Two-thirds of our planet is covered by water. A significant portion of that water is frozen into ice. Some of that ice breaks off into floes. These floes are known as icebergs. And these icebergs have history. Iceberg History.
Iceberg History; an oft neglected, yet intriguing field of study. What stories they have to tell, what lessons they can teach, these icebergs. I, too, was once ignorant of the import of Iceberg History. But thankfully, fate had other plans up its very long sleeve.
It was a Sunday evening. There was a gnawing cold in the air. My ears could feel it, or rather they couldn’t. A hat was in order, but mine had taken its leave of me in a bar some nights previous. As luck would have it, I found myself in one of New York’s many fine cheap hat districts (this one near Chinatown on Canal Street for those of you mapping it out at home). I strolled to the nearest kiosk, pointed blindly, found the $5.00 asking price acceptable, and did my capitalist duty. Suddenly becoming aware of my purchase, I looked to find an emblazoned patch on the front of my new black knit hat. It said this: Iceberg History. It preached, like a burning bush, and was just as warm. When I wore it, the badge was placed on my forehead, right where my third, spiritual eye is located. And this eye opened. And what it saw, it did so through a lens of Iceberg History.
It saw aeons of crystal ice-time. It saw striations and fractal patterns. It saw frozen microcosms, islands not of rock but of water, buoyant and graceful. Substance floating upon itself, yet remarkably distinguished, fingerprint-like. Each berg is unique, individuals created from exactly the same elements. None better or worse, just unique. I was beginning to see it. It was Iceberg History.
I saw penguins. Generation upon generation of penguins. Millions upon millions of penguins, not unlike ourselves in a black-and-white, flightless, monogamous sort of way. And do we not all swim from the shark? Do we not soar in our own way, out maneuvering the enemy until we launch up and slide home on our bellies? Slide home? To our own Icebergs? And the History inherent therein?
But what I saw is not all that there is. Not by a long way. What I can see is only a sliver of what is actually there. There is so much more I can only feel, that runs deep into the frigid green. I cannot perceive it visually, but I know it is there, spiritually. History from Intuition, woven into our very fabric of being. The Iceberg History of A, T, C, and G, spiraling in a cold double helix deep into the psyche. A History we can never escape, because its depth and density are beyond us. Ancient and primeval, we are all Icebergs, and our collective past is Iceberg History.
That is Iceberg History. It is crystals and penguins. It is hills above and mountains below. It is individuality and faith. It is you and I and everyone.
And it is a cheap brand of clothing.