Ships are Safe at Harbor

But that's not what ships are for.....

That's a song by Michael Lilly that wrecks me. I usually play it for anybody I can and most definitely play it for participants on my boat trips.

While this blog is mostly dedicated to the life of this rebuild project, I'm sure it's going to veer into other areas of my life. In fact, this boat project is about much more than just a boat project. This is about my life. This is about my choice to throw my hat over the proverbial wall. So I think there will be some updates on the details of the rebuild project, but mostly my thoughts on what this means for my life. What the wind and water mean to all of life.

To sail you must allow the natural to happen. You must allow for the mystery of life to take over. To truly be alive to sailing one must be alive to the mystery of life. The uncertain and unknown. We must give ourselves to the fluid world of wind and water and sky. If you are determined to know, to control where you begin and end, you will be miserable to the flux of the wind water and sky.

While it may be possible to harness the wind and take it where we want to go, or have it take us where we want to go, it is always lucky. A gift. Like men who climb the world’s highest mountains, we must enter the world of water and wind with reverence and awe. With a sense that we’ve been gifted with exactly what we need to get where we’re going. With the knowledge that the sea can turn on a dime and kill you. That the wind can do a 180 and send you off in any direction as long as it’s not where you want to go.

Could it be true that just about any voyage on a sailboat should be celebrated upon safe return to the dock? Even if it’s just a short little sail on a short little boat.

Being open to the flux and thankful for the coming home seems vital.