Sisley
Impressionist artist
The vision was derived from a Hape healing ceremony facilitated by a practitioner. As the initial sting of the herb-bark mixture shifted to something feeling more like seawater in the nose, I was taken to what looked like a stormy ocean scene.
Lightning had hit one of the masts, distintegrating part of it and burning off the ropes that supported it. The ship could no longer be controlled.
I was the eldest of 5 children I had known of. Whoever was the father figure in this family he was not shown so I don't know if he was dead or far away at sea. My mother in that life was the same as my present-life mother. Siblings #2 and #3 were sickly babies and both died when they were just little. 2 much younger siblings about 6 and 7 left a wide age gap between myself and them. I was high school age there.
We lived on the east coast of England, just above that hip bone peninsula, and the sea was the main reason for the being of our community and our family. I had started working on the fishing boats at about 11 years. I seemed to read there being a financial obligation with my family although I was not the father. The nature of the trade enhanced the early maturation of my physical body. I had the same face as today but with long black curly locks. To this day I still have a spiritual connection with water and always love to be near it in any and all natural settings.
At 15 boys were conscripted into the English army and with my background it was a given I'd end up in the British Royal Navy. I and my fishing crew mates had dodged the press gangs for some time by escaping swiftly back to sea after cashing in the catch ...until my luck did run out.
At first Mom thought I had committed a crime but the press gang's presentation of an official letter from the Government of England quickly changed that. Nonetheless a piece of Mom's heart was torn away, her sensing it would eventually not end well.
On finishing up the training processes junior sailors were assigned first to the the low-end fourth-rate and fifth-rate smaller ships. When I completed the preliminaries they got me this long coat; something like on the Captain Morgan label but all navy blue. With wool garments underneath, it was very effective.
The ship I was assigned to looked to be a brig or razeed. The top deck was one long open oval probably about 80' long and about 15' wide, with 2 masts, the deck fixtures, the railings, and the big rope "spider webs" that held the masts. A forward spar added maybe another 15' to the length. With the sails unfurled the ship had a visual profile like the Old Spice label. Those big majestic Corvettes would wait for those who would persevere and find it in them to always stay in best terms with the authority figures. The lifestyle came with a great deal of adventure and sea travel.
Ship's sails were the first working models of airplane wings and keeping the wind "skimming the bulge" (a visualization) is how the ship sometimes moved faster than the wind blew. I knew the "language" of sails from minding the same on the fishing boats and it was my charge in the Navy. I was up on the crow's nest through much of my on-duty time.
We were well trained for keeping the ship's nose into the wind in stormy seas but this storm was one of a kind, the night was as black as ink punctualted by lightning flashes and the place and time was clearly a North Atlantic winter. The windborne icy sea spray stung in every pore and a fiercest wind howled with unbridled fury. I and a little group of shipmates were assigned to the top deck on the ready to attend to the masts despite the danger. We hung on to the deck fixtures while the ever-rising waves threatened to wash us over. Meanwhile below, it was obvious the water was splashing in through the cannon ports faster than the crew could collectively bail out.
The out of control ship turned broadsides into the assaulting wind and waves. The sails that didn't get burned off by the lightning unfurled sloppily and mitigated the tilting. The cannons on the windward side came undone and crashed into the opposite side, fatally injuring crew members. Water now flooded in through the leeward cannon ports...
There didn't seem to be much to it. It was actually pretty rapturous when that last wave washed me over. It all got so warm, so cozy, so calm, so silent... pictures and videoclips... among them Mom and the 2 younger siblings, one at each side, becoming silhouettes and then fading...
*****
I traced an historically documented event to the Great Storm of 1703 as "looking like" what I had seen. The event took place on December 7, 1703 and to this day it is the most damaging storm England ever experienced in her recorded history. The British Royal Navy lost a full 1/3 of its ships at sea in that storm.
Lightning had hit one of the masts, distintegrating part of it and burning off the ropes that supported it. The ship could no longer be controlled.
I was the eldest of 5 children I had known of. Whoever was the father figure in this family he was not shown so I don't know if he was dead or far away at sea. My mother in that life was the same as my present-life mother. Siblings #2 and #3 were sickly babies and both died when they were just little. 2 much younger siblings about 6 and 7 left a wide age gap between myself and them. I was high school age there.
We lived on the east coast of England, just above that hip bone peninsula, and the sea was the main reason for the being of our community and our family. I had started working on the fishing boats at about 11 years. I seemed to read there being a financial obligation with my family although I was not the father. The nature of the trade enhanced the early maturation of my physical body. I had the same face as today but with long black curly locks. To this day I still have a spiritual connection with water and always love to be near it in any and all natural settings.
At 15 boys were conscripted into the English army and with my background it was a given I'd end up in the British Royal Navy. I and my fishing crew mates had dodged the press gangs for some time by escaping swiftly back to sea after cashing in the catch ...until my luck did run out.
At first Mom thought I had committed a crime but the press gang's presentation of an official letter from the Government of England quickly changed that. Nonetheless a piece of Mom's heart was torn away, her sensing it would eventually not end well.
On finishing up the training processes junior sailors were assigned first to the the low-end fourth-rate and fifth-rate smaller ships. When I completed the preliminaries they got me this long coat; something like on the Captain Morgan label but all navy blue. With wool garments underneath, it was very effective.
The ship I was assigned to looked to be a brig or razeed. The top deck was one long open oval probably about 80' long and about 15' wide, with 2 masts, the deck fixtures, the railings, and the big rope "spider webs" that held the masts. A forward spar added maybe another 15' to the length. With the sails unfurled the ship had a visual profile like the Old Spice label. Those big majestic Corvettes would wait for those who would persevere and find it in them to always stay in best terms with the authority figures. The lifestyle came with a great deal of adventure and sea travel.
Ship's sails were the first working models of airplane wings and keeping the wind "skimming the bulge" (a visualization) is how the ship sometimes moved faster than the wind blew. I knew the "language" of sails from minding the same on the fishing boats and it was my charge in the Navy. I was up on the crow's nest through much of my on-duty time.
We were well trained for keeping the ship's nose into the wind in stormy seas but this storm was one of a kind, the night was as black as ink punctualted by lightning flashes and the place and time was clearly a North Atlantic winter. The windborne icy sea spray stung in every pore and a fiercest wind howled with unbridled fury. I and a little group of shipmates were assigned to the top deck on the ready to attend to the masts despite the danger. We hung on to the deck fixtures while the ever-rising waves threatened to wash us over. Meanwhile below, it was obvious the water was splashing in through the cannon ports faster than the crew could collectively bail out.
The out of control ship turned broadsides into the assaulting wind and waves. The sails that didn't get burned off by the lightning unfurled sloppily and mitigated the tilting. The cannons on the windward side came undone and crashed into the opposite side, fatally injuring crew members. Water now flooded in through the leeward cannon ports...
There didn't seem to be much to it. It was actually pretty rapturous when that last wave washed me over. It all got so warm, so cozy, so calm, so silent... pictures and videoclips... among them Mom and the 2 younger siblings, one at each side, becoming silhouettes and then fading...
*****
I traced an historically documented event to the Great Storm of 1703 as "looking like" what I had seen. The event took place on December 7, 1703 and to this day it is the most damaging storm England ever experienced in her recorded history. The British Royal Navy lost a full 1/3 of its ships at sea in that storm.
