of our home,
And came back without knowing how to explain,
We have felt small on the open sea,
Humility of being human,
Arrogance too of knowing where we have been,
Arrogance of knowing that we saw the last of dissapering wonders.
We had the last chances to see,
We are being taught to dream,
Dreaming of sea people,
Planetary people,
We have tasted a life of plenty,
We have tasted a life of freedom,
We have tasted a life that is full of life,
We now fear to loose it
It is time to monitor the damage of the big thechno dragon,
By taking the pulse of our planet,
By taking the pulse of our home.
The reef will communicate with us,
A satelite, circling around our planet,
Telling us of our insanity,
Monitoring our falls or recovery.
All for the price of one war plane among thousands.
Big dragon doesn't want us to know,
As long as it is the words of a few men only,
Easy to dismiss,
Like in biosphere 2,
But everyone has the right to know,
Everything is there to succeed,
Why not let humanity succeed?
There is enough that sees,
Aboard on our spaceoceanship heraclitus,
We live too with a human group animal,
Testing how to control,
If the animal is let loose to become a monster.
Without a monster,
The human become individuals,
And the more individuals,
The less enslavable beings for the dragon.
We choose the ocean,
As our home on our home,
And what we see,
Is our home being raped, abused, pillaged.
The big dragon whore pr advertiser,
Can invoke meteorite disaster scenarios,
Let evolution take on it's course,
Evolving we are and will,
But can we keep the whole cataloge of choice possible please.
What is the freedom of choices,
If we keep reducing the choices to this or that.
Wealthy i want to be wealthy
What settle for less than all we can be.
Without reef we loose wealth, so much wealth.
Why bother for a few flowers?
The coral reefs, are like flowers in the ocean,
And we are taking flowers after flowers,
Till we will only leave dead stems
Imagine a world without flowers?
Imaging the kids of your kids asking,
What is a flower,

THE DOLPHIN IN THE POOL
--
What is a whale,
Can i see a pristine reef?
No you can't, but once upon a time there was.....
We are at the stage where we are trying to save a few seeds of all species,
Quick, dna reciepe, so we can construct latter.
What about souls,
What about the spirit of the wild.
A dolphin in a round pool is but a shadow of a dolphin.
He looks like a dolphins,
Act sometimes like a dolphins,
Being trained to eat frozen fish,
Refuses but eventually refuses to die and eat,
But die anyhow of stress and melancoly,
Turning round and round,
Without any horizons to see,
Without any predator to flee,
Without any fish to chase,
Without any friends to play but a few inmates as lonely as he,
Dolphins on the open sea,
Incarnate the spirit of freedom.
Now the humanity animal shows suicidal tendency,
Life will go on,
But how about man,
Not man as a body
But man as a spirit?
We will never destroy the dragon,
We need the dragon,
We just need to learn how to tame him,
Before he tames us

PACIFICO
--
We are resting in the arm of the open sea,
Not letting us go before we learn to be,
Pacifico,
Teaching us,
Sometimes against our will,
But expect the unexpected,
A life of plenty,
Isn't nessessary kinetic,
Forced to contemplates,
Or turn round and round in worthless words,
Inner expeditions,
Get it while you can.
Windless night,
Rigging squeaks and dolphin blows,
Moon hallow behind clouds.
Fresh memories of diving tail of a lone sperm whale,
And visualisations of artur c clarke rama world,

SPACE AGE
--
Space age,
We are as close to space as ever,
Drifting,
Among alien inteligence,
Sometimes our own,
Frontier of seaminds,
Contemplation of life,
Our existence the dream to be,
We are here,
Here is now,
Now will always be now,
Forever and ever,
Convergence of time lines,
Grid of synchronisities,
To keep us wondering,
It is all happening,
Theater of all possibilities,
Freedom of beings among other beings,
All in one amongst ones,
Brainhacking your own,
To exploit potentialities,
Many road to eternities,
Regardless of death or imortalties.
Being while you can,
Simply because we can.
Head full of noise,
Couldn't hear a song,
Zero tolerance for my own mind,
A moment,
This too shall pass,
It is past already,
Always new.

THE PACIFIC HAS NOW BECOME OUR LIFE
--
The pacific has now become our life,
The ship refuses to speed up,
Comptemt of being there,
Visited almost daily by seaminds,
Dolphins of all species come to pay tribute to the black ship,
The blows of sperm whales caresses her hull,
Seal dances with her in the twilight,
Sharks inspect and go,
Sun fish rise painfully to the surface,
They too don't want to miss the show.
Birds have now taken up residences at night,
Laughting at the humans,
Singing to the ship,
The wind decided to keep us here.
There always been a reason for our deceptions,
We are given a fraction of hope at a time,
Just enough to keep us sane,
Just enough to keep us here.
There is nowhere to run,
But for our will to go,
Moving anyhow through the universe,
At speed that defy our compehension,
We workship the sun ever more,
Since he compete with the cloudy sky.
The temperate ocean trigger new smells,
Another sensation to expand our repertoire,
A new colors for our inner paintings,
More wealth to our memories,
The crew is now dreaming,
All in their own minute version of universes,
But all from the same data bank,
All possible possibilities,

INEXAUSTIBLE
--
Inexaustible for one mind.
The boredom is self aflicted,
Unable to grasps the gift of being,
It comes with satisfaction garanted,
Not satisfied is but a satisfaction,
The satisfaction of not being satisfied,
The push for further,
The trampoline for more satisfactions.
Froth of prince,
A mile long parade, from all horizon they have come to play, amongst our bow
wave, eating away for a moment our hidden frustrations.
The wind shifts to push us north, finally. Fringing the edges of a low, inner and
outer, the navigation of our group animal demands all.
I lay down, juggling with my thoughts and every body elses thoughts, brain
hacking, brain hacked, synergy the most worthwhile game of chance, the
unknown that will sparkle the new.
The wind from the south brings mild temperture, and memories of a tropic heart.
A clove, kreteck cigarette, brings bali alive, smells of inscenses, gamelon
orchestra tunes, play of gods, gestures, and the abundance of culture, a melting
pot, brewed and stewed with balinese stock, to create new. The principles stay
the same, the outcome always diferent. You can never bake the same bread
twice.

STEER 030
--
Steer 030
Rog.
Try to hold that.
The wind is on the beam.
The mizzen is lowered. Force 4, just.
Go in neutral.
Let the sail out as much as it takes.
The eyes stare et the Gps. 1.8 knots.
Are you hard over?
No 25 to port.
4 bells. The 8 to 12 watch keeps on its tempo.
The wind from 130.
The small jib just riped. A line popped.

WALKING THROUGH A SEA OF EYES
--
Walking through a sea of eyes,
Few that you truly meet,
A flashes of a second,
Eyes to scared to meet,
To scared to look at themselves.
Behind every eye,
Lie a open soul.
Full moon showing up for sunday night. Voices carried to the stars.
In every waves there is a spirit,
In every moment,
There is a opportunity to play,
Play with me mother earth,
For i am your child,
And your child i will remain,
Till you take me back from the stage,
Back to create a new actor.
100 billions souls walked on your body,
100 billion stars among a 100 billion stars,
Celestial bodies, inner and outer.
For everyman there is a star,
For everystar there is a man.

SAILING WE ARE SAILING
--
Sailing we are sailing,
Endless games with the sky,
Obsessive stares at the Gps,
Almost hypnotised,
The veil has lifted.
We are sailing,
3 points behind the beam,
4 knots, eating the miles in the right direction.
The heraclitus stand proud,
Dale's porpoise join the celebration on the bow,
We are sailing.
A cocoon of thick fog hide the horizon,
We travel in a time bubble,
Spirit will lift,
Conscious aknoledgement to the biosphere,
The lows are piling up,
Pushing us ever forward,
We are sailing.

HUMMUS LUNCH
--
Hummus lunch,
Filled stomach with delight.
Energy boosted from alchemic qualities in taste buds,
The receipe often controlling my tolerance to lows,
Not the raw product but the synergy.
Bossy mate gives out her orders,
Without compassion but the thrill of power,
Thrifes for the tresors of the captains pants,
While his ex body slave dread the bending time like a plague.
Bodies found refuge in copulation,
Minds are wandering, bitting hooks with the faintest lures.
The sails beam with orgasmic hisses,
Wind penetration from the right direction.
The thunder of a breath,
Mist of condensed ocean smells,
Rising to meet the sky.

EXPLORATIONS
--
Explorations, inner and outer,
Expeditioner,
Every man is a born explorer,
But then again not every man follow his essense.

WE ARE CELEBRATING FREEDOM
--
Body heat warms the space,
Body moves extent the mold,
Light, pulse, beat, contact,
Feet, bare, free,
Sweat,
Trenscend, break though,
Light, pulse, beat, contact.
The ocean smells from the breath of a thousand dolphins,
The deck welcomes the dancing feets,
An ensemble celebrate.
We are celebrating freedom,
The moment that will never come back,
The pacific as it reveals itself,

BOUNCING HEARTS
--
Bouncing hearts.
Traveller, exploring,
New medium,
Like new sciences,
Reaching out for the all emcompassing.
Creating with mind made tools,
Synergising,
For the new.

TIME OF NO TIME
--
Time of no time,
In between time line,
No past, no present, no future,
Channel all open, all open, all open.
Anything out in everywhere.
A toms, matter,
Does it matter?
I am matter,
Matter is me,
I am not what i am not.
Yeah, without time space loose all loose,
Structure off the to spacey tuney,
Oh no oh no show me the way to the next line of anything,
Show show, all a show to the unknown,
Good, i hear good,
I lost good to find it all.
Alchemist in the galley,
To celebrate the day that never was.
In out of everywhere,
Albatrosses and winds of no place, no time,

DROP REALITY
--
Drop reality since it's all real all all
Melt memories,
The melting time and space,
The melting of whatever you want.
Transform whatever you want to transform.
Transform as you wish to be.
Isobar 1060.0 opened,
Laboratory for induced alcoholic visions without prohibitions,
Cybertent in synestesia'spersian carpet ground,
Rave in isobar, highest pressure possible,
Techno and freedom lights,
The alien are taking over the bodies,
Cigar, smoke twirls,
Body heat, coolaid our drug,
Chemical producing brains,
Transend, create the new chemicals,
Out of mind experience,
In full body mode.
Computer show glimse of our past,
Snapshot of our history,
Trigger to memory attack,
Full senses time machine,
The chicha brings you down,

HAND CLAPPING
--
Hand clapping to human godliness,
Scenes from the same dream,
As human as we can be.
Tolerance to yourself,
For others.
Let it all pass through your body,
You can always learn to read it later.

THE SEA REFLECTS ALL
--
The actor enters the stage, with a mirror:
The sea reflects all,
The dreads of a high gone on for too long,
The sea reflects all,
The unspoken words,
The wildest fantasies,
The sea reflects all,
The memories of flashes clashes,
The trenscendence of silver lining in the clouds,
The dreams of a thousand minds,
The smiles of a thousand dreams,
The sea reflects all,
In the foam of the crest of a magic swells,
Visions of consciousness,
The sea reflects all,
For you can't hide,
For you can't hide.
She digs in,
To pour out,
She knows your deepest secrets,
The one that you buried for yourself,
The sea reflects all,
The desire of repressed kisses,
The desire of desires,
Emotional swells of light,
Creeping in the darkest corners.
The good and bad,
The sea reflects it all,
To teach you that good and bad doesn't exist,
Everything is,
The sea reflects it all.

OCEANAUTS
--
Time travel machine,
We create our own.
A synergy of bodies and memories,
Inner and outer,
To become whole.
What have you done for our biosphere lately?
I love her.
We are oceanauts,
The voices of the ocean,
We are oceanauts,
The travelling bodies of the ocean,
The ocean want to go to space,
Heard through the biological senses of conscious beings,
The call of exploration,
The call of evolution.
Man stepped on the moon.
The first step.
But a child doesn't stop after his first step.
He learns to walk, then run, always further.
If he finds a obstacle,
He goes around it, or jump over it,
Or destroy it.
We are going,
Keeping the voyage going going,
But never gone,
Because we don't know how to do anything else.
We are born to travel.
I hear many I want
Without the thought of how,
Taken for granted that the whell keeps on producing.
I want a new
It is crucial that we get,
In case of,
"they" can get it for us.
One says we,
The other always reply I.
I am a spy of my own world,
Keeping track of fascist tendency,
Neuroses induced statements,
Neuroses induced behaviours,
Mine and others.
To keep the utopia of freedom as alive as freedom can be.
Watching that freedom itself doesn't tie me down in it's own crafted cell.
I am a spy of my own world.

TO KNOW IS THE FIRST STEP
--
To know is the first conscious step before doing.
Unless you are doing to know.
Separation only to know how to operate,
Not to live by.
Blossoms,
Moonlit waves induced forms,
Taste of breath,
Grasps the resurections,
Blossoms again.
Find your gems,
Sharpen tools,
And cut for optimal light transrefraction.

LIKE A BANYAN TREE
--
Like a banyan tree, we spread our roots over the earth,
Feeding saps of sense waves,
Melting into each other,
Croosroad at branches,
Bearing fruits when the season comes.
The fruits are surprises,
New tastes new forms new,
And when the fruit become too much of the same,
We go on spreading even wider roots,
Searching for forgoten corners,
Digging ever deeper,
To bear new fruits.
Like a banyan tree,
A theater ensemble.
Expeditions to the heart of the pacific,
Beat, the beat,
Earth blood, dispatched,
Ccouds, moonsoons, storms,
Organic soup, the base stock of biomass,
Highest protein manufacturer,
At the service of consciousness,
Expedition to expand our phisical memory with our planet,
Planetary man,
Collecting seeds for our new business,
Exportation of souls to other planets.
Dolphins you were right,
Man destiny is to
Become man.
How good does it feel to be human.
A seapeople civilisation is born.
The pacific is taking us hostage,
Wrapped around her calms,
The ocean demands our soul.
No price on our head but our head.

FINGERS FEED
--
Fingers feed for electrical sensuations,
A touch,
Longing for another.
She is waiting,
Slave to a touch.
The thin plywood wall resonate,
The heat of passionate embrasses,
The breath betrays the tempo,
Covering the sounds of frictions.
The wall become quiet again,
The charge dissipate,
Feeding erotism to dreams in progress.

PARADISE ALLEY
--
Paradise alley,
Sensual alley,
Bodies fresh from the shower,
Smells of scented soap and apple shampoos,
Hands caresses the skin,
Bodies flirts in the excuses of a passage,
Two lovers feets sneak out of the blankets,
While another composes rhymes for a distant soul,
Fantasies clouds float above,
Safe from escape,
All recycled.
Could,
Yes I could.

COULD WOULD SHOULD
--
Should,
Yes i shoud.
Would.
No i wouldn't.
Could would should
Should could would
Could should would
Should would could
Would could should
Would should could
The whispers,
The tone of the whispers,
Confidence,
Or gossip.
Ev
Everyone watches the other,
Forgetting to watch themselves.
More whispers.
The eyes can't lie.

HIDING BEHIND THE GLOW
--
Hiding behind the glow of the lamp,
Flammes to eat the edges,
Blurring, to soften the stare.
Scapes, sea, sky, moon, dream, love,
Escapes.
Where the wind gives birth ,
To the sailor's desires,
Hallow of stardust
Man the man.

MIDNIGHT
--
Midnight,
Moonlit seas and swells,
A whale surface,
Spraying the deck with her blows.
She comes over and over again,
Like in a dream sequence,
So everyone get's the image in.
Huge silver swells,
Sparkling moon diamond ocean,
The sound of the blow,
Loud, proud and here,
Teaching us biospheric history,
What matters above all is life,
That everything can amount to a moment.

Simbo, Solomon islands.

November 2002

Our meeting on arrival in Simbo

ex premier of the western province has called a meeting, he tells me I do not approve of what you are doing here. There is some talk that one man has taught you the Ey Omba dance and that belongs to the people. Silence in the room. So I start to go on a big speech for 15 minutes straight I give all the argument possible that I can think of to try to convince them that what we are doing will be beneficial for the island. Being Melanesian, I look at Eddie and in Eddie's eyes I see anger. Like in all Melanesian meetings, it always comes down to money. So after we settled the fee for the laand owner rights and anchorage fees, there are now more bullets in our pistol to shoot for our target. And our target is to create a cultural revival on the island of Nusa Simbo. There was a lot of concern about our mentioning filming and we learnt that from past experiences, a man that we know very well Billy Barber, that thankfully enough brought us Eddie on board, spoiled the trust that people have in media. Deep down inside, the filming will only be a medium and a task to give a direction to the ship. The importance is the expedition to experience whatever is left of a very ancient and powerful stone age culture. Experience is the key word, not just passive spectator but active actors in its highest form to get transmission through gestures, sounds, songs, words, energies of the ancestors of the island of Simbo. Eventually we reach an agreement to carry out our mission. With Eddie we run through the island to get to Nusa Simbo to talk to the chief to decide for a general meeting with the whole community. One of the men in the meeting with the premier has claimed more than two thirds of the land of Simbo. Coming back to Gizo with xxxxx that works for a Malaysian logging company in the Marovo lagoon, that was also there during a meeting about the centenary that will happen in Simbo in Sep 2003, it was clear to me that the whole land dispute is about wood. That man told me that he will be the successor of that land. So they have a partnership and their partnership is into the wood resources. His guilty conscience was ringing out from him as he took passage on the Heraclitus from Simbo to Gizo. His eyes did not meet the eyes of the crew. So when I thought that everything was already sorted, the ship had arrived etc etc, to realise that there was so much opposition at work, it was crucial to meet with all the people that would be involved in that cultural celebration. The chief of Nusa Simbo was very receptive and deep down realised that it would be a great opportunity for him to put out a feast to gather his strength and show some power which he truly doesn't have. The village of Nusa Simbo is split between different clans and the chief is unable to reconcile them. Throughout the ten days we spent in Simbo, I have been called privately by every single clan leader in intimate conversation and every one of them was working out to give their side of the story, especially what they owned and what they had the right to and what was their heritage.

A morning scene in Nusa Simbo

Arriving in Nusa Simbo on the morning of the feast to find Ovaline, Cathy, Susie and friends gathered on the table under the tree, surrounded by buckets of cold water containing blossoms freshly plucked from the frangipane trees. White, pink and crimson red - a colour of frangipane I have never seen before. They pass the needle through the stem of the flower and a head garland slowly takes shape in their hands. Ovaline's face is very intent. There is total concentration on making the biggest and bushiest garland for her head to frame her beautiful face. The girls work on the garlands for three hours, non stop and finally we all have head dresses and neck garlands which smell almost more spectacular than they look.

Batu Simbo, Taboo site

With John Tione, Mason pronounce Maysooo by all the villagers and John Tione's son, we walk through the bush. We stop at a stone, a beautitful stone with an air plant, a lush green air plant. And John starts to talk to me about the Ey Omba. The place where we are sitting quietly, peacefully is the melody stone, the harmony stone, where the songs were composed and transmitted. The songs came from the ancestors through the stone. The ey Omba dance is 'owned' by John from his tribe –Patutai- so instead of going into too much detail, I'm asking him to sing the song on the stone. He starts with a soft voice to get the right tone and suddenly John and his son and Maso start to sing the ey Omba in its original birthplace. It is at that moment that I ask John to teach us and allow him to perform with us the Ey Omba dance. We talk about the ancestors, about the spirit and the importance of the transmission through gestures, songs, tones, instead of just talk talk. We are moving on, after the OK, through the bush to climb Batu Simbo. The name Batu Simbo means the head of Simbo. It was originally the first place that my gut feeling told me to visit, thanks to Lonely Planet. Batu Simbo is like a natural magic fortress of a huge stone in the jungle rising all the way up to the sky, grown by fig trees growing up from their root, almost coocconing the whole rock. There is only one entrance to Batu Simbo, going as a small trail in a spiral to reach the top. On the way, John is cutting leaves from a tree. And he holds that leaf up to me to smell it. There is a strong smell, musky smell, a smell that has power. It is that smell, worn on the body that gives strength to the warriors. I ask them if they eat it and he's joking, no way, it's the smell that's important. We will wear this leaf on the day of the feast during our dance. I keep a bunch of leaves in my pocket while starting to climb the fortress of Batu Simbo. Most of the shell money and ornaments, etc. has been vandalised by kids or whoever. But the spirit of the place is still there. As we climb half way up the rock, there is a huge flat stone where the chief used to sit to talk with all the members of the tribe around him listening. I could see the chief standing there, strong imposing himself on that beautiful stone. It was the perfect place to hold a speech. We keep climbing up. It is a steep climb and we reach another place with stones erected like penises with on top of it a ring of shell money as an altar with some remains of skulls and bones. At the base of this altar is a fig tree and Maso cuts a piece of the tree that later on will become a custom cloth worn by one of the dancers. We keep on climbing up Batu Simbo. As we reach near to the top with a view of the lagoon and its reef and the mountain on the other side, like one small window, there is a cave that the spies will hide in as a guard watching for intruders. Then we sit down and John tells us an old story, before the traders. When the men of Simbo were out on one of their head hunting raids, leaving all the women and kids alone on the island, there was different sounds of different conch shells that would be blown for different warnings. And there were people from choiseul, a hunting raid, that approached. The conch was blown and everybody knew they had to reach Batu Simbo to seek shelter from the attack. At that time, Batu Simbo was guarded too by walls of coral stones. All the kids and women were taking refuge while the attackers were coming to get them. One woman stood close to the entrance of the rock with one takiru, a tool usede to make paddle. All the axes were out on the hunting raid. The men used to wear the axe on their right hand and the shield on their left hand but the entrance of Batu Simbo was designed that you had to pull yourself up with your right hand so you had to put the axe in the left hand. Now the women that were guarding put face paint on and started to hit the guys with the paddle, with huge screams. At the same time, the other women started to throw the stones from the wall down from the fortress, killing some of the warriors. Scared, because they thought that dangerous and fierce warriors were already there, they left leaving all the women and children unharmed and safe.

On top of the volcano

Standing on the top of Ove, the sulphurous rocks of the volcanic crater crumbling beneath my feet, shyly pointing the camera in the direction of Michel who is being made up by Maso for the Ey Omba. Four black bodies have just removed their shorts and t shirts and adorned the bark cloth strips around their manhoods. Their fingers are smeared with the chalky white wet powder of the volcanic clay. They are drawing circles around their legs, their arms. Keana paints Eddie's back and face. It almost feels like I am watching two young brothers preparing themselves for a theatre performance, and this is theatre, but there is so much meaning behind what I am watching. Michel's spotty bottom makes its appearance, Ferdi too is down to the bark cloth. The white paint barely shows on their pale skins, whereas on the black skin it looks like swathes of cream. The paint dries and intensifies. They place leaves in their cloths and in their armbands. I feel like I should not be watching. I feel like I should not be at the top of this hill, that I should be down below, perhaps tending to the coconut crabs and sweet potatoes that are steaming in the hot vent below on the beach. Somo catches my eye as I press record on the camera. I look away. I think he was telling me it was kind of OK for me to be here, but at the same time, it was kind of not. Somo doesn't talk to me with words, he looks at me and with an upwards flick of his head, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a straight face but always with a dance in his eyes, he communicates. His left leg is completely withered. He looks like he had polio but in fact he once had a severe boil on his foot which prevented him from walking on it for so long that his muscles atrophied, and never recovered. He walks on the ball of his foot, this leg is now shorter than the other. But somehow when I first met him, I didn't even notice there was anything different about him, perhaps merely hypnotised by his eyes and his mouth. He smokes as much as he can. He sells us megapode eggs as often as he can, so he has money to buy tobacco. He becomes a part of the ship from almost the instant we anchor in Simbo. When I ask Stanley where he lives, if he lives in Nusa Simbo, Stanley just waves his head around and says he lives here, he lives in Lengana, he lives everywhere. The man has a spirit of freedom about him, he is untethered by geography, by his leg, by the ways of everyone else on the island. He is an independent entity. He is Somo.

I watch as Eddie begins to paint Michel. In this moment of physical contact between these two men, there is an affirmation of a relationship that I have watched grow and grow on the ship. Eddie is proud of Michel wanting so much to dance the Ey Omba. Eddie is proud to put the paint on Michel as the sun begins to wane, and the light is almost beginning to fade. There is strength and beauty at the same time in this one moment. Eddie is not an emotional man, on the outer. But sometimes his guard fails him and what is on the inner is revealed. And then the men are ready to dance.

The Eomba dance

The crowd is waiting. The men finished their performance. the originl members of the Ey Omba group have finished their dance. The sun is blazing hot making it almost unbearable. Alot of these men are not young men. More than two thirds of the group are elders, past their fifties. But we disappear in a place where nobody can see us in the unfinished house of John's son. Previously we had drunk green coconut and eaten fresh watermelon from Johns garden with seeds still covering the untied planks. Now Ferdi and myself are being prepared. Somebody is tying the custom cloth around my butt, carefully covering my man's parts. It takes them over three minutes to cover it properly, the bark cloth not being wide enough. There is no sense of shame or uneasiness in the fingers being so close to my penis. And they tell me 'you never show your private parts. they are yours'. In the meantime another man is tying strings around my biceps, putting the fragrant leaves. Somebody else is tying the two custom money around my head. They are Maso's. They are one ring made outof clam shell and another which is like a serrated round tooth and they represent teeth. Now Eddie, John's son and somebody else are all putting the colourful ground from the top of the mountain on my face, my legs, my back. I personally smear loads of it on my white butt to try to cover it. The rattles that has once already been used in the Sepik River with Tambuans and in a performance in Bali, are now on my leg. Big bushy rattles. I try them and the sound is impressive. It will the the leg that I will stomp three times after each conculsion of the Ey Omba refrain. In a quick dash, we get shown the different moves. I had no clue that we will also sing Kooey, Kooey. Now the crowd is waiting so we are stepping down. Keana is my partner. I always wanted him as a partner because he is a good dancer and he is going for it. The canoe of Stanley is called Egotu and Egotu means go for it which I picked up for a toast for Sunday night speeches. Now we are ready to go for it. There is no sign of uneasiness in my whole being. Everything flahshes through my head, all the custom sites, the skulls, Batu Simbo. The moves in Synaestesia that Maso taught us. During hte last two weeks I had the words of the Ey Omba in my head. Sometimes laying down in Nemos quietly just rehearsing the words in my head, waiting for the moment when I will incarnate the warrior spirit of the ancestors of Simbo. And we start to sing - Kooe Kooe Kooe Kooe. John's son looks at me and our eyes lock and he says go for it. Look mean. And our feet are stompign teh ground, slowly marching towards the centre of the village. As we arrive, we could hear the kids laughing but somehow it was only background. Totally concentrated. And we started to walk and stomp our feet and sing the Ey Omba. I knew I messed up some of the choreographed movements of the feet but it didn't matter. My whole being was into it. There was a cue - that would be said by John. I will start to fight with Keana. And the word was Tue and we start. And there is nothing else that exists, there is no crowd, but just fighting and we fight and we fight. It looks like it lasts forever. In retrospect when I watched the video I was so surprised to see that it lasted just a few moments. Almost out of breath, I join the line of the dancers. Suddenly me feet are moving just by themselves, keeping the Eye Omba rhythm. The voice is singing, just trying to catch the breath. I'm learning what it means to always keep a reserve. Always keep a reserve. Then Ferdi and John's son are fighting. My head wants to turn and look at it for a few moments but it is not for me to see. I am part of an ensemble and my face goes straight ahead, my feet stomping in unison with the other dancers. And then we fight again in line. I break the axe hitting the shield too hard. It didn't matter. It's the spirit that was the most important. Once we finish the dance, I had the best compliment ever. They told me the only difference is the skin colour.

Lina, Eddie's mother

I have developed an infatuation with a beautiful woman. Her name is Lena and she is Eddie's mother. She radiates an inner strength, an acknowledgement of her duties as a mother and wife, as the first born of her family and she beams her inner beauty to all who come close to her, but especially to the children. We spend a night with her and the Zuna family when we visit Simbo for the first time. She brings us food and hot water to make coffee, makes up our bed. She holds her head slightly downwards as she talks in her half English, half Pidgin. Her eyes are always soft, but ever alert. Her head flicks in sudden movements from side to side as she follows the talk talk. She listens to every word, understands every gesture. Her shoulders are slightly slumped, her breasts are fallen and her stomach hangs about her hips but she is a beautiful woman. I find my gaze landing on her everytime we are in the same place. When she is on the ship, when she is in her house or underneath Maso's when she is in Gizo at the market. She is the one that makes our meals and the one that sits with us as we eat, a Simbo custom that somebody from the island sits with or walks with or talks with a visitor. She dances with Ovaline and six other small girls after our island dance. She is self-conscious. Eddie tells me she is not a great dancer but there is an innocence about this middle aged woman, and yet a worldiness at the same time. Right now she is tending her dying father. Her time is spent during the preparations for the feast by his side. As I write this, she is appraoching the ship in Egotu, they are spending the night with us here in Ghizo.

A Taboo site on the shore of lake Ove

We walk up the hill, having passed the shores of the green lake Ove. We arrive at a clearing in the bush. I see round, shiny objects scattered on top of a pile of rocks. Michel has the camera out before I realise that they are skulls. The landowner who has brought us here asks if everything is alright, or if he should rearrange the skulls. Michel says OK. And he turns some of the uppermost heads so that the eye sockets stare straight into the camera lens. These skulls still don't feel totally real to me, but I peer down and between several of them I spy a set of teeth. Now they are real. It takes at least minutes before I can lose myself in the story of these skulls, but when I do I find it hard to shake off the feeling of death and violent death at that. Michel shoots the skulls from every angle and as the camera passes over them, one of them moves slightly, resettling itself having been moved earlier. But later that night when Eddie and Mason see the footage, they freak out. Eddie keeps saying, did you see that skull move? We have to go and dance at that site. To them, not knowing that the skull had been touched that afternoon, something or some message is conveyed to them by the moving skull. And perhaps they are right. Michel rattles off some slides too. Ferdi stands at a slight distance from the skulls, and takes a while to realise that the more he inches backwards, the closer he is getting to the other pile of skulls behind him. We are surrounded by the heads of the men slain by the Simbo warriors who danced the Ey Omba. The bush around helps to intensify the feeling of being lost in history. And when we return to the shore of the lake, I am not looking at the green water or seeking a peek of the evil crocodile that lives there. My head is still full of the sight of the skulls.

'for the first time, the time of headhunting becomes real. So far it has been talks, words, lost in books and speeches. But now it is real. I feel it's a special place. There is a deep respect invading me. And I feel uneasy but at the same time excited to take the camera out. As i press record, the eyes of the skull are looking in. They do not seem dead although the rational mind tells me it's only bones. I get flashes of axes chopping heads brought back bloody in a tomoko as a sign of victory. I look for marks on teh skull heads but don't find any. There is this whole visualisation process going on and now the ey Omba that we will perform on top of the volcano takes a totally different dimension. It is like we never truly realised what the meaning of the dance meant. It was a cultural curiosity, an aesthetic dance but now the Ey Omba is the dance to prepare the warriors to go on hunting raids. Walking down, the custom site owner shows us the grave of his grandmother among ruins of old wallstone. She was the last one to live on this island. The grave is a slab of cement with a christian cross with a name but engraved in the cement is a custom money ring giving the insight of the two worlds. On one "the savage time" of the headhunting and on the other the coming of Christianity and the slow vanishing cultural heritage that the people of Simbo have been living by for ten thousands of years. There is no judgement but the simple observation of cultural evolution.'

More Taboo sites

Four stones, tall stones, as an altar to the weather making magic. Two of the stones are to keep the weather calm and two stones are to make the weather rough to block the entrance of the tight passsage to Nusa simbo. So whenever a hunting party was going out, they asked for rough weather so the entrance would be blocked by any invader. In those times, rough weather meant security. Ironic for us seamen. Now Eddie tells me that sometimes some kids when they wanted to keep girls on teh island took the stone of the rough weather and hid them and teh stone needed to be found again in order to reestablish the balance of the weather. While I pan the camera over the four stones, I consciously put intention on the two calm stones. We move up a trail between the bushes to come across the biggest altar on the island of Simbo. Some of the custom money is so worn out by the weather it is thousands and thousands and thousands of years old. Three conch shell, each with a different sound, lay a skeleton with no colours and holes around them. They are old too. Looking at the shrine with tall, again the penis type of stone shooting out to the sky, about twenty of them on top of a huge mound of rocks and flat slabs of stones and underneath all these flat slabs of stones are the heads of the chiefs only of different islands of the province - Choiseul, Ranongga, Roviana, Kolumbangarra. Nobody knows which is which any more. Again most of the more recent shell money has been vandalised and probably sold to tourists. I do not video that site but a few shots. The trees around the place have been cut and trees that were grown on top of it have been even more recently cut making the place look like an unrespected place. But it's only an impression. Unlike the mount of skulls that we saw on the previous site, all the heads are carefully protected from the weather and the sun in their own little chambers. Then we move on to a third site with a nice surprise in stock for us. With one of the chiefs, dressed in full traditional costume, waiting for us there. He will later on perform the Ey Omba. There more skulls and the site is divided in two parts, one for women and one for men. I can't recall the details but I think that the heads and the bones laying there are not from hunting raids but from their own people After probably annoying the chief by asking him at least five times to redo his move in one creative outburst of wanting to superimpose his images as the ancestors of teh place, we step down the hill back to the lagoon that separates us from Nusa Simbo. Mason and Mason sion were with us. Now sitting under the huge mango tree of Nusa Simbo, talking to the chief, each site is a separate owner meaning a separate fee so instead of just a 20 that I thought we would have to pay it was 60 for two people since Sean was with us. Once again the economics come into play especially when I was told that I could go for Batu Simbo later even when teh time and the man was there to take us. The chief owns the weather making magic site and apart from its nice story and significance, it is just four pieces of rock standing up. So obviously he was making sure that his site was seen first.

Night fishing

It is almost ten o'clock at night. The full moon is high up in the sky and Eddie jumps up on his feet and says, I want to go fishing. Keana is on board who will become my special dance partner in the Ey Omba, one of the most agile and full on dancer of the whole troupe. Also the only young guy ever since a few generations participating and wanting to be in the Ey Omba. Keana earlier on has brought lobster to the ship. He knows how to catch fish and Eddie knows that too. So Eddie runs to teh stern, grabs all the fishing gear and when I say all, I mean all and turns Mason down that wants to go fishing too because somehow they know they're going to catch fish. It's a good night for catching fish. They're not the only ones. Quiote a few canoes are out already and many of the fishermen that know what they are doing are going out tonight to fish. Then we hear a radio call, Eddie who never calls, saying that they will arrive in 15 minutes. I ask did you catch fish and his answer, you will be surprised. As the boat approaches, the Beagle is loaded with 20 huge barracuda. His fingers are cut from the lines, lost all the lures but I wish I could have been there to see the frenzy going on , looking at the almost 2 metre barracuda laying on the beagle floor. There is no way that these fish are going to go into our freezer and having on board Mason, Somo, Peter Ben, Keana, the whole team of teh ship and Stanley with Ovaline, I'm asking how we are going to divide this catch. Everybody stopped watching the movie and came outon deck. So with Mason we decide the ship keeps six barracuda and I see Mason picking up the biggest ones all in a pile and I switch for the small ones just in case having heard that somebody on the island got sick eating barracuda but the real reason is that we get a more equitable share. I suggest that Keana gets a bigger share since he's the one that caught all those fish. So suddenly the fish are examined and put in different piles. Suddenly everyone wants to go home with their fresh catch and I start to fillet the fish on deck with the help of Somo since I told him that he could keep the heads so by giving a hand that means he can go home earlier but unfortunately he is not an expert at filleting fish. Filleting the fish is a western thing. Here the fish are cooked whole and nobody is scared of a few bones. As I start to cut all the fish and cleaning them, unfrotunately after the excitement of seeing all these fish, everybody went to bed leaving me stranded with a dirty job. But I don't care, I'm enjoying the moment, feelign good about catching our own. Eddie is beaming and together past one o'clock we start to clean the huge mess made on deck with sacales and gus everywhere. Now we know what fishing at the right time and the right place really means.

Dolphins are called

Beyond the breakers a school of spinner dolphins is hunting. They cruise up and down the reef in two groups and suddenly all together disappearing under the swells. I know they are munching and have gathered a school of fish ever tighter. It is rare for me to see them from the shore. We ended up with Mason, Sean and Carol attracted by the whole family preparing pandanus leaf, bright green but my eyes always gaze at the ocean. And once the dolphins were discovered the kids started to call out to the sea. I got from the old man the words that they were calling out Rasa tuni bangarra. The kids are shouting their heads off on big boulders their voice projecting out to the sea hoping to reach the dolphins. The words mean kind of 'king of the dolphin, jump'. Now I find myself screaming that same sentence out to the dolphisn hoping to see them leaping. I keep the camera running waiting for the jumps. After ten minutes I turn the camera off and a dolphin ump with a big spin. The kids are screamingver more at the top of their voices. The dolphins will ump but not knowing where they are going to jump, I kep missing them out of fram, a beautiful excuse to stay ever longer. By that time, Carol and Sean already left since I was supposed to meet the chief an hour ago. But the moment is too beautiful not to seize it and the chief will have to wait. As ever, dolphins being my totem, are calling for my attention. As I try to pack I put the camera down here they go again, leaping ever more, higher stronger, and here we go again, the kids ad myself on the rock calling out asa tuni bangarra. It ake out the camera again and finally I get a jump but not satisfied, and also really enjoying watching teh whole pod hunting, I feel that one of them is playing a trick with me still jumping. They approach ever closer to the shore keeping my ttention on them, not being able to move. By now I am really late. But the moment will remain timeless. So being late doesn't exist any more.

The anchorage

The ship is anchored in one of the most scenic prtoected places . We needed to anchor three times luring us ever closer to shore. I dove on the anchor the first time to see it on coral rubbles. Somo that we meet then fo the first time points at a spot so I go diving there and find sand, good holding ground. But it feels tight. while I'm diving about five guys meet me midway on my ascent, looking at this strange creature. The ship is surrounded by canoes. Suddenly a young kid with two bands of bleached hair, the leader of one canoe, is paddling in exctly the same style as the tomoko of Munda with his crew being six young boys paddling together with their hands as fast as they can. That same kid will come around the ship every day. Duing our water runs, being called oun our last day for a meeting with the suposedly 2/3 landowner of Simbo, for an invitation of the centenary of teh coming of the church in simbo on september 15th 2003. I drop three containers to fill water empty by the fountain. We have been doing uns to fill our tanks. Our desalinator is broken. On my return from the meeting, I feind the three containers filled up with water, waiting for me. It would have taken me probably 45 minutes to fil them up. Asking around, I discovered that it was that same kid that filled the containers while I was away. The ship gets visited by so many canoes, transporting trading items. Lobster, coconut crabs, andmost ofthe young girls from the two surrounding villages are coming to trade vegetables for shampoo and soap that we still have in stock from our stay in Singapore at RafflesMarina. There are so many tomateos coming our way that we end up creating an incredible recipe of a tomato soup smoothened by megapode eggs. Our chief supplier ofmegapode eggs is Somo and to quothim, I try to sell you as much eggs as I can because I want to buy tobacco. Somo is a total addict on tobacco and will sieze any opportunity to grab either a cigarette or roll a tobacco, cut with a knife and rolled in lined paper. The only real use of paper since no one writes during our whole stay, everything will be done rally. 
Every meeting, every schedule will be remembeed orally, except on the feast day when John Tuone's son wrote the programme on a piece of paper and handed it down to the chief. Now one dusky evening, the most beautiful sight appeared close to teh ship. Two women, and thei daughters or whoever, all carrying huge bouquets of flowers, bunches of bananas, nuts and fruit, and come on the ship. Orla stands next to the small boat hosting them on board, being given all the flowers that suddenly invade the whole place with their fragramnce. The young girls are beautiful with big bright eyes and I cant help sticking the camera in front of them. shyly they hideb ehind the flowers but then when they discover what I 'm doing and can see from the small screen the faces of their friends, it then becomes the opposite that whenever i frame something there will be a new face apearing konwing that they will be in the shot. Meanwhile Orla is giving a tour. to the women. Everthing is done by canoe. A man comes with a giant chainsaw in front of his canoe, going out close to the volcano to finish up cutting a tree. We will trade with him some old oil for an old trader's pipe of the 1800s with a beautiful tall ship carved on it. That too, that small object, made the whalers and traders more real. The first traders on the island were actually Frenchmen, the Pratt famly that came there in teh 1800s, the first whit settlers on Simbo. Now our own canoe is launched in the water and awkwardly a few of the crew mainly Carol and Justin learn to paddle. they are shockingly stiff and uneasy compared to the natural beauty of the people of Simbo. Kids stand erect with their paddles like they were on firm ground. They just look like they were born in canoes. Maybe by symbiosis, I amg ving it a try and finally I am able to stand on a canoe without falling after five seconds. Mason never giving up on fishing, keeps catching. A school of surgeonfish nd batfish have discovered that our waste are the perfect easy meal fo them to munch on. Lena gave us som custom pudding that didn't meet nay sucdess in teh palate of the crew. It sat there withoutbeing eaten. Fortunately Mason found a sue for it and started to stick it on a fish hook. The surgeonfish like it. Despite all the excitement, all the beauty and the energy getting raised on Nusa Simbo, I sometimes get my nerves wrecked by the nonchalance and unenthusiasm of the crew. Either not realising the unique time and the prvelege to be there =. Later on all these emotions will fade and most of the crew will remember Simbo as a magical place.

Feast in the village

The men have danced the Ey Omba. The bamboo pipe is playing, the children scream and shout as they play a tug of war, coming perilously close to Michel's camera as he films their straining faces. There is almost a fight before the game begins as one small boy holds on tenaciously to the end of the long black rope. Other, bigger, boys are jostling for his position but he will not give up. Keana stands in the middle of the line, oblivious to this commotion. Eventually, with one frantic shove, the boy is displaced and his face shows thunder as he falls to the ground. Size and age have won this battle. The feast now breaks up, the ensemble falling apart as we wait, and wait, for the return of the ship's crew. The chief strolls away, more interested now in securing the permission to use the village generator tonight to watch a movie. There are island dances still to come but we cannot begin without the arrival of Carol. After an interminable interval, in which the crowd dwindles to just the small children imitating the moves of the dancing warriors, the troops finally arrive. Without a pause, we are whisked off into the veranda of a house behind the square and begin our preparations to dance. The grass skirts are a little curled at the ends, the frangipane garlands dripping wet from their rest in buckets of water to keep them fresh. We are dressed within seconds, no banana leave tops much to Chelle's relief - paranoid about them falling off - and Carol's dismay - pissed off that she wasn't told since she's now wearing the 'wrong top' - and my disappointment at not going all the way. We rehearse at top speed, children lined up outside the veranda, peeking through to see this black and white parade, laughing and imitating our attempts at island dancing. We hear the singing of the other island dancing group and Carol marches out the door to go and watch them. I realise that we should stay out of sight since we are dressed and ready to dance, but there is no point in trying to explain this subtlety. We watch the dance from behind the regathered, but smaller, crowd. Some of the ladies are clearly not versed in this dance, others are doing their best to keep the energy high, but all have the fluidity of movement that I am struggling to achieve as I dance. Their hands are so light and the tips of their fingers so airy. They sing beautifully in classic Pacific harmonies. And then it is our turn. We must take ourselves out of sight again, and enter the stage in the proper fashion. Ovaline leads the way, I am behind her, then Susan, Chelle, Cathy and Carol. We have a guitar accompanying us and some women gather to help build the sounds of our weak voices. I cannot boom, the melody is too high for me to project anything more than a soft voice. And booming is not their style anyway. Cathy begins the dance with the word 'tarupa' which means ready and is the cue for us to place our hands on our hips. And we're off.

Hea sa rane ginetu getu

Na rane tinamonai

Leana hola sa rane ninoroi

We dream this day today

As we sing and dance

We welcome you this happy day in 2002

We wish you all good luck

And may God bless you all

As we share our dance

Happy day in Nusa Simbo

I am staring beyond the people, to the trees behind and managing to mostly lose myself in this moment. I am aware of Michel's camera, of the staring children, laughing their heads off, of the expressions on the faces of our audience - a little astounded to see white girls dancing in grass skirts in the Roviana language. I am trying to capture the essence of the Solomons spirit, using the gestures to display my feminity, aware of the purpose of this dance, to lure, to captivate, to entrance. I do not entirely succeed but my attempts remove me from merely moving my mouth, my hips, my arms in time with those on either side of me. And within minutes, the performance is over. We retire from the stage, allowing Lena and seven children (including the natural born performer Ovaline) to take their places for a dance they have made up, 'stylee, stylee'. The little girls wiggle their hips furiously before they groom their hair, some so coyly even at their age of 5 or 6. Watching the small girls all day during the feast, watching their interactions with the boys, they are capable of flirting, seducing and then instantly turning their back on the young boys. We , in comparison, are so physically blocked, so pent up with mental gymnastics that our own creation of a lack of freedom comes shining through as we sing and dance to this Pacific song.

Stern conversations

I ask Maso, one night on the stern, about the place where he wants to gather some dancers together again for the Ey Omba when we return to Simbo. It's a level plain on the top of the hill. I ask him if it is a special place, a custom site. Oh yes. He knows the story from his father-in-law, Peter Ben (a connection I only realise after we have left Simbo for the first time). There were two young boys and their mother living up there. The mother died. The boys were crying and crying and crying. After three days, the mother is resurrected and returns to visit her sons, but she looks different and the boys do not recognise her. But I am your mother, she says. No, you cannot be our mother, she looks so different to you. The mother tells them that the boys must go and kill a lizard and bury it in the ground. The boys go hunting and they find the lizard and duly bury it in the ground. After three days the mother returns and says, see that is what happens when a person dies. And then instantly they recognise that this is their mother. But before they can reach out to her, she has leapt off the top of the hill, dived down into the ocean. She emerges in one big bubble, which is where woman reef is now, then dives down again to send up one more big bubble, the location of man reef.

There is a taboo site up there, a site that only the family of Peter Ben (the landowner) can visit. Any one outside of this clan that comes near to the site runs the risk of contracting leprosy. Maso is terrified of the place, his wife can visit freely to clear the overgrowth and keep the shrine clean. One time, he had a friend (he uses the word boyfriend) visiting from Australia who urged Maso to bring him to the site. Maso would not go close but pointed in the direction of the shrine and told him to go and take a closer look if he wanted. When they came back down to the village, later that night, the man developed a rash on his arms. He was itching like crazy. Maso brought him to see the old man who could help him, happened to be Lena's uncle but he is dead now. The old man touched the Australian's arms, rubbing them gently and within two days, the rash was gone.

Another time, one of Maso's sons developed a terrible rash all over his face and arms - I think he too had been to a custom site that he should have stayed well away from. Again the old man, with gentle rubbing around the eyes and the cheeks, cured him within two days.

Maso describes the power that these custom sites have - how all the sites of Nusa Simbo were stripped of their powers just after the arrival of the missionaries in 1903. The chief of the island was then asked by the missionaries to send the Kulau (woman chief) to all the custom sites and make them powerless. And since then, they have been which explains why Maso could go and site on the musical rock and sing the Ey Omba with Michel and John Tione. But the custom sites of the 'mainland' are all still with power and Maso will not go near them. When I asked him about the site that we were brought to just up from the shores of Lake Ove, he tells me that he told the landowner to go and talk first to the ancestors to let them know that we were coming and that we would be filming. He describes how so many people, tourists, take snapshots or video at these sites and then find that their camera is not working or that nothing appears when the film is developed.

There is a tree whose bark is used for the cloth for the warrior dancers. It was growing between two gardens so the landowner instructed a man to go and chop the tree down, ignoring the fact that this is a special tree. Two men arrived with a chainsaw, ready to sever the base of the tree. The chainsaw would not start. They tried everything but they could not get it to work. The tree is now still standing.

At anchor

Every day, there is a morning procession of canoes that come to visit the ship. Some small children are coming out of curiosity, perhaps to watch our strange looking morning rituals - cigarettes and coffee on the stern, faces looking like the world collapsed about them during the night and they have woken to a holocaustic future, gongs ringing, plates of food wafting about the deck, and then everybody disappearing below in a sudden rush as meeting is called at quarter to eight. I too would come to watch the morning show in my canoe. But others come as more than just spectators - they are prospective traders. They do not shout about their produce, there is no sales pitch, they merely pull up alongside the ship with baskets of tomatoes, green peppers, aubergines, leafy greens, spring onions and young coconuts. And sit, and wait for one of the crew to first acknowledge them, and second enter into a business conversation. Our trading goods are soaps from Raffles Marina, a bagload that Maik and Helen gave us a year and a half ago. Many of them have leaked their contents and have just a splash of shampoo left inside them. The children and young women ask for the soap with which they will groom themselves under the free flowing taps of Simbo island. The baskets in Synaestesia quickly pile up with green, red and purple vegetables, to the extent where there is a surplus of cherry tomatoes, too many to use while still fresh and I boil them down to make a tomato sauce. It feels decadent to have so many plump ripe tomatoes in my hands.

We are like the trading ships of a hundred years ago that came to these islands.

'One day, longn long ago, a man was fishing on the reef, and he saw something out in the sea. It appeared to be an island, but it moved. He ran to the beach shouting, 'an island is coming here' and quickly the people gathered on the beach to watch a sailing ship approach and anchor off the reef. The inhabitants of the island came ashore, and our island world ceased to be.'

Casper Luana, "Buka! A Retrospect"

Simbo was first approached by the whaling boats who were following the routes of the sperm whale. Their presence is physically tangible when a man trades a pipe bowl, carved in ceramic with a motif of a sailing ship, not totally unlike the silhouette of the Heraclitus, for a container of old oil. What is waste to us is perfectly useable to these people. The whalers were superceded by trading vessels who brought iron to the islands. These sailors transformed a stone age culture into an iron age one. Tasks that before had taken forever, like carving shell money from clam shells and making canoes for headhunting raids, suddenly became speedy. The whalers came seeking food, water and women. The traders after them sought coconuts,

Meeting for the community

The chief is blowing the conch. The sound of the conch is bringing all the villagers towards the centre of Nusa Simbo under the huge tree. There is a bench in the middle with the chief, a translator and myself sitting on it. Orla sits by my side, on teh ground. She is a woman after all. We sit there, waiting, in full view of everybody. The chief briefs me very quickly on the order of the gathering. He will first address the crowd, then I will hold my speech and then there will be questions and answers. The people gather slowly, in dribs and drabs. Stanley sits under the mango tree, Eddie is lurking on the edge of the slowly forming circle, Mason is nowhere to be seen. There is a feeling of some kind of tension in the air - it's hard to know exactly what is about to be said, but this meeting has clearly been called for more than just an announcement. And Mason's absence is significant. We have already heard the rumours about how some of the village is very displeased with him coming on board the ship to teach us the Ey Omba. But most probably more out of jealousy than anything else. The chief starts to talk and flashes the hundred Solomon dollars that was given for the land use, so much so that I started to feel uncomfortable that an obvious sign of importance of money. So I am standing up addressing 'the audience'. I start explaining the ship, with the concept of an expedition, going around the world with our three main aspects being seamanship, science and art. Our stay in Simbo is a voyage of discovery. discovery of its reef, of its people and its past. We are not here just to see but to experience. Cultures are transmitted from generation to generation and having travelled around the world, we are well aware of the disappearance of ancient culture. Traces that are still present in Simbo. So when we heard Eddie singing a few phrases of the traditional songs, we got excited. Where does this come from? Having Eddie, a man from Simbo on board, we realised that we need to get to Simbo and strengthen in Eddie's heart his cultural heritage. Since we are here to experience and our involvement in theatre what a better opportunity than to learn through gestures, songs and meanings through a dance the spirit of the ancestors of Simbo. In order to do that, we are planning to make a feast on the following Saturday, to create a platform but more than a platform, the celebration of a culture. We will film this to keep a record but also in the hope to create a movie that will naturally benefit the island of Simbo. I stress that it is not a commercial venture without any thoughts of making money. We are actually investing the whole ship, its crew and equipment, to do this. The film will give us a through line, a direction, and a focus for our stay here. Apart from the dances, it is also the relationship of the community and its environment that will be important during this week. We dived in most of the world's reefs and we have a global understanding of reefs and their importance for the future of any community using them as resources for their livelihood. Our view is a planetary view. The community and the people using the reef have knowledge that they might not realise. So I propose that we create an exchange of knowledge. We will dive the reef, film it, and give a report on the health and what we have witnessed. We also propose to invite a few people of the community to come on board, and have a seminar on coral reefs. In many places of the world, the reefs are very sick eg. we travelled in Indonesia and more than 80% of the reef are destroyed through dynamite, cyanide, and you might have expereience that already but people will come to the Solomons to take advantage of the reef that as we witnessed so far are still plentiful in fish. So during our stay, it will be a true exchange between your community and our scientific know-how on how you can manage the resources that you gathered from the sea. I stress again that you have on board a person that you can see as one of your ambassadors. He will travel with us to America representing your island to the people he will meet. So this is in short our plan for our stay in Simbo. And I welcome anybody to ask any questions, doubts, or reserves that they might have into what we are trying to do. As soon as that is said, a man stands up and his first concern is about their resources of sea cucumbers - beche de mer. Asking what will you do if you see beche de mer. And again here I am on my big horses with my voice getting stronger that we are not a commercial venture and that how our drive is to learn. I explained that it might seem strange that we are just coming here to look but that is what we are here to do. there is an obvious clear opposition and that same man kept on talking and talking and talking. Suddenly some young guys in the background started to shut him up, basically. After ping pong balls of questions, I sense myself becoming more edgy. I end up with asking if there is anything wrong in wanting to celebrate, have a good time and experience, if there is anything wrong in trying to learn about the reefs and the beneficiaries will also be the island of Simbo - is there anything wrong with that? By that time, the chief noticing my tone, tells me that the community agreed and that the meeting was over. The question that finally took the biscuit was having explained so emphatically that this was a film just for us and for our friends in America, more questions were asked aboutwhen we would show the film to people how much money we would make as they watched it. The whole concept of doing something just because you want to do it, which is the concept behind us livingon the ship in the first place, was completely alien to this meeting. Eddie whispered in my ear tell them that if people see the movie and they want to come to Simbo then that will mean that the people will have to pay to see the custom sites and stay, that will mean more tourism and more income for the island. It will not be until the two pigs are brought to the shores of Nusa Simbo that the feast becomes a reality. Until then it was only talk talk.

The pigs

Knowing very well that with some pigs that would definitely mean a feast and in true Melanesian custom, the chief wanting to make something happen needs to make a feast. This is a sign of wealth since the Melanesian culture you can't truly accumulate wealth, power was shown through generosity towards the people, making a great chief. So being seen as the chief of our own tribe of sea people, securing the pig as early as possible was of great importance to our stay in Simbo. It is Somo, after talking to Stanley, where we could have got a pig in Raromana, it is Somo coming on is canoe that talked to us abouttwo pigs of teh right size staying at the village across the bay. Wihtout delay we are going to see them. AFter af ew negotiations, we agree on purchasing the two pigs. I pay for them the next day and we will pick them up two days before teh feast. That became a whole scene in itself. We choose to get Ferdi and Sean as the pig carriers, trying to show the involvement of our crew in teh feast. But it is Mason, the pig master, that really did all the work. The pigs started to scream even before we arrived at their pen.

See October 2002 log for rest of description.

The day of slaughter is a red day. There are red blossoms on the tree above the place where the pigs lie, still in the shade of palms where we left them the day before. The pigs are untethered on their hind legs and dragged by a rope down to the sea. Mason says this is the best way to kill them and he is right. One strong man holds the first pig down in the shallow waters. The young boys gather around him, squealing with delight as the pig squeals under the surface. It takes almost three minutes for the pig to stop kicking and for his last breath to leave his body. I am on the shore, watching from the shade of a tree as the scene unfolds in front of me. I am slightly horrified at watching the pig being drowned, but also entranced by the smiles and delight on the small boys' faces. Mason now brings down the second pig - its hind legs get trapped on a log lying on the beach and it struggles to heave its body over it. Mason stands on the pig in the water to drown him. Meanwhile, the other man is wielding his knife with which he will slit the throat of the pig. Blood pours out, the waters around him turn red. Mason takes out his knife and repeats the action with his pig. His white shorts are now inches deep in the bloody water and the children swim and splash in it without noticing the change in colour. It is an intense shade of red. By the time the water reaches the beach it is merely pale pink, and the red colour is gone in a couple of minutes. The pigs are bled then carried back to the coconut palms that lie waiting for their corpses. Hot water is taken from the pot boiling over some firewood just behind the beach, poured onto the pigs and then layers of hessian matting placed over them to soak the skin for a couple of minutes. Mason and John Tione's son work hard with coconut halves to scrape off the soft hairs of the white pig. They come off so easily - this is a young pig without the coarse wiry hair that stuck to our own PNG pig in the freezer. The second pig will not be so easy to shave. He has to be carried over to another pile of palms - this time brown and dried. More palms are put on top of him and set alight. Red reappears in this day. This time an orangey red, We sit and watch the flames rise and the smoke occlude our view of the scene. Now the pig is ready to be shaved. Michel begins work on the first, the soft white pig. He slits him open from his throat to his tail on his belly. I film him as he places his hands inside the pig, scooping out his bowels with bloodied hands. The pig is clean, barely bleeding but Michel's hands are stained bright red immediately. He lays the entrails beside the pig and then describes each piece to the gathered men. The children crowd around behind him, thickly so that i can hardly find the space to stand nearby. Other children sit and waft leaves over the pig and its insides, keeping the flies off. I watch as they discuss each organ - the liver, the heart, the lungs, the intestines, the kindneys, which piece they will keep and which pieces they will throw away. They do not waste much. Then Michel begins to dissect the body into sizeable pieces to put in the oven. First the legs are severed, then the sides, then the ribs. When it comes to the head, and the removal of the tongue, I become a little squeamish. I also hope that this is not what comes out in my parcel when the oven is opened. There are other men, led by John Tione's son, working on the other pig and their methods of butchery are not as clinical as Michel's. There is a lot more hacking and a lot more blood and more mess. But the jobs are done and the baskets of pig meat pieces are then taken away to where they will be made a little smaller and wrapped in beautiful boat-shaped green leaves, tied up with one edge of the leaf, and put in the oven. The oven is inside a small house - a flat layer of stones on top of fire, still the smell of the roasting pig as it is quickly seared on the fire. Then the stem`s of banana trees cut and all the packages placed on top, covered tightly with banana leaves so no steam is escaping, then covered with copra bags. The pigs now rest in pieces overnight in their motu steam bath.

After an epic Red Sea crossing on the Heraclitus in 1996, I staggered into Aden's Kat market, salt-stung eyes scanning for khat—the Catha edulis shrub whose fresh leaves promised revival. Vendors hawked bundles wrapped in banana leaves to lock in cathinone. This amphetamine-like alkaloid hits fast: euphoria washes over you in 15 minutes, talkativeness surges, fatigue flees like a receding tide, leaving alertness sharp as a jambiya blade. I joined men in clusters, jambiyas glinting, slapping dominos amid bullet-scarred walls from the '94 war, chewing the bitter bolus till my jaw ached, heart racing, mind buzzing with Yemen's rhythmic banter—20 rials for highlands-fresh mirra, the premium stuff.
Our agent grinned, pulling a Kalashnikov from his desk during clearance: "A life here? 20 dollars." I spat green juice, felt the convivial high bind us sailors to this ancient ritual, dating back centuries for Sufi mysticism, labor endurance, and social glue across Horn of Africa trade routes. Yet beneath the thrill lurked shadows—insomnia, hypertension, dependency gnawing like chew-spit haze—but in that moment, khat was Yemen's resilient pulse, recharging me amid peril's grit.

We organized a tomoko canoe to come to the Heraclitus, paddling together with the warriors in a powerful act of cultural revival. This ancient Solomon Islands war canoe, traditionally used for raiding and headhunting, carries deep spiritual meaning with its protective nguzu nguzu carvings and consecrations. Alongside this, we have nurtured the eomba dance from Simbo, a ritual dance from the headhunting era, keeping alive the sacred movements and stories of the warriors. This blending of paddling the grand tomoko and honoring ancestral dances reconnects us to the profound heritage of the Solomon Islands, where every voyage with the canoe is a ritual communion with the spirits and histories of the past.

Port villa 21st of September 2007

Strolling into town I meet the mother of Vanessa quai, the most popular and famous singer here in Vanuatu and probably the pacific region. Vanessa is celebrating her 10th year in the music business.

Tonight a hip hop competition takes place. I give it a shot and arrive early on the scene.

I meet Vanessa, and having just heard about a benefit concert she performed in Honiara for the victims of the tsunami that hit the ghizo area, chat with her about the solomons and our friends in the western province. She is 21 years old. So she has started to record music by the time she was 11.

The whole crew on the sound system comes from the Solomon. Of course I have to have a talk with everyone.

Sound check, and a quick rehearsal where I hear the fabulous voice of Vanessa.

The crowd start to come in.

After the few mc talks and a couple of thanks to the sponsors, blablabla, the real stuff comes on.

Hip hop is spreading like wild fire around the world. And the kids here love it. With the powerfull energy of the Vanuatu people it is going to be hot. After a first presentation performance of each group, the real deal is now happening on stage. The battles.

The temperature is rising and everyone gets exited. Including old mamas that watches every moves and react to the dancers.

The moves are unique. During the presentation it felt more like imitation LA or NY. But now with free style they let it rip. The tension rises and tingles of fear appear. Oaudience gang member join on stage for a showdown.

Port villa needs to watch out. If the energy stays in the stage and in battles all is ok. But to imitate the life style of gansters rapper, now the city needs to worry and watch these group. Hip hop brough by the black community in the big American cities calanise social and political violence. Nothing of the sort exist in Vanuatu as yet. Totally a urban phenomena, the memes now travel. Few robberies are now common in villa.

Cement is pouring in. from 3 container a week 2 years ago it is now a constant flow of 70+ containers of cement alone coming in.

Australia has built a huge embassy/fortress on a hill overlooking the city, right next to the parlement of Vanuatu.

80% of the coast of efate is in foreign hands, mainly Australian, many realestate speculator. Once upon a time air Vanuatu produced a great in flight magazine with diversity. Now it has been replaced by a magazine( at least on one of the flight I was on) gold coast, with a big article tittled "discover Vanuatu. Mainly a advertisement campaign for highend resorts, mostly aussie owned and real estate opportunity.

How ironic since Vanuatu is promoting the year of kastom economy. Well not much is going to land on their door. The money invested and made goes straight back to Australia.

A few knights are now on tour to educate the more rural area of what is happening. But they are few.

The strongest unity that I felt as a "we will not surrender our way of life" comes from Tanna. There is a say that no one will mess with a man Tanna.

And from what I experienced there is enough (hopefully) power there to hold on and not sell out.

After the hip hop battles, I went to check out the aussie scene. I couldn't stay. A good night rest before my expedition to the roots of tanna.

22nd of September 2007

called Philip in Tanna without success I jump on the plane. The plane is full of tourist, mainly to watch one of earth grand show, the eruptions of yasur, Tanna's volcano.

And maybe many for the Nekoviar ceremony?

Somehow a young Tannese man sit next to me. With a little girl on his lap. He comes from Samoa, where he played with the national Vanuatu team of football. He comes back after 5 years. His name is jean Nako. French speaking.

As no one that I know is at the airport he offers for me to go with him. He lives in ikiti, a village close to the ceremony.

Someone recognize me from the last time we were there and watched the movie that I made there "the voice of kava" and assure me that he would relay the message that I am here in Tanna to Philip.

We jump in a truck for a one hour ride. By the sea shore, rows of leaves are drying with the sea breeze. I recognized the leave by their smell. I had them around my arms in simbo, during the warrior dance "eomba".

We arrive in the most peacefull place and straight away, the small girl is kissed and hugged, and carried in the arms of the chidren, already playing with her. Nako is a star, and everyone comes to greet him. Little did I know, his grand mother is the wife of one of the 4 chiefs responsible for this area "nekoviar", and he is the one that started it to begin with. I can't believe it.

After a rest under the shade of a mango tree(not yet ripe), we set to watch the opening of the dance name consesua in a nakamal half an hour away. Raspberry are in season, and I keep picking them up as we walk past fresh water creeks, and virgin forest.

I came here to film the whole thing, but the men in the nakamal decided not to let me do that. That would all change the next day.

The dance is powerfull with precise movement and that dance I will see 3 times.

After the closing of the dance it is time for kava, Tanna style.

We head for chief Tom's Nakamal. Here the kava root is freshly harvested and chewed, then squeezed.

The sacred fire of the clan is burning, some food is brough down.

The banyan tree seems to all look at you. After the first shell I finally feel that I arrived. The voice of kava is in me again.

We then go to eat a bite in chief tom's kitchen.

Remember, the nearest electricity is in lenaken, an hour drive away, 6/7 hour walk.

Pigs and taro cooked by Nako's grandmother. It is social time, everyone around coming to shake hand.

I will sleep in Tom's house with Nako for the night.

23rd of September 2007

Sunday, and I am asked if I want to go to church. There is a French catholic mission near by. I first ask if everyone is going. Yes yes yes was the answer.

The sermont is quickly expedited and I would later on see one of the preacher in full swing during a dance.

The singing is great and within a hour the whole deal was over. There I am told that Philip has organized to have me sleep in yesup, where the whole event will take place.

I decide to stay one more night with nako and tom.

After a rest, we go to another village to watch the woman getting ready for their dance.

There, I am now allowed from then on to film everything.

We arrive in the village to watch everyone getting ready. The dance is called napen napen.

The dance last over an hour and a half with at least 30 songs. Each song with their own lyrics and actions, meticulously choregraphed. The gesture is what counts I am told.

The main beat of the dance is made by hitting a woven pandanus bag filled with fern wrapped in a special leave.

I am blown away.

Before the dance is finished I follow 2 man that will dig a huge 12 years of Kava plant to be brought up the next day to the main nakamal of yesup.

We walk first through gardens of taro and yams, and kava.

We first sharpen 2 sticks with the ever present machete. The roots need to be followed to the end and extend for a few meters. The earth is moist, clouds are covering the sky. The huge one meter wide plant is dugged carefully without breaking the leaves. For ceremonial kava, the plant should be kept whole.

I help then dig out the kava that we will drink tonight. There we cut the stems to replant.

It is believed that all kava plant are female and only replanting works. I learn how to cut the stem and plant one myself, to be kept until I might return.

Still wondering how one man can carry such a huge plant through the bush we arrive back at the village. This time the men are not allowed in the nakamal where the woman danced. Who know's what they are performing now.

I am over the moon to have planted a kava that will grow into a healthy plant.

Datura plants with huge white trumpet as flower are in bloom everywhere.

Time to get back and drink kava. By now the rain is pouring. Not a good sign with the ceremony starting in 2 days.

Songs are heared in the distance. Pigs are brought up to yesup.

Two shells of kava, and the moon is getting fuller. She just has the chance to show herself between the dark clouds that covers the stars.

Meeting again I the kitchen, with new arrivals. By now everyone knows my name and I feel home. We eat roasted breadfruit and fried pork, and the yam collected in the kava garden.

Another night of deep dreams.

24th of September 2007

one day before the ceremony starts.

In the morning we head to yesup to meet up with the chiefs.

As we arrive, and the rain keeps pouring, I am greeted by naser and jean. Naser is strong, with a unbreakable mask. He emane strengh. I can feel it. Jean, a teacher hooses kindness.

We go to visit the pigs pen. On the last count, 73 pigs will be killed on the last day.

One party with pigs arrives. 30 people in all, singing.

After the pig is brough down, a dance, a whirling dance where I am drawn into camera in hand. Unlike the more gestuarly complex dances prepared for the nekoviar here I feel I can be in. a great feeling.

The rains now has started again. it would mean disaster for the event, since the planning took years. The date has been pushed back already a month, to include all nessassary parameter. Enough pigs, enough kava, weather and stars consideration( full moon for light in case no light can be brought up from lenaken), readiness of the dancers….

(and as it turns out magical for me, since I dreamed about seen the nekoviar ever since we first got here 2 years ago, and that maybe it would happen as we are in vanuatu. I remember mentioning it since fiji. I already planned to take some time off from infinity then, at first to spend time with eddie, the sand drawer. Somehow it happened all so fast, the date came through and confirmed while we where in villa. We went to the banks islands, where another small art festival took place. Then I had to figure out a way to be able to afford the trip. The banks are at the top of Vanuatu. With the help of the cultural center, and david at vanuair, the office of tourism sent a letter that gave me 50%off the ticket price. In the mean time I met a lot of the players, and the family helping spirit of the ni Vanuatu that read through me and saw my inner drive.)

now we moved to the smaller nakamal of yesup to watch the opening of that nakamal with the dance called Nao. 50 dancers at least are preparing long fat stick of "Roseau" a type of reed in a bundle. The rains keeps drizzling right now.

All the reeds will need to be burned after the dance and new one made for the final dances in the main nakamal.

The first conch blow has run. Meaning everybody start moving. Man are sitting around the fire eating breadfruit, and mentally preparing themselves. I am now in the hands of Philips relatives, nako has gone to lenaken.

The second blow of the conch gets everyone moving towards their stick and sarong put on, a few leaves in the head.

As the 3rd conch blows, everydancer moves in the center of the nakamal. Now the rain is pouring. But you cannot turn back. The dance has to be performed. So for a hour, in slippery grounds, feets and sticks are stomping the ground. The mud splashes all over and everyone seems to have a lot of fun.

By the end everyone is muddy from head to toes. I film it all from the safety of the covered hut. The nakamal is now open.

Time for kava is coming up. By now I am settling with philip's sister family. Her husband can't speak any English or French, but we communicate with our eyes. Earlier on during the day I met the whole family, and had corn with coconut milk for luch, with grated yam "pancakes". By now my palate craves the simple food from the garden. No spices.

We drink kava at the nakamal. Once again the voice of kava comes in. it is still raining. How many are wondering if they might not have made a mistake?

So far no visitor has showed up yet exept Gerard, a French mathematician living in noumea, retired that came a month ago and stayed and stayed.

Food cooked under the fire and ready for bed. Tomorrow is a big day.

25th of September 2007

as by miracle, the sky start to clear. Unbelievable. Someone is working hard here.

the men are now calling the womans. Dancing in the nakamal in circle, the atmosphere is rising. Meanwhile al around in huts, the lady are preparing themselves with bright colors they paint intricate design on their faces. Layer upon layers of grass skirts. Each group with their distinctive style.

As Jacob (in charge of all the media at the cultural center) points out, what matters is the meaning of the songs, the gesture and the language. The costume is up to the individual.

There is great care in the costume. I heard the words beauty magic. And beautifull there are.

The day before a beautifull woman handed me a handful of raspberry. A garden of eden sight. Tannese know what they have, refuse pesticides, fertilizer, and believe that the spirit of the earth and tanna is enough. Everything comes from it all. All connected.

The voices now in the "arena" is rising. The arena has been prepared since month, with the help of a buldoser, that widened the road a bit( might as well). Other wise everything is done on foot here.

Banyan tree, 3 huge ones have cabana built in them, to view later on the whole ceremony better. And to protect you as I will learn later.

The first group of ladies arrives. Huge roars from the men that are now satisfied and are leaving the nakamal. Each coming in line, closing with the children the ladies drop a pice of lap lap to a pile and take their place. There will be 8 groups.

As their start their first song, beating hard on the napen, the other groups are getting ready.

Slowly but surely the entire place gets filled up with bright colors. Maybe 500/600 woman are now dancing. Young man imitate the lady performing the action of their dances, to intimidate them, as if they make a mistake need to pay back something candy….

The men are also here to watch for a possible bride I am told. Checking and possibly choosing a girl that they like.

Meanwhile a team act as security. They will later on carry the pigs, become security for the big night.

All day the ladies will dance.

Meanwhile more pigs are coming. A few visitor show up but none stays more than a few hours. I just don't get it.

In the early afternoon, Philip is here. Great to see him. He couldn't find any transport and walked for 9 hours to get here. He told me that including his family said that he couldn't forgive himself if he didn't come to see me. We talk and remember our times. The film "voice of Kava"was a hit, traveling even to ambae, with the only copy that I sent. The woman that had their boys circumpsised cried.

As the light fades, it is time for kava. We have to hide in the bush this time. To many people around. And the ladies should not see the men drinking kava, since they cannot drink it.

As it turn out, the men around are all from port resolution where we anchored with heraclitus a couple of years back. But infinity was there as well, and took the entire football team of port resolution to port villa. They all remember Clemens. What is their surprise when I tell them that we are now sailing with the infinity, and everyone has been on board already. Kava works in mysterious ways.

I also met 3 french guys from noumea, that delivered medical supplies with a helicopter

While waiting for my connecting plane in santo. Organized to possibly meet to fly over yasur. Never made it but mentioned to them Ronnie, the shaman weather maker of port resolution. They took him on board to look at yasur from above. Good to have news from your friends.

With Philip we talk about where we are at. I explain our situation with infinity. I am reminded constanly that I am a man tanna already, and whatever happens I would always have a home here. The know how to live well without hardly any money is still alive here. You can just come.

They practice their values and a man is a man.

After kava food, yams and taro, and taro leaves. The last night of decent sleep. I have been cold, higher altitude, rain and cold temperature. But holding on. I am bare foot since 3 days, a better grip in the muddy path. And I have been moving like a butterfly, trying to get different angle for the camera. The energy is intense and many shot hopefully will show that intensity.

Worried about battery as no electricity has showed up yet. I even have a blister on my knuckles.

Gabriel let me use his tree house. A perilious climb each time with a bamboo ladder where the sticks keep falling off, and a walk over a branches to reach the platform, all with a high definition camera in the hand. But it needs to be done.

26th of September 2007

early rise, as more pigs and kava are coming in. the ladies are already busy preparing the lap lap. A quick breakfast and here we go. This time we are crossing two mountains to reach a nakamal where the toka dance will take place, open it up to be able to travel to yesup in the main nakamal. The path is small but whehever slippery a stick to help you is already in place. This time the procession arrive from the bush, announced by the blow of the conch. And the men are ready with costumes.

Many people are now gathered around the nakamal. Intense, marvelous, amazing, powerfull. All superlative words for a dance that seems effortless but having some experience in theater realize the presision and preparation nessessary for this level of "performances". Mystical as the energy is now directed towards the nakamal in yesup.

As the dance isperformed, everyone rushes to get to the next nakamal. Another mountain away only.

There the sky is now bright blue, the nakamal overlook the pacific ocean, and more people are arriving. I just can't figure out from where. It seems like we are in the middle of nowhwere, not a house in sight.

The dancers are amazing. They will stand inches from my lense with all power in their dance. The dance is the 2nd toka. The energy rises and rises. Amzing footage I hope if I stayed steady. Hard when you have 50 warriors, as the toka is considered male, versus the other 3, Nao, Naser and consesua being female, storming towards you.

I climb over the nakamals hut, to capture the actions of some of the dances better. Men transform into birds, boxers, deer….

As the dance finishes, and the next one to far to walk to in time, we head for ikiti. Time to rest for a while. Catch up with Nako.

The conch blow. So we get ready for the opening of consesua. There again, more people have arrived and the atmosphere is electric.

We then move on to see naser opening up and rushes to see the opening of Nao in the main nakamal.

The sun is setting. The mens dance are completed and it is time for kava while the ladies are now preparing to dance all night.

I am warned that this evening anything can happen. Bad things to, since the killing of the pigs the next day mark a new beginning where everything from the past is forgotten. Man guard their ladies carefully. A team of a hundred will act as security.

The outside word has no jurusdiction here. No government or police is allowed to use any power.

The kava is drunk again in the bush. The voice of kava enters.

Now a huge crowd of close to 700 people maybe a thousand are now warming up the arena. This is real. Intense, intimidating, powerfull. The call is irresistible. Electricity showed up in the form of 2 small generator that light dimly the place.

I have at least 3/4 people with me at all time. As the first group of ladies enter, the whole place goes wild. A crowd of young man keep undulating through the arena, running like a ske. Armed with sticks, some with deer antler attached to them form a wild exited army. Nothing can stop them. I keep filming in the dim light atmospherical shots, when the waves of men corners me against a banyan tree, pocking with their sticks. I snake my way out ot it. Camera crew have been know to loose cameras and all in the arena. It is all real. Their could kill me if their wanted to and the ceremony would not stop. And no judicial power would have any legal power to do anything about it.

The night is really a free space. And freedom where everything is permited is a dangerous game.

But their control the energies like I have never seen before. And it rises, and rises, and rises. Peeks brings me into tears of admiration. Most of the world would tear each other into pieces with this intensity.

Now I took refuge in the tree house, determined not to sleep. And the music intensifies, peeking. The hord of youngsters with their shark stick won't sleep either.

In the middle of the night I get back down, in the arena, with protection from body guard this time. Some young mans keep dancing with the lady. Some chiefs keep flashing their torch light as soon as their feel the vibes gets too hot. I am in awe.

It is now 4am. I hear the chiefs deciding that the first men's group should strat coming on at 4.30 am. As the last of the ladies sing something extraordinary happens. All together the crowd turns into a human waves, going back and forth, running faster and faster.

Suddenly the men enter. Greeted by the crowd, touching in vibration the men are pulled in as by magic. They carry a long pole made out of hawks feather, 20 feet high, representing a high chief and the connection with the god of the earth. They whirl and a big hooooooooooo. The pole is brough down, secured against the giant banyan tree.

Now the first dance, the Toka dance starts. Everyone gives everything their got. The actions are incarnations of past and present stories. The earth is shaking. The first sign of dawn appear. The stars shine bright. Not a cloud overhead.

As

The dance finishes, the waves starts again, calling in the next group of dancers. Again, I am in awe by the raw power of it all. I keep my camera steady, even in the dim light something transpire through.

Another Toka dance. Again with the long pole. Again the dancers give their best.

Next Naser comes on. The warriors. Unbelievable energies. The crowd goes wild.

Then it is consesua to appear. The object with wich the men dance are carved birds, hawks.

To close the men's, it is the turn to the Nao dancers. They come in with two poles. They are the host nakamal.

The ladies are jumping up and down to the beat of the songs.

The sun now has risen, shining through the forest of Roseau poles.

The ground is now fuming, stomping. What a finale from the men.

But the day has just started. By 9am a exchange of laplap cooked by the woman the previous day is performed. Every clan will exchange laplap with another.

And now the time for the killing of the pig. La tuerie des cochons.

In procession two clan meet in songs that challenges the other. On one carrying pole is a pig with a man, chief sitting on top. Behind is the most enourmous kava plant. Some are 15/20 years old. Grown especially for ceremonies like these.

Meanwhile ladies are dancing, running singing up and down the nakamal.

This goes on until all the pigs and kava is brought in. 73 pigs, and 73 kava plants. The pigs are then clubbed, by a specialist. The clubber. No pig should remain alive. The sacrifice is to start anew, to cancel whatever might have happen during the night. I have seen the faces of the chiefs watching, sensing, feeling. They can be proud.

Now all the pigs lay dead, while some dogs licks the blood drips. Chichen are lokking for pieces of lapalap.

A old man from the custom village hands me a piece of roasted taro. I had no idea I was that hungry.

I sit in contemplation on top of a huge kava plant while some chiefs are now conducting the alignement of the pigs and the kava.

The day before I went with them as their walked the line already.

Now all the pigs are in perfect alignement, and the last rite is performed. One man, will be big man one day, walk over the pigs, and brings back the other way a toka pole.

Now each man chooses a pig. In a month time another exchange will take place. But the time, the one that choose the pig will return one of the same size, value according to the species.

A man here without pigs is not a man. Their plant their toka pole onto the pigs that their choose and it is now over.

Little by little everyone is packing up, carrying, dragging their pigs or kava roots.

Tonight kava will flow. And pig will be eaten.

We will drink kava in a nakamal for the people of imake. I am with Jacob and Philip.

The men chewing my kava is none than the men that made the weather shift. They are two that remain on the island, and he was brought especially for that. There are numerous smaller one, some chiefs like tom has a special place for this type of control.

He is not shy or arrogant about it. Simply admits it.

We will drink two shells. This time I am feeling the spirits. Jacob becomes telepathic in our conversations, and while going for a pee, I feel and see the gates that protects the nakamal. We are in a sacred space. The moon shines bright, almost talks to you. The stars as well.

We are at the beginning of times. On the small fire, perfect, the inside of the pig are roasting, along with yams, cassava, eggs wrapped in leaves.

I am high. Everything speaks. The tree now become friends, swaying in the wind. Strange whirling winds, creating patterns in the leaves. Everyone is quiet, in meditative mood. Attention to the bigger than you. Attention to the sacred.

I am full. Although I am getting an infection due to roughing it in the rain the mud….i am full of life. I am priviledged to experience this event the way I was brought in and supported.

Hands were always ready to help. To carry my bag when the trails where so slippery I could hardly walk. In the arena, where I danced and run. In the kitchen where food always came, in the nakamal for the chewers that knew I couldn't participate. My jaws could bite into raw sugar cane, pigs heart… but couldn't do the kava.

I had numerous conversation about all and everthing. Tanna is ever more the secret garden of my beginning.

The dance are pure, essential. Hands and feet and voice. No created instrument. Back to the beat of the earth. I found the melodies and beats afterwards in birds, in insects, in the wind, wispering in my ears.

I have seen many dances in my life. And the raw yet so sophisticated energy, transformed through individuals to create a unity I have not experienced anywhere else.

It is our roots, that we have forgotten, that we are destroying. Yes I found in these days the origins of humans cultures. Passed on and adapted since thousand of years. But the gestures, the song are ancestral.

In the beginning of cultures, there was man and himself, with each other. They are still intirely biospheric. Their connection with our planet is deep. The voices of the earth is coming out. The spirit of the earth is hoosing through.

And man tanna has never capitulated. Their where key to the independence of Vanuatu, they are key to check on the non total corruption of the governement and are now scared to come in and do something about it.

Few years ago they looted the corrupt. No one else. They advised before hand to the "good" guys to close their shop and that they would not touch them. And did just what they said. The government was then very carefull.

They also tolerate but do not follow any religion blindfolden. Thinkers they are.

But their biggest contribution in my book in in the transformation and creation of subltle energies. As some men tries to meditate, in tanna it is for everyone. And together they will survive. That spirit is non negotiable. Not for sale.

28th of September 2007

after a gift exchange in the morning, and the assurance that all the work to film the event will eventually come back to them( 6 month to 8 month time) I leave with so much. For the memorie, I carrie back a napen that was beaten for two days by Philip sisters, two feather decoration, a grass skirt and a consesua bird.

That bird attracted the attention of the airport and somehow was like a magic wand opening doors.

We get in a truck, dropping a flashlight to chief tom along the way, saying goodby, and moving down to lenaken. We were lucky to get transport. Now that the nekoviar is over, very few traffic head that way.

In lenaken, wondering what to do, Philip suggest that I leave if I can, because again of transport. I can take the plane the same day, and he will continue on to imake to see his son. I brought him some dvd to watch. He is delivering them.

I meet jacob's father, a chief in imake. His eyes are shinning. We keep talking in bislama. Not that the words matter. I feel like he sees me from the inside. A rebel for sure, a keeper of knowledge.

My apprentice ship in tanna has just started it feels, and I know I will be back someday. They are few places like that, that become part of you whenever you go. The spirit of tanna is growing inside me.

The creation of a planetary man, not simply by travel, but by spirit. I will always be gratefull for this teaching.

At the airport, the planes looks full. Irony of history. Some Americans are chatting away, coming from the resort, while a group of muslims are waiting for the plane as well.

Somehow I do not make that plane. How remarquable is the brain washing machine of mass media. I had to think of a bomb, while I was carrying my two pelican cases. So did the customs since for the first time they asked to see what is inside. Somehow I will not make that plane. For strange reason I go on a small plane carrying one old man and another passenger and myself. And that is it.

I land from Tanna in port villa in the late afternoon. I am barefoot. My flip flops got lost in the whole toka event. Back to the guest house hibiscus. The night security man is from tanna.

I head for napfest to grab a bite to eat. Band are playing. In the crowd, eddie spots me. We hang out but I am beat up. I even refuse a bowl of kava. I try to get back but collapse half way. I nap in the grass and make it back for a good night sleep.

Port villa, 29 of September 2007

I spend the morning scrutinizing all the shops. And all I can see almost is Chinese businesses, selling cheap goods, busy on their calculators all day long.

The hardware shops are growing like mushroom, a good indication of what is going on here.

I indulge then in a caffee au lait with two croissant while reading the newspaper.

Interesting article on the depletion of the tuna stock, a rally for the pacific to unite and keep the big superpower at bay for a while, or at least some kind of control. The festival in gaua made it with lots of pictures, and the rugby world cup with the win of fiji. Quite a few players are from Ngau. A name that keep popping up. The last dance in tanna was also Nao.

Anyhow, talked to lot's of bus drivers. Get to a second hand shop to get a pair of jeans.

The lady is a retired nurse from the Solomon islands, and was brought up in the artificial islands of malaita. In villa since 40 years. Wild stories about the condominium, the suposelly alliance between the french and the english. Both kept their systems, to the confusion of everyone, having now to deal with two bureaucracy instead of one.

In sola, the primary school is still in French, while the secondary is in English.

The Australian are in general not well received. If their treat the ni Vanuatu the way they treat the arboriginal community no wonder. I seeing them bossy even slapping a employe.

A anecdote: a Australian watches a ni Vanuatu cut a piece of bamboo to put up a screen. He then takes on to teach the guy that was doing a good job how to "properly" cut bamboo. He fails miserably, try for five minutes, after exaustion the Vanuatu men takes back the saw, finish the job almost to the end but the Australian is not giving in and start trying to break the bamboo with his feet. Then he keeps going on with how to tie it and on and on. The Vanuatu guys watch, smiling. He is suposelly the boss after all. (taking their land, and sending all the money back to Australia. Nothing is put back in.

I meet eddie for kava. But first he has to perform with the kids that he teaches. They will perform 4 custom dances. Meanwhile big band name are playing on stage. We start preparing the kids that are arriving in the museum, along lapita potery, masks, and so on. I become the face and body painter, taking each kid in turn, about 30.