Love The Waters is a lyrical film celebrating the beauty and fragility of our world's oceans and making a subtle call to right relationship with our natural environment. "Aristotle said 'Philosophy begins in wonder.' I believe it also ends in wonder. The ultimate way we relate to the world as something sacred is by renewing our sense of wonder.' (Sam Keen) Directed, produced and narrated by Claire Beynon with a collaborative text by international writers - Claire Beynon (NZ), Marylinn Kelly (USA), Therese Clear (USA), Pamela Morrison(NZ), Elisabeth Hanscombe (AUS), Kay McKenzie-Cooke (NZ) & Scott Odom (USA).
In the wide sound of the sea
the song of a vast adventure
a music that follows flight
paths of blood rushing
through veins. And the roar
of the sea is the roar of our planet.
Salt. Spray. Ice. Sand.
Each wave a limb of the earth.
The oceans are hoarders
of holy mysteries, generous
to a fault - all heaving movement,
energy and gorgeousness; life
packed into every inch and drop
of it; ah, its drama! Its secrecy.
The way it carries the past, future
and present in it.
Dream of the sea and from its edge
gaze out to the pencil-thin line
of the horizon where sky and water
are one. And the sea?
How it murmurs.
How it murmurs.
the song of a vast adventure
a music that follows flight
paths of blood rushing
through veins. And the roar
of the sea is the roar of our planet.
Salt. Spray. Ice. Sand.
Each wave a limb of the earth.
The oceans are hoarders
of holy mysteries, generous
to a fault - all heaving movement,
energy and gorgeousness; life
packed into every inch and drop
of it; ah, its drama! Its secrecy.
The way it carries the past, future
and present in it.
Dream of the sea and from its edge
gaze out to the pencil-thin line
of the horizon where sky and water
are one. And the sea?
How it murmurs.
How it murmurs.
It is all one water.
A finger in a tide pool
brings our shores together.
HIDDEN DEPTHS - POETRY for SCIENCE presents a chapter of ArtScience collaboration between New Zealand artist & writer, Claire Beynon and New York-base polar biologist, Samuel Bowser.
Embark on a lyrical under-ice voyage in the company of a science diver, a pteropod*, a flotilla of silver and white bamboo boats and an ancient giant of the uni-cellular world - tree foraminiferan, Notodendrodes Antarctikos. Painterly and metaphorical in its approach, this short film addresses a number of scientific and metaphysical themes in a novel and thought-provoking way.
*CLIONE ANTARCTICA
She lights up
the dark is all
transparency
and grace.
Afloat
and in flight
she trusts
the wisdom of tides
rides lightly
on every moment.
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AT HOME IN ANTARCTICA
In this place, silence has a voice
wide-ranging as the continent.
Some say it’s on the cusp
of madness, the way it hums
and stutters, mutters to itself
in quietest tones.
In this place, the universe
brims. Inside absence, presence.
Inside distance, dust
and our sleeping earth dreaming
beneath her thin blue
mask of ice.
In this place, nostalgia
roams, patient as slow hands
on skin, transparent
as melt-water. Nights are light
and long. Shadows settle
on the shoulders of air.
Time steps out of line
here, stops to thaw
the frozen hearts of icebergs.
Sleep isn’t always easy in this place
where the sun stays up all night
and silence has a voice.
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KATABATIKOS
Antarctica and her rebel wind - A Love Poem
She never
sleeps
deep REM sleep.
No. She tosses
and turns, cannot lie still
with
bones and blood
at ease, always keeps one eye
open. The wind
might stir at any time
touch her cold
white skin, travel
every willing
curve
and contour. She hears him
long before he
comes
without warning
his hands
trace her upper valleys
her mountains and hanging glaciers
travel her
frozen
coastline. She anticipates him
as the beloved
awaits a lover.
There’s nothing silent
or passive
about them. And
when all is said and done
they both know
their meeting will shake them
it always does
but see, it’s nothing more
than temporary dishevelment.
Theirs is a
relationship refined
by this curiously lyrical insistence.
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FLAG LULLABY
Explorers Cove, Antarctica.
New Harbor
for once
the chill and light
of midnight bow down
and listen.
We shelter inside
the Jamesway.
Outside, five flags
are live skins
shocked into action
by some ancient
command. They brace
themselves and beat
like drums that thrum
and thrum
and thrum till sleep
overcomes.
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QUANDARY
for Sam Bowser and B-043, New Harbor Antarctica 2005
How odd
you've not seen
these
crater stars before, Sam.
Perhaps
the Gromias’ intelligence
leads them
to consider
there may
be some sense in beautifying
their
sterile laboratory environment.
Well, why
not, Sam?
Why not?
We place
them in our time frame but
Explorers
Cove is their domain.
650
million years ago, the same purple
scallops
and luminous white
sea stars
graced the forams’ seabed.
We are the
newcomers here, strangers passing
through. We
haul them to the surface
intent on
finding answers to the universe
and yes,
they show us many things.
But here
we are now
talking,
and there they are
ancient
and silent as always.
We
translate what we think they know
into what
they know we cannot understand.
And as for
these crater stars, Sam?
Imagine
the ripples through the science community
when you
say you’ve discovered the world’s oldest
one-celled
creature designing wallpaper for the heck of it
in your
petri dish in Albany, New York?
But wait.
There’s another possibility. Perhaps
your Gromia miss the old Antarctic
sea stars, and these strange shapes
are simple expressions of their dreams for home.
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THIN ICE
Step
out
onto
white
not
as
a
body
bearing
any
weight
but
as
a
feather
might
think
of
ink
in
a
quill
drawing
a
cantata
out
of
light
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YEARS
Six million years
the Dry Valleys
have
been waiting
and still no rain.
Old
notes remain
to sustain snow and sand.
Come.
Rest your ear
against these brittle waves.
The ancient foraminifera never sleep.
They lie awake forever
perfecting their private alphabet.
Tapping in code, they set questions
and
clues adrift on currents
beneath the ice.
Phrase marks with a hint
of the familiar
rise
and fall
rise and fall
but without the accompaniment
of language our untrained ears
can hear, answers and meaning
elude
us. One-celled creatures
have the upper hand here.
This much is clear.
Knowledge and ignorance
arrive and leave
arrive and leave
on the same
invisible
tides.
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