Red Sky

” Red sky at night sailor’s delight,

Red sky at dawn sailors are warned….”

Unknown

I grew up a long the shoreline in Connecticut. The beach was down the street. There were shells to be found. Horseshoe crabs to save between the tides. Blue fish to catch. Bright sun for that native tan. Disorienting foggy days and storms.

Once in the mid seventies New Haven harbor froze. A rare event. The ice was thick enough to walk. It was amazing to see a solid ocean with out waves. The wind blew with out the constant rhythm of the tides. I imagined that is what the Artic sounded like.

Living near the ocean I was a constantly reminded the everything could change in an instant. The ocean has a complex full set of conditions and seemingly endless emotional states that ran from one end to the other. The ocean was not shy about expression. She feels full and raw everything. She hides nothing. The ocean embodies the Goddess. She and her 10,000 names uttered from every shore line. She gives everything and takes everything. Life starts with her and she will be the resting place for what is left to start again.

The sky and the ocean are a team. What separates them is a thin undulating line of molecules. This is where particles exchange. Like a cell wall and osmosis, the sky and ocean are perpetually sharing information, nutrients, and particles. One could say the oceans and the sky are lovers constantly in entangled, emeshed, expressions of passion and indifferent stillness. The sky’s vastness is uncontained, reflexed and controlled by the moisture and warmth from the ocean’s constant ferment.

The Sun will heat the surface of the water and the sky will recieve the ocean’s droplets and amass huge storms of winds, lightning and rain. Traversing miles and miles at the whim of ocean currents. An atmospheric tango. With the land masses acting as the tables in a crowded night club as these two impassioned dancers maneuver between.

Some mornings when the droplets hang just right in the sky and the sun rises at a certain angle. The sky turns red. Over time we have learned that this means a storm is coming. And sailors didn’t sail and people waited it out.