Lifeboats, Flying Fish and the Sea of the Subconscious

A real life flying fish

I had a friend named Noah (of all people) remark about the synchronicities he was having involving  flying fish.

And while I thought it was interesting, he was running into flying fish imagery in his life, that wasn't applying to my life.

One of my favourite t-shirts that I own.
To me the lighthouse is Cape Byron

Lifeboats and being lost at sea and looking for guidance from a source beyond me is my thing at the moment (I'm going through a separation right now), so I decided to pick up a book resting on my bookcase which I had bought at the Byron Bay Writers Festival last year called 'The Lifeboat' by Zacharey Jane, and right on the very first page "flying fish" are mentioned in the story.

The banner for the upcoming BBWF in August 2015

I had just seen David Lynch's exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane called, 'Between Two Worlds', which I wrote a post about here at this link -
My Sunday: Between Two Worlds and Trying to Catch the Big Fish
And I remembered that I had to walk under life size whales suspended from the ceiling outside the museum to get to the Gallery of Modern Art to see the 'Between Two Worlds' exhibition.

Big flying fish I had to walk under to see
 'Between Two Worlds' at GOMA.

I also bought David Lynch's book and CD titled 'Catching the Big Fish', which is about tapping the subconscious/Collective Unconscious for guidance and using it in your life (which I see as the beam of light from the lighthouse, offering guidance to lost travelers on the seas of the dark conscious reality, with the unknown lapping at the edges of the boat).

Cape Byron lighthouse

'The Lifeboat' by Zacharey Jane is about, 
"A man and a woman are found at sea in pirate-infested waters, 
with no memory of who they are or how they got there".
I must say that I really liked this book as one long metaphorical story about memory and tapping into the subconscious/Collective Unconscious and using it as guidance.

As a straight out novel the story would be a bit mediocre, but as a meditative act of reading and pondering about life, it is right up there with any of Paulo Coelho's novels.
Read about my Paulo Coelho encounter here -
A Monocled Monk Swimming

You can hear Zacharey Jane talk about  The Lifeboat on this radio podcast at around the 20 minute mark -
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2008/04/bsw_20080430.mp3
"Washing up on a remote shore without memory, without a past and with nothing but a stranger for company—that's the fate of two characters in The Lifeboat, a new book from novelist Zacharey Jane. 
The Lifeboat asks whether we are who we are because of our accumulated experiences, or is there some intrinsic core that defines us?"
Zacharey Jane and the sense of self

Zacharey Jane as coxswain to a few rowers/authors at the BBWF

I  first saw Zacharey Jane in 2013 at the Byron Bay Writers Festival 
when she chaired a talk about performance anxiety with some other authors.
In fact, you can hear the pod-cast of that talk at this link -
Performance Anxiety: Putting It Out There, Live

I also saw Zacharey Jane chair another talk at the 2014 BBWF called "Our Story: Film and National Identity". 
This is when I decided to buy Zacharey Jane's book The Lifeboat, although it would sit unopened until just after my friend Noah mentioning the flying fish synchs.

Zacharey Jane, Terry Hayes, Andrew Knight and John Weiley.
BBWF 2014

Fish seem to be flying everywhere around me at the moment as I make sense of the shipwreck of my 26 year marriage sink into the abyss from my lifeboat.  

They say it takes two to tango, but the reality is that we are all dancing with ourselves in life, so we better get to know ourselves better to make our way through life's rough seas.

 

Billy Idol at "Day on the Green" March 2015
  dancing with himself 

Time for me to catch the "Big Fish" I think, never-mind all those other fish people tell you about when a relationship sinks.