Kelp Dreams

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
– Jacques Yves Cousteau

In the slow motion waters under the sea, I glide salt deep. Kelp blades undulate and beckon – reach their arms for me. For a while I slalom past their holdfasts in the lofty forest of my dream. In the prism of the distance, shafts of sunlight shift to choreograph their lure. And free me up to tangle. 

I move, therefore I am.
– Haruki Murakami

I’m forever drawn to the wordless enterprise of the sea dependent on the grace of time and tides. I’d often rather abandon words for an orbit of energy and rhythm. Devoid of language intended to persuade – no chess game of deliberate precision. No need to swaddle gentle words sprinkled with lavender for the fragile, no consonants honed to arrows to pierce the combative, no vowels to placate the contrary. Nothing to misinterpret, twist and flex. Not linear or mapped, not pulverized with pretentious motives. I’d rather bathe in the aura of my sea green dream – leave my footprint in the sand.

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.
–  John Steinbeck

The other night I saw his essence in the moonlight filtering the clouds. As a tiny moth at twilight, he landed on my desk and played a while for me. On the way to his nocturnal dwelling, but drawn to the light, his passion hovered in the air. From his wings of earthly transformation, he sparkled me his gift. But before I knew, he flew –  the spirit of his inspiration never far away. I can always hear his songs. If seaweed dwells below the surface, in kelp dreams – unconscious truth holds sway. Some say kelp dreams signify entanglement, but I prefer the free. I’m not an oneirocritic (interpreter of dreams) but I’m a dreamer – and I know he came to me.

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
– Blaise Pascal

Not all dreams arrive with the evening tides. Some wander through your waking space. Imagine a rootless kelp forest as high as 150 feet undulating under the sea. Mysterious organisms with blades oscillating – and bladders to float the fronds. Attached to rocks by holdfasts, kelp trees growing up to 18 inches a day providing food and shelter for living creatures including seals and sea lions, whales, sea otters, gulls, terns, snowy egrets, great blue herons, cormorants and shore birds. Many of them hiding with their young from predators, or weathering the turbulence of storms. All the while the lush seaweed, dependent on photosynthesis, soaks up rays of sunlight. But it also absorbs CO2 from the seawater to stem the surge of climate change. With the warming of our oceans, we’re all in peril as coral reefs vanish and kelp forests disappear. To the naysayers of global warming, I say (along with the soothsayers) – take heed. Or we’ll all end up washed upon the shore.

We see in order to move; we move in order to see.
― William Gibson

Sometimes I dream I dream. Like tonight under the May Flower moon and in slips apparitions from my memory. We dart amongst the blue and yellow fishes – a lover of the sea and me. We make our way through kelp that tries to trap us, past shipwrecks and shimmering skulls. A stash of coral branches twines (with love) around my arm. We leave the bits of gold and silver and dive into the caves. I can’t tell you exactly where they’re at – because who knows – we might go back. I can hear the echo of my bracelets in the underwater waves.

Sometimes I just get tired of words. Little black marks on a page. I don’t need them for navigation or revelation. I can fall in or out of love without a syllable. Cross oceans, span heavens, and single out a star without a sound. Create a bond or sense a con. Just watch. Sometimes there are better ways to see.

So I’m sending you some blades of kelp – to heal and to reveal. And why not conjure up some beams of light and drift into a dream? Maybe you’ll tangle with a seaweed spirit – cast a spell – or be set free.