When asked what she would miss about the voyage, Greta [Thunberg] said–much as some harried adults feel about a long trip–the best part was “to just sit, literally sit, staring at the ocean for hours not doing anything.”
“To be in this wilderness, the ocean, and to see the beauty of it,” she added. “That I’m going to miss. Peace and quiet.” She paused for a moment.
— “Greta Thunberg, Climate Activist, Arrives in N.Y. With a Message for Trump; The Swedish 16-year-old sailed across the Atlantic on an emissions-free yacht to speak at the U.N. Climate Action Summit next month,” by Anne Barnard, The New York Times, August 28, 2019
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It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep.
Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea. …
Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion–most seen here at the equator–denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.
… Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. …
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Chapter 132. “The Symphony”
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Brad,
BEATS AIR TRAVEL
I love her words and thoughts about the sea.
Her yacht docked in Manhattan right below Wall Street. I go there often to walk and enjoy the proximity to the water.
Roger
— email to my friend Brad Coady, August 28, 2019
— posted by Roger W. Smith
October 2019
Roger
I’m so glad to have added to your life and wisdom!!! Greta is so inspiring to me. I am waiting for politics, morality, and religion to realize they all have the environment in common!!!
Brad
Powerful Herman Melville: description of the ocean, air, birds, sun, and ominous sealife below. Greta inspires us all with her focusing on the simple things in nature.
My former piano teacher Helena, who lives most of the year on a sailboat, feels just as Greta does. This Spring/Summer, Helena will be sailing across the Atlantic with her husband on Petronella, their beautiful sailboat.