A MONK WITHOUT A GOD

 by Ray Jason         

   

            A black-crowned night heron was clinging to my anchor chain, searching the quiet sea for a fish.   As the sun eased its orange rim just above the horizon, the little bird looked up, and so did I.  This sunrise held exceptional promise because of the cloud formations scattered about.  There were immense walls of dense cumulus flanking a high ceiling of delicate cirrus.  When the sun fully emerged from the sea, it transformed the sky into a magnificent, amber cathedral.  Here was a radiant sanctuary worthy of Mother Ocean.

            Spellbound by this magnificent panorama, I found myself searching for the best word to describe it, and then it came to me – HOLY!  This led me to a rather startling revelation.  I suddenly realized that my life had evolved to the point where my little sailing ship had become a one-person, floating monastery.  I had become a seeker of the hallowed and enduring qualities that illuminate the human mystery.    

           

WHERE THE BLUE MEETS THE BLUE

 by Ray Jason          

           Never before and never since – had I felt such an elemental connection to our wet and wondrous planet.  I was clinging to the top of AVENTURA’s mast, gazing at a panorama saturated in “blueness.”  The dark blue of the Sea undulated to the horizon where it mated with the delicate blue of the Sky.  It was like a “white-out” in a blizzard - but here in the Far Pacific it was a “blue-out.” 

            I had climbed the 18 steps up my mast in the hopes of finding a little wind somewhere on this immense stillness.  I was competing in the Single-handed Trans-Pacific Race from San Francisco to Hawaii, which means I was sailing alone.  And if ever there was an example of solitude, this was it.  Calculating my height above the water and the distance to the horizon, I realized that I could see about 200 square miles of ocean.  I was the only human in that vast blueness.