When My Ship Comes In

[sus]

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.

I was thinking about it watching Madame Butterfly at the Met Opera recently. She's always waiting for her man's ship to arrive, and once it arrives everything will be OK. Something here is about horizons, hope, waiting. The promise of "a bag."

What else partakes in this extended conceptual metaphor, what's it all about, where does it come from what're its origins who's riffed on it

 

[sus]

The expression “When my ship comes in” has been used for centuries by people looking forward to a time when an investment or gamble they have made pays off. The term originated from hundreds of years ago when many people invested their money in merchant shipping. You could buy a share in a ship or its cargo. When the ship returned from it’s voyage around the world, you got your money back with a significant profit. This all took place when there was no communication between the ship and the shore. Ships could be lost to pirates or storms. So there was a big risk involved. Only when the ship completed the journey did the investor make a profit.

We came to this planet to play a big game. You get to choose the one you want to play. The bigger the risk the bigger the stakes. Now when your connected to source, or in the Vortex as stated by Abraham,It’s almost like a sure thing. Twenty years ago I took a big risk building the Center For The New Age. Twenty years later , I can look back and know that I was in the Vortex. I was directly connected to source. We have had our ups and downs, like when ADOT decided to build a road through our property. Many businesses lost everything. I always knew spirit would guide our ship in.

 

[sus]

The invocation of Vortex here is interesting. Because a maelstrom sucks you down. It is the black hole of the ocean, a point of no return, total obliteration. It's precisely what prevents your ship from coming in.

For your ship to come in it must stay afloat. It must not get sucked into the abyss. It must stay buoyant. And it must travel with the winds. The winds partially determine your course but it's all about how you tack against them, how you use them to get where you want to go.

And the bigger the treasure on the ship the more you'll be looking out for pirates and raiders. Parasites, extractive forces.

 

[sus]

OK I've started a good thread I've done my duty and can log off

 

[sus]

Edmund said something very good and smart, he texted me that Penelope is the earliest case he can think of, waiting for Odysseus

Joanna Newsom's Divers is about gendering of this relationship. The woman waits, the man goes out and returns.

 

[Clinamenic]

 

[sus]

Version has been private messaging everyone telling them not to comment on my thread. But you Stan had real integrity. You wouldn't let yourself be controlled. An independent voice.

 

[other_life]

(when your ship arrives, what is left to do but bet on another?)

 

[sus]

(when your ship arrives, what is left to do but bet on another?)

Yes, this is something I think Freud talks about but I think a lot of people have talked about it too.

Your ship coming in is the worst thing and the best thing that can ever happen to you. You never want to fully satiate your desire you never want to fully arrive you always want to be on the precipice of arriving.

This is related to @luka's exquisite science. When you peak there is only down. The perpetual high is that constant on-the-precipice-of-arrival.

If wax wings melt, and planes &gliders fall/plummet/crash (like Finn, again) then ships have holes burst in them and sink. All that air leaks out like a hot air balloon coming down and is replaced by heavier water. Or else ships wash up on the rocks. (Like Odysseus)

 

[germaphobian]

 

[sus]

@germaphobian I never thought about that one but you're right on the money

Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

 

[sus]

"Looks like nothin's gonna come my way... Watching the tide roll away"

Tides yes, very important, you need to get the timing right, external forces outside of your control, all you can do is try to fall into sync with them

And the idea that you're wasting your time, killing time, just waiting waiting waiting. You're not pursuing other endeavours.

And the idea of the widow's walk, altho it's apparently more myth than history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widow's_walk

> The name is said to come from the wives of mariners, who would watch for their spouses' return, often in vain as the ocean took their lives, leaving the women widows.[1] In other coastal communities, the platforms were called captain's walks, as they topped the homes of the more successful captains; supposedly, ship owners and captains would use them to search the horizon for ships due in port.

 

[sus]

Cetacean stranding - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Beached whales often die due to dehydration, collapsing under their own weight, or drowning when high tide covers the blowhole.

Whales that die due to stranding can subsequently decay and bloat to the point where they can explode, causing gas and their internal organs to fly out.

Exploding whale - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[william kent]

This is related to @luka's exquisite science. When you peak there is only down. The perpetual high is that constant on-the-precipice-of-arrival.

Luke's "exquisite science" is gooning?

 

[sus]

Luke's "exquisite science" is gooning?

Gooning on a rotation, many kinds of gooning getting alternated, yes this is how I understand it so far. It's a bit like alchemy though, very mysterious esoteric stuff, we can probably never pierce its mysteries

 

[william kent]

My first thought goes to the inversion of this: the arrival of the deserted ship in Dracula. The ghost ship nobody was waiting for comes in with nobody onboard, bringing death and misery.

 

[germaphobian]

I grew up in a seaside town and there is this monumentum dedicated to all the sailors lost in the sea - Mother of Wind. She's always watching the horizon, waiting for all her prodigal sons to return.

 

[sus]

My first thought goes to the inversion of this: the arrival of the deserted ship in Dracula. The ghost ship nobody was waiting for comes in with nobody onboard, bringing death and misery.

You get this in Antonio i's Red Desert too. A plague ship.

I think shipping was one of the main ways black death spread across europe too.

 

[sus]

Mother of wind I like that.

 

[william kent]

You get this in Antonio i's Red Desert too. A plague ship.

I think shipping was one of the main ways black death spread across europe too.

Spielberg nabbed the ghost ship for The Lost World as well.