Fata Morgana
20 October 2019
This is Erebus.
Some ten leagues north it sits, restless and brooding, with Mt. Terror east of it, and the frozen sound to the west, it is one of a handful of volcanoes with a perpetual lake of fire in the chalice of it's summit. When not crowned in rotor clouds, the plume breathes out above, ever so gently.
Hesiod tells us in Theogony, that Erebus is the name of that primordial Darkness, one of the firstborn of Chaos, who included Nyx, The Night... Aether, The Sky... Hemera, The Day... and Thalassa, The Sea.
Of that ancient Greek, we are instructed in the story of Erebus who, ancient even to Man, ruled the outter precincts of Tartarus, with burning Darkness Visible. Fitting that. And paradoxical, for
here the throne of Erebus is on the outer edge of the world, half the year in dark and night, and half the year in un-setting sun, a place of fire in a land of endless ice. Here is Erebus, whose
daughters were the Moirai, those Clotho, The Spinner... Lachesis, The Alotter... and Atropos, The Inexorable, the bearer of the shears. Those Daughters of Erebus we know by another name.
The Fates.
Fate. Fata in Latin. The Wyrd to the frost-folk of Europe's lands of ice and fire, as in the Wyrd Sisters, the Norns, who spin still a thousand miles Northwest of Hesiod's Mediterene shores. Here
too, in sight of Erebus, out upon White Island, and Minna Bluff, and Black Island, and northward along the Asgard and the Olympus mountains is the realm of Fata, the magic looking lens... through a
glass weirdly into the faerie realm. We call this magic Fata Morgana, after the shape-shifting sorceress of Avalon, Morgan le Fay. Some call it nothing more than a mirage.
Fools.
By midday sometimes, the fingernail sliver of Bratina Island is transformed into a towering plateau.
At midnight the gentle slope of black island becomes a giant abode,
built on a towering wall hundreds of feet high and the mountains beyond
Morning become an arch, a gate to the NeverNever where dreams arise from
sleep.
Who Dreams, May Dare.
* * * * *
There was a day when dreamers dared. Perhaps some do, who can find respite from the noise of a world drowning in convenience, and cheap comforts, and so obsessed with safety that it's people have become spineless, toothless, fearing whispers, fearing shadows. Fifteen minutes away from station is a constant reminder here, of those from an age when ships were made of wood, and men were made of iron. Scott... Amundsen... Shackleton...
Who Dreams, May Dare.
Even now in this frontier town is the twenty year plan to renovate McMurdo from being a ramshackle collection of buildings from seven decades, into a modern place, more warm, more safe, with more
comforts and amenities. To make it more like the world "back home".
I wonder if that is to take away the best part of this place... Civilized life lies in doing what has been done before, doing the expected as though that were the highest value, and followed behind by the second highest, receiving acclaim from one's peers for doing it. Who can meet their dreams if they do not dare?
If everything is made so comfortable, predictable, so safe that there is no risk? How much is a pretense that we are what we once were?
Scott died eleven miles short of safety, having passed through Morgana's glassy gate into the realm of dreams. Shackleton refused to die, and dared an inconceivable journey to take hold of life, for himself and every man of his crew. In failure, he found un-looked for success.
How few of us still are made of that stuff?
What if we dreamed harder and dared more? What if we followed in the footsteps of Amundsen, and Shackleton, and even Scott? There is a difference between looking for death, and being compelled to
look over the edge.
On those days that the wind slices most sharply, here, it is impossible to forget that you are alive. From the silent silver solitude of Observation Hill, alive and looking out at ancient Erebus, and the frozen plain of the Windless Bight, and the Royal Society Mountains beyond the sound... the Dreams still whisper, reminding us not to forget, back in that other place held captive in deep enchantments...
* * * * *
The night, will soon be bright as day, and only marked by the idiot turn of clocks... those hours of light when people retreat behind draperied windows to sleep, before the hours of light when they
work. The night is merely when it is still, and it is just this land and those few of us who remain awake to do our work those hours through.
The last lingering hours of winter are fading, and will be gone in a scant several days now. Night is but a long twilight, and the skies, when clad in clouds are painted in colors of heart breaking beauty. The sun, coming from behind the mountains becomes a phosphorous torch, burning splendorous like Prometheus decending with fire from Olympian courts. The clouds themselves ignite, resplendent with a glory, and in that light a music not of the ear but of the spirit... plangent chords from behind that cyan veil.
* * * * *
And then the noise returns. Writing here from the galley, late beyond my bed time, others have come to eat food while I have come to drink tea and taste words. I have been told by a woman I have
never met that I'm getting dirty looks because this corner table is very popular.
I have managed not to laugh in her face over the preposterousness of it. Over seventy tables to choose from, and the one in the corner here is the one that is the regular table for a clique.
Noise and Silence, Light and Darkness... how much of the one can we carry into the other? How much do we?
This is Erebus.
Some ten leagues north it sits, restless and brooding, with Mt. Terror east of it, and the frozen sound to the west, it is one of a handful of volcanoes with a perpetual lake of fire in the chalice of it's summit. When not crowned in rotor clouds, the plume breathes out above, ever so gently.
Hesiod tells us in Theogony, that Erebus is the name of that primordial Darkness, one of the firstborn of Chaos, who included Nyx, The Night... Aether, The Sky... Hemera, The Day... and Thalassa, The Sea.
Of that ancient Greek, we are instructed in the story of Erebus who, ancient even to Man, ruled the outter precincts of Tartarus, with burning Darkness Visible. Fitting that. And paradoxical, for
here the throne of Erebus is on the outer edge of the world, half the year in dark and night, and half the year in un-setting sun, a place of fire in a land of endless ice. Here is Erebus, whose
daughters were the Moirai, those Clotho, The Spinner... Lachesis, The Alotter... and Atropos, The Inexorable, the bearer of the shears. Those Daughters of Erebus we know by another name.
The Fates.
Fate. Fata in Latin. The Wyrd to the frost-folk of Europe's lands of ice and fire, as in the Wyrd Sisters, the Norns, who spin still a thousand miles Northwest of Hesiod's Mediterene shores. Here
too, in sight of Erebus, out upon White Island, and Minna Bluff, and Black Island, and northward along the Asgard and the Olympus mountains is the realm of Fata, the magic looking lens... through a
glass weirdly into the faerie realm. We call this magic Fata Morgana, after the shape-shifting sorceress of Avalon, Morgan le Fay. Some call it nothing more than a mirage.
Fools.
By midday sometimes, the fingernail sliver of Bratina Island is transformed into a towering plateau.
At midnight the gentle slope of black island becomes a giant abode,
built on a towering wall hundreds of feet high and the mountains beyond
Morning become an arch, a gate to the NeverNever where dreams arise from
sleep. 
* * * * *
There was a day when dreamers dared. Perhaps some do, who can find respite from the noise of a world drowning in convenience, and cheap comforts, and so obsessed with safety that it's people have become spineless, toothless, fearing whispers, fearing shadows. Fifteen minutes away from station is a constant reminder here, of those from an age when ships were made of wood, and men were made of iron. Scott... Amundsen... Shackleton...
Who Dreams, May Dare.
Even now in this frontier town is the twenty year plan to renovate McMurdo from being a ramshackle collection of buildings from seven decades, into a modern place, more warm, more safe, with more
comforts and amenities. To make it more like the world "back home".
If everything is made so comfortable, predictable, so safe that there is no risk? How much is a pretense that we are what we once were?
Scott died eleven miles short of safety, having passed through Morgana's glassy gate into the realm of dreams. Shackleton refused to die, and dared an inconceivable journey to take hold of life, for himself and every man of his crew. In failure, he found un-looked for success.
What if we dreamed harder and dared more? What if we followed in the footsteps of Amundsen, and Shackleton, and even Scott? There is a difference between looking for death, and being compelled to
look over the edge.
* * * * *
The night, will soon be bright as day, and only marked by the idiot turn of clocks... those hours of light when people retreat behind draperied windows to sleep, before the hours of light when they
work. The night is merely when it is still, and it is just this land and those few of us who remain awake to do our work those hours through.
The last lingering hours of winter are fading, and will be gone in a scant several days now. Night is but a long twilight, and the skies, when clad in clouds are painted in colors of heart breaking beauty. The sun, coming from behind the mountains becomes a phosphorous torch, burning splendorous like Prometheus decending with fire from Olympian courts. The clouds themselves ignite, resplendent with a glory, and in that light a music not of the ear but of the spirit... plangent chords from behind that cyan veil.
* * * * *
And then the noise returns. Writing here from the galley, late beyond my bed time, others have come to eat food while I have come to drink tea and taste words. I have been told by a woman I have
never met that I'm getting dirty looks because this corner table is very popular.
I have managed not to laugh in her face over the preposterousness of it. Over seventy tables to choose from, and the one in the corner here is the one that is the regular table for a clique.
Noise and Silence, Light and Darkness... how much of the one can we carry into the other? How much do we?
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