This is my mantra.
Generally, the poem is interpreted as a feminist call for women to rediscover their authentic selves outside the roles given them by a largely patriarchal society.

However, I put it in   more...the context of my own life, as someone who basically lives in a reflective stance, always willing to mine the past for treasures, while choosing not to live there.

While I appreciate and understand Rich's intent, I don't see the meaning as being valuable only to women.

It's for anyone who's not afraid of the darkness, and can see the book of myths for what it is.

<b>Diving Into The Wreck</b>
by Adrienne Rich

<i>First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.</i>  less

Driver in a red car knocks a motorcyclist off the road in this first-person wipe-out footage.

This reckless driver just burned through about nine lives worth of karma.

a.story

By Gordon Lightfoot(*Wordsmith and Canadian Balladeer)

This is the top viewed video at StonewallStudios channel on Youtube. I have made slight revisions and as such exceed the 100 mg limit so it is presented her in two parts. Part One is the DIV-digital image   more...video of the song and Part Two is A Tribute to the Men who lost their lives on the vessel - Ashokan Farewell sound track by Jay and Molly Unger.  less

A lot of the people in these are really lucky to be alive.

Denise wrecks another car! Detroit street diaries

Trip to DG and met up with some guys from Canada, loaned him my helmet cam and he got some good video. of him letting his bike lay down for a nap on a curve.

Kid flips over his three-wheeler.

Apparently, they somehow survived!

This guy gets ejected from his race car and walks away without a scratch.

This is why you don't fool around on motorcycles. Especially not on narrow roads with blind curves.

I bet that guy was a bit dizzy after that one.

Amazing video footage from a dive to a ship wreck and a crashed airplane off the coast of Honduras.

Put together a video of some of my N2k3 flips. Also posted at youtube

A cop weaves all over the road, almost taking out some bikers before crashing into a bunch of parked cars and driving off.

Maybe a good knock to the head will discourage him from doing stunts on public roads.

Guy wrecks on his bike and breaks the ramp.

Explaining what went wrong with an oil tanker.

Some guys get seriously messed up on some massive waves.

Moron wrecks a navy ship into another ship.

Guard smacks down a skater riding where he shouldn't be, who acts like a total drama queen.

compilation of crashes