We have to accept
that we live on a ‘spaceship earth’,
responsible and accountable for its conditions.
Earth is no longer the impenetrable background/horizon
of our productive activity:
It emerges as a finite object
that we can inadvertently destroy
or transform to make it unlivable.
This means that,
at the very moment when we become powerful
enough to affect the most basic conditions of our life,
we have to accept
that we are just another animal species
on a small planet.

A new way to relate to our environs
is necessary once we realize this:
no longer a heroic worker expressing
his or her creative potentials
and drawing from the inexhaustible
resources of the environment,
but a much more modest agent
collaborating with the surroundings,
permanently negotiating
a tolerable level
of safety and stability.

Excerpt The Courage of Hopelessness
By Slavoj Zizek p. 40

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Reached home port, a long drive from New England, through NY City over the George Washington Bridge again (hellacious traffic) and west through Pennsylvania.  Stayed the night in western PA and then through Ohio, a bit of Indiana, (nice rest stops) and finally to Illinois.

So many memories from the long trek beginning from Fresno California.  Our final destination was the town of Mystic Connecticut a seaport town which serves as a educational center for understanding the beginnings of our country, the role of the sea in our people’s early life.

We spent several hours absorbing the objects and ships on display at the Mystic Seaport.  I took a few photos.  You’ve got to visit this place.  I can say that I’ll never forget what I saw and the conversations that were had there. Life changing?  Yes.  For me it was.

A shot of Paul, one of curators of the Mystic Seaport Museum receiving the donated antique carousel seahorse. Paul and Tobin talked at length about the work of the museum.  Tobin was instrumental in arranging the donation.  We were taken inside the museum storage facility to view some of the acquired objects, treasures of our seafaring past from the age of sail and the age of steam.  Here is a photo of just a fraction of the ship figureheads in custody of the Mystic Seaport Museum.

A highlight of our time in Mystic was our visit on board of the Charles W. Morgan a 19th century whaling ship.  To be on board of the three masted square rigged sailing ship gave me a empathy of the men who lived by the sea, doing the hard, hard labor of raising the yard arms, heavy with sail, and holding course to find a whale.  A photo of the Morgan here, as well as a photo of the museum’s whaling ship model showing a captured whale on display.

Our ancestors of two or three generations past were made of sterner material than we.  The rigors of survival demanded physical strength and mental resolve.  A photo of the wheel of the Morgan, and ropes for rudder control.  Included is a shot of Tobin seated below decks in the crew quarters.  The captain’s quarters were somewhat more pleasant.  His bed was on gimbals to compensate (more or less) with the rocking of the ship at sea.  The seamen-crew had bunks.

Young men and women on board the ship demonstrated the technique for raising and lowering the long boat, used for the chase and harpooning of a whale.  Also a shot of the large pots used for rendering the large slabs of butchered whale blubber into the valuable oil which was stored in wooden barrels.

Does all of this matter, the lore and the artifacts of a time and a way of life that has passed?  I think that it matters.  It is by seeing, touching, hearing the stories told, by those who have received them — that we find gratitude for generations that have preceded us, and the ability to feel a love for this earth which continues to sustain us.  We are all in this together, residents on spaceship-earth, a living habitation for all of us, men/women, whales, and yes, the young goat in the petting zoo.

We simply must take care of our home….