INTRODUCTION
The Boats of Vallisneria. Not the fishing fleet of some remote principality or the landing forces of an invading alien. Vallisneria is an aquatic plant, the roots of which grow in the soil at the bottom of shallow waters. The pistillate flower is found at the top of a long stalk which grows up through the water towards the light of day. Upon reaching the surface, the petals unfold in sheer abandonment to expose the stigmas that await the procreative advances of its male counterpart which is the staminate floret that grows below the surface in a large bract. When ripe, it emerges and floats to the top where three small petals unfold and curl back to produce the three tiny boats that keep the stamens afloat where, through the movement of the water, the stamens gently kiss the stigmas of the awaiting flower in that final act of consummation.
But this small volume does not concern itself with the morphology or physiology of vallisneria or that of any other flower, in fact there is no direct connection between the title of this book and its contents. Suffice it to say that the mind is a pond, but a pond of such depth that the sediment of our experiences lays in the bottom in utter darkness. Every so often a thought is born and speeds hastily from the soil in which it grows to the light of consciousness. After a brief spell of blossoming the flower returns to the depths taking with it a little food that is the knowledge of the eternal ‘now’.
I am a farm labourer, not because I was born to it (for I am a Londoner by birth) but because I desired from an early age a completion of my being that I knew I could not attain in the artifices of town life. But soon I fear I shall be leaving the farming life, not through desire or choice, but through the evolvement of that particular pattern that is laid down for each and every one of us, the unalterable pattern that we must all follow no matter how limitless our own personal bounds of freedom. I shall however, still be living in the countryside and will retain the sense of fulfilment this way of life has afforded me until the end of my days, no matter where I go or what I do in the years to come.
It was while gazing vacantly at a pool one evening two years ago that I first beheld the boats of vallisneria and thought of them as random thoughts released from the depths of the mind for brief spells in the light of consciousness, and it was then that I decided to capture these thoughts and to the best of my ability place them on paper. This small book then, is a collection of thoughts, a collection of the reflections of a farm labourer who has reaped more than corn from his own particular way of life.
read the collected work as it is published: here
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1967 & mind & uncle wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Contents
being & identity wormhole: zero
garden & life & London & writing wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
knowledge wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
light wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
living wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft
thought wormhole: between thoughts
water wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …
