The deluge ark(ive) : a small atlas of voyages

Thirteen thousand years ago our ancestors were witness to a catastrophic event. The ice began to melt; the oceans began to rise and the land to flood1, an environmental apocalypse irrigating the myth-memory of human consciousness. And God said, Let the waters vnder the heauen be gathered together vnto one place and let the dry land appeare: and it was so. And God called the drie land, Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called hee, Seas: and God saw that it was good. Our blood and our tears have the same salinity as the ocean. It is a reminder of the origin of all life on the planet and a warning that we share our well-being with our vast and indifferent mother. As land dwell- ers, it is easy to overlook the fact that we inhabit an essentially two-dimensional space which has surface area but scant depth. By contrast, the marine world is three dimensional, its depths account for ninety-nine percent of the bioshpere and its area seventy percent of the planet's surface. The ocean forms the principal interface for chemical exchange with the atmosphere, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. It is the pump that drives the climate and regulates the air we breathe. What follows are the navigational directions, a rutter, to Ultima Thule. A small atlas of voyages that charts the raging tempests and placid waters of myth and history. In these narratives land is never far from sight, almost within earshot; it can be sensed on the breeze, appear as a haze above the meniscus of the horizon, or glimpsed sliding under the keel at a landfall in a temporary safe-haven. "The deluge Ark(ive) is a fairytale that starts thirteen thousand years ago when our ancestors were witness to a catastrophic event. Finally the ice began to melt; the oceans began to rise and the land to flood, an environmental apocalypse irrigating the myth-memory of human consciousness." -- Book jacket