Chapter-1

The Arctic Convergence

A Kayak Adventure To The Place Where

Death Fell in Love

Preface

(Updated October 30, 2010)

This story began in writing near the start of July 2010. It has become an accounting of an adventure detailing events that four month later continue to unfold. Efforts to make critical issues clear are finished. I have abandon further attempts to elaborate on issues that are not essential to the over all purpose of this story. The opening statement has been updated as I realize the level of passion involved with my river romance. No matter how many times I return to view the above river with its story of death and mysterious life giving event, I can't shake the fear of returning to this place.(Later) I write this on October 30, 2010 after returning from the river that wrestled death to love. Driving through the cold dark night over steep gullies covered with snow, it became apparent that it would be too dangerous to attempt a complete drive to the side of the river. I got out of the car in the dying twilight and walked through the freshly fallen snow to find that the river has already been taken to it state of solemn solid silence with a heavy fog hanging over the last openings of flowing water. It was eerie and definitely death like, yet in amidst all the shadows and silence there shines a memory which I now understand is hidden in this story. Each time I go over this story with the few errors that remain, I can hear a voice within that isn't my own; this is an amazing event and a mystery only explained by the meeting mentioned in this narrative.

Though it has taken more than a month to try and detail events that took place during three days in the above world, I'm learning more and more as time passes just how rare, beautiful and sacred the experience I had is; I say "is" for the simple reason that what happen in the convergence has not ended but continues to affect my life in ways that are far more mysterious than I can understand. This story tells how I wound up on a small island in the world above but how I never left as I found the world I once knew coming to the island. I know that may sound strange but this is a story that tries to explain how all we "think" we know about the world can be altered and made to bend over and yield to forces we don't understand. This story is not written from conjecture, but from a very real, very frightening and yet very sacred experience well protected and hidden within the fast flowing murky currents which cause all nature to bow in fear. As each day passes since leaving the convergence I find events unfolding like a blossom; I now understand more about what was inexplicable than when the event originally happened; naturally these aspects of the story will be added to clarify in greater detail the personal encounter this story is built upon.

Within me is a sense of deep regret for having returned from this river and the experience detailed in this story. The only thing that has come out of my return was a second trip that risked my life, a very difficult summer job that left me grasping for the counter edge losing all ability to remain conscious on two occasions, a return to the heart breaking experience of meeting needy children without a chance to help them and finally a chance to write this story which so far seems to be understood by young people or maybe even those who are children at heart. I hope it hasn't all been in vain that I have spent months detailing this very personal journal of an event so mysterious and beautiful and yet it continues to remain waiting for closure which must come in the Great Promise. It no longer matters if this story is ever seen or understood by anyone else because each time I read it, I'm reminded of a power so great that it quite literally took the force of death which for so many hours
sought to take me under its dark chilling murky flow and
transubstantiate this frightening power into a channel through which those same dark chilling waters
sang me songs and a lullaby in the night; so awesome to be here to express this mystery.

Convergence
Chapters
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14

After eleven years in Korea where I lived a wondrous life as an educator teaching in a world completely isolated from western existence and the English language, I found many mystical events happening near the end of my first year back in the west; among them were inexplicably difficult battles associated with my attempted adjustment to a western world which eleven years later appeared to my eyes as something from a Stephen King Novel. I found myself trying to survive as an alien in a world devoid of any culture as I had found purpose and meaning in while in Korea. In the west I am now faced with a incomprehensible task of bridging a gap in understanding that all Americans seem to have about the reasons they perceive Korea as divided to them. I have arrived from a country with a unity of thought far beyond a fragmented society fraught with fears of every sort but mostly germs and infections, suspicions of terror, family disunity and divorce. It wasn’t much different than being thrown into an industrial sized tumble dryer set on high; I gazed out the circular western glass window on a world that appeared to be spinning out of control and wondered how to gain the stable view I had in Korea.

In the midst of all this confusion I remembered the words of a young lady I met of my first flight back to the west. After telling her of my Korean thoughts and outlook on life, she said to me, “I don’t know how you are able to think the way you do, but never lose that ability.” I found her exhortation to be rather cryptic at the time, but now that I have been here in the west over a year, I can feel my thoughts slipping as I’m daily bombarded with elements of the west that are foreign to the peaceful family centered society that had nurtured me back to sanity after eleven years. It took time to realized that western people had no way distinguish Koreans from Chinese or Japanese, let alone the far more crucial ability to determine which Koreans were loyal to their culture, land and people, from Koreans who would sell a ten-thousand year old ancient unbroken cultural heritage for a “green card.” After fifty weeks in the US, I fell to my knees and finally bought a one way ticket back to Korea. There is a connection between my former western life and my Korean life which brought about the events that led me to the convergence; if there is any time left before my return, I will hopefully deal with this critical matter in a second writing.

It took all of thirty minutes on the ground in one of Korea’s largest cities for me to realize that I had made an error, there is something far more ancient and pure that I left behind in my hasty discomfort with the west and that was the wonder found in Alaska’s unique untouched natural environment. Just before the trip back to Korea, I received a call from a friend of twenty years ago which worked out as a saving hand freeing me from my terrible decision leave the west so quickly. Soon after my friend emailed me a link to a low cost flight out of my fall into the abyss; I found myself living in a dirty closet in a building in a big city in Asia. Soon I found myself on a flight from Korea, to Hawaii, and then on to a magical little school at the edge of the Saint Elias wilderness back in Alaska. Later that same friend sent a generous financial gift followed by a trip to visit him in Canada; all of these events were shrouded in inexplicable mystery in terms of their reason or relationship, that is until the end of this story I'm about to tell.

What I write here I do so with great fear and concern for anyone who would consider attempting what is revealed in this story. My efforts to safe guard those who would write this journey off as something to consider may be ignored; though I can’t stop others from risking their lives or dying as a result of attempting what I have detailed in this story, my greatest concern is to warn others of the dangers associated with the dynamics of glacial flood plains, as well as to preserve the most mysterious and sacred part of the river that this story speaks of. The effort to protect an area associated with the most mysterious and sacred event of my life is accomplished by leaving out specific geographical data that would lead someone to intentionally or unintentionally disturb a unique part of river geology related to the glacial river flood plain presented in this personal account. Honestly my desire is to insure that no one attempts to entangle themselves in the events detailed in this account which were something I never intended to happen. In the first draft of this story, I said I would never again attempt or repeat this journey again in my life on this earth; however as time has passed I’m beginning to realize that the journey this story speaks of is an inevitable future destiny; I must return to. At this juncture, I am simply thankful with all my heart that I'm alive to write these words.

My humbling position of teaching children as a substitute teacher had come to and as the Alaska summer break began in May leaving me unemployed. After spending several weeks trying to secure employment for the summer, I found my options being narrowed to making plans with free time and what little money I had left over. With normal financial responsibilities to deal with and no way to deal with them, I decided I needed to do some clear planning and soul searching on a camping trip. So on June 28, 2010 I began a kayak trip to find a camping area on an island where I could be sure to find peace without interruption.

The day started out to be very hot and my departure point several hours away from the area where I hoped to find an island and a camp site. After paddling down a peaceful calm tundra river for five hours, I found myself exhausted and weak, I sat in my kayak having reached the terminus of the peaceful flow where the quietness of what had been my day trip met the awesome convergence as it flowed into a mighty glacial river here in the arctic. I paused in the slow moving peaceful dark waters that had been my highway to this place I had sought with all my heart as an area to find an island and a place to camp and rest. I had paddled so long that blisters had formed on my hands, the sun had burned my face leaving me dehydrated; I was sore and my weariness from without finally met the weariness I felt within my soul. What lay before me was frightening, yet if I knew what was about to transpire in my attempt to enter the convergence, I would have turned around and made every effort to return to my starting point on what little strength I had left.

I sat and looked long and hard at what was just ahead of me and fear began to build, for all I could see were surging waves of something from another world; it wasn't water I was looking at churning in the river before me that stretched more than two hundred feet across. Colored opaque tan with a movement and density that made it seem more like milk or heavy paint, this river born of snow that fell thousands of years ago moved like an unrelenting nightmare. I continued to wait as in my mind a battle grew out of the conflicting desire to reach the goal of an island I had seen on satellite images studied for many weeks on a computer and the reality of the unimaginably awesome barrier between where I sat and a goal only seen on images taken from space. Was my goal really out there somewhere beyond the writhing beast that slid so fast before me? Was it reasonable to think I could make it across that which moved so violently?

The internal battle in my mind was the result of the conflict between two unreasonable concepts; one was the unthinkably long up stream journey I must face if I give up my goal and turn back, and the other was to face the unknown when considering its appearance in what was obviously a very formidable river with a constitution and character that evoked fear and in so saying formulate a gross understatement. I knew from experience with the character of rivers that the currents run strong in some areas and yet just a short distance away can lay a place where the currents can carry you in a direction opposite to a rivers flow; this is something I knew about rivers as they relate to time in a human life span; this may sound esoteric but it's possible to sum it up in the words found in a children's song called, "Row Row Row Your Boat." I was hoping that I could quickly locate a place in the tumultuous thick flow before me that offered the same mysterious places of refuge and advantage as the river that had carried me to the end of all time.

I paused a little longer and prayed for help and wisdom. I know it is very dangerous to do anything to test the very forces of nature; however, I didn't make this journey to the end to test the powers of nature, I came here to seek peace and solace with the great presence over seeing all of nature and the universe as I have never done before; to find answers to why all doors for survival economically had been closed; to find out why western society had closed itself off to me. As I had mentioned in previous writings, the facts of my life all appeared to add up like the careful study of a compass regarding which direction to take. For the few who knew what I was contemplating by this river journey, they believe I was doing it to commit suicide; I knew that I had no such intention, for suicide is the action of fools in a hurry to enter an eternal world of torment, yet before me flowed what looked exactly like the end of my life in a river that easily wielded the powers of torment. I could discern no placid elongated whirlpools that would magically whisk me up stream against the overall intent of this river to rush me to death. I had even noticed that power boats and powered jet ski enthusiasts stop short of the convergence. I thought, “If people riding in boats made of metal, driven by engines measured in horse power, stop before the convergence, what action should a very exhausted traveler take while approaching this convergence of two rivers in kayak made of wood, canvas and rubber?” I lifted by heart one more time and prayed as I picked up my paddle to thrust it into the last of the clear dark depths of what I had known as my life and times in the arctic.

To Be Continued In Chapter 2

∞

Convergence

The Arctic Convergence

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It Begins In Light