Sailing Fans Reeling Over Yacht Race Death- 4 still Missing

[Pachamama]

7. "A Parable of Immortality".... By Henry Van Dyke

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!'
 
Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There she goes!' there are other eyes watching her coming and their voices ready to take up the glad shouts 'Here she comes!'"
~ by Henry Van Dyke ~

Sailing, Ocean sailing in particular, comes with great risk....and yet when I used to do it, it was when I felt most alive.....not because of the inherent danger, but because it is a reminder of the beauty of of life, the ocean which covers our planet and is the planets lungs. The power of nature, the humility of it all. In many ways, it was what made me more "human"....it is what made me become "Pachamama" and care about our planet more.....The racing aspect made it like "Chess on Water"....Sailors live for that aspect too....