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

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

This old navy ship is part of a artificial reef off of Honolulu HI

Swimming outside the superstructure of a sunken ship.

Diving Cenote Nohoch Nah Chich in Mexico. It is the most beautifully decorated cave ever.

Neat video of a wreck dive off Cuba.

diving

scuba

The artificial reef that is formed by this WWII victim of 120mtr long is astonashing. The marine life that finds it's place around this shipwreck is really amazing, at a nightdive you don't feel on earth   more...anymore..  less

More diving around the outside of the sunken Tasman Hauler.

Cave diving in Mexico. First a visit to Carwash, then downstream to Chamber of the Ancients.

No eels or groupers this time around on the Sea Emperor but there WAS this very friendly southern stingray......

The cave system Maya Blue contains very dark caves.

Diving on the USS Spiegel Grove.

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http://vanuatu-videos.com/santo-diving/ - Santo diving Site, including diving the SS Coolidge. Vanuatu diving at its best, mainly videos.

http://vanuatu-videos.com | Diving the USS Coolidge. Top Santo diving site. Vanuatu diving also includes diving Million Dollar Point and USS Tucker. Diving in Santo website.

www.ThankGodI.com video for Pierette Simpson - The Palladino Family and there story on the Andrea Doria.

Diving in Cesme

http://www.phuket-boomerang.com - http://www.phuketboomerang.com
Located in the suggestive surroundings of Kata Beach, Phuket, the Boomerang Village Cottages hotel offers a warm welcoming as well as an   more...attentive service to all its guests, so as to make them enjoy a holiday full of emotions and experience unforgettable sights. Externally similar to mountain chalets, the newly built cottages are furnished in Thai style, offering a very congenial and relaxing ambience.
http://www.phuket-katabeach.com/  less

Buceo en el Barco Hundido St. George de Bayahibe. República Dominicana. Scuba Diving at the St. George Wreck in Bayahibe Dominican Republic.