The morning sunrise was shining bright as my dogs and I took our morning walk down Cathedral Drive to the broken remains of my touchstone beside the roadway, at the edge of the woods. I noted again how much of the multi-million-year old igneous rock must have been buried there for thousands years after being left behind by the melting glaciers of the last ice age.
But this morning, with the somewhat delayed spring of 2024 finally taking hold, something else caught my eye: leaves of a vine-like plant growing out of what was left of the moss that had covered the above-ground rock. And then nearby, the prolific spring flower I identify as ‘Dutchmen’s breeches’ gathering around the broken rock. And no sooner did I look, then a small gust of gentle morning wind caught a clump of them as if to draw my attention. I know, I know, that may simply be my fancy – but nevertheless, that’s what it seemed.
And, yes, I may be carried away in calling what I saw “small miracles.” After all a miracle, some might critically say, should be of much greater import: the Creator’s hand reaching down to save one life or many from death, or relief from their suffering.
After all, isn’t that what life can do? Not give up easily, but persist, stubbornly to go on living, to find way in the most unlikely places to create new life.
There is a limit though: thousands of species are being lost, vast natural environments destroyed in the name of economic progress and production, and life-unfriendly poisonous paradigms regarded as stubbornly essential, as if life can survive anything. It cannot, not even in a relatively small, designated government nature reserve that happens to surround my little farm; and an old tractor that probably should be in a museum.
So, yes, surely it is well worth taking a moment to draw attention to life’s ‘small miracles’ in the midst of such an age, while we can.
I am once again amazed by the beauty and the enduring hardiness of ‘the host of golden daffodils’ blooming again in front of my house at Cathedral Drive Farm. That’s especially considering this is the spring of the polar vortex, with unseasonably cold temperatures prevailing in mid-April as a blast of stubborn arctic air hovers over southern Ontario and other parts of eastern Canada.
But these are daffodils Wilma Butchart planted many years ago, as early as 1941; and I wouldn’t be surprised if her spirit is still here offering them some added protection from the cold. Indeed, I will go further and say, so strong was her love for Hope Ness, and its precious natural environment of land, forests and waters, that her spirit certainly remains.
Wilma was one of the first people who welcomed my young family when we moved to Hope Ness from Toronto in June of 1979. She was generous in helping us learn much about the area and its history. And in that regard, she often spoke of seeing people from the nearby Chippewas of Nawash community across Hope Bay still gathering forest edibles when she was a girl growing up on her Tucker family farm. Her attitude was entirely respectful and accepting of their continuing right to do that.
An only child, Wilma Tucker was born and raised a short distance from the farm that would become her matrimonial home, on the ‘no exit’ road she would name Cathedral Drive when the 911 emergency system was created. That name was derived from the forest at the end of the road she called ‘Cathedral Woods’ because of the overhead effect created by the mature deciduous forest canopy. As the years went by, Wilma often took to a trail through the woods with her easel and paints, to a lookout on the Niagara Escarpment cliffs overlooking the waters of Hope Bay and Georgian Bay.
The Dow Chemical takeover of most Hope Ness farms, including the Butchart-Tucker farms, against her wishes, was a deeply troublesome time, to say the least. Fortunately, Dow used that Butchart farm as its on-site base for study and testing. As a result the house and barn were not demolished like the rest of the farms Dow acquired. Meanwhile, the Butchart family continue to live and work the farm. There came a time some years later when Wilma and her adult son Cliff were able to get title back to the house and barn and 5.9 acres after the Ontario government acquired the 2,000 acres Dow had bought.
I count myself fortunate now to have had the opportunity to buy the farm after Wilma and Cliff passed because of their determination and endurance.
Wilma was a woman of many talents: artist, musician, poet, local historian, and gifted, creative gardener. She could have taken any of those talents and prospered in any number of places that offered many more opportunties; but she chose to remain in Hope Ness which she loved and where she felt a special energy. It is interesting to note that for thousands of years Indigenous people throughout the Great Lakes region regarded this same area as a ‘place of healing,’ called Nochemoweniing, in the Anishinaabe language of the Saugeen first nations.
Wilma had an intuitive understanding of the extent to which floral gardens – with something always in bloom – are able to help lift and maintain human spirits. She created beautiful gardens near the house and other locations. To this day, from early spring, starting with Daffodils, through the summer and falls seasons, lilies, tulips, roses and other flowers Wilma planted still bloom in their time. She was also an avid produce gardener. “Wilma’s raspberries” were highly regarded by her Hope Ness neighbors and to this day continue to produce delicious fruit for me.
I believe Wilma saw daffodils as the hopeful flower. She planted them deliberately to be the first thing her family would see as they rose from their upstairs bedrooms for another day’s hard work. A feature of the upstairs hall was, and remains, the fire-escape door and window overlooking the front of the house and a view of what the great English poet William Wordsworth would call, “a host of golden daffodils.”
I am not the only one who feels Wilma’s presence here. During a recent visit, Tobermory resident Yvette Roberts was drawn to a certain, secluded area of Wilma’s gardens. She found herself stopped, held by the intensity of the feeling she felt, prompting her to say, “Her energy still lives.”
The polar vortex isn’t quite finished with us. The forecast temperature for tonight is -3 Celsius. But with Wilma’s help, I’m sure her daffodils will endure, as always.
I found myself thinking of Easter a few moments ago, this Good Friday afternoon; and what came to mind is that it’s a holiday that people of many different cultural and religious traditions can honour and appreciate. That’s because it’s about the miracle of life, actual and spiritual, resurgent and ressurected.
I am grateful that as a boy living on a farm near Streetsville many years ago my guardian family attended church every Sunday in town; and, as a result, I became familiar with the story of Jesus, his life as a boy, and as a great spirit and man who I love to this day. And that remains true, even as my spiritual journey into what I often call the Great Mystery continues.
Certain images stand out: I see Jesus going alone at the night into the Garden of Gethsemane, to pray, to ask if perhaps there might be another way. He wept. He loved life. He accepted his fate, the very next day on the Cross.
I hear him cry out, “my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me.” And I feel for Him, my beloved friend. And moments later, when one of the ‘transgressors’ crucified on either side of Jesus speaks harshly to Him, the other comes to His defence, saying, “we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then that man, feeling that he is unworthy of anything more, asks Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Instead, Jesus says, “Truly, I promise you, today you will be with me in paradise.” That is, for me, the most powerful moment in the New Testament, only to be found in St. Luke.
Today I am an elder man, but young at heart, even like the child I was on that Streetsville area farm, now that I have one of my own. The seeds I planted indoors at the west kitchen window have germinated. They will be planted outdoors in one of my three garden plots come warmer weather. I am excited again at the prospect of watching the gardens come alive with new life.
I live, surrounded by nature, in a secluded area on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula called Hope Ness. It is near a precious body of water called Hope Bay, sacred, to those who know it leads to ‘a place of healing’ visited by indigenous people throughout the Great Lakes for thousands of years. And so, I am surrounded by Hope, and the blessings of Mother Earth. I count my blessings every day.
Happy Easter to everyone on this beautiful, little blue-green jewel of a planet, this sacred gift. We are all one family in truth and spirit.
Last night on my way home I stopped by Singing Sands to give thanks.
If you believe you are a Child of the Earth then you know you cannot hide from anything.
You are one with your creator – Mother Earth.
You are joined to Mother Earth with every step and action you take .
From the air you breath to the food you eat that comes from her womb.
To the ground you walk on and build your life on.
To the sun that heals and warms you.
The water that sustains you and all life.
I say Miigwetch. Chi Migwetch
Yvette Roberts – Guest author/contributor
Photos by Yvette
Singing Sands beach, in the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, is on the shores of Lake Huron in the Bruce Peninsula National Park. It is known for its fragile sand dunes, rare flowers, boardwalk and hiking trails. It is one of Mother Nature’s most precious creations.
On my morning walk at sunrise I noticed a few well-placed clouds and the sun had combined to offer this momentary gentle, and to my eye, lovely image. And as I happened to have my camera in my pocket, I accepted the offer, thanked them both, and now share it with others; with the thought added, that one never knows what wonders the next moment will bring into your life. Believe that, and you will always have hope in your heart.
My shattered touchstone, the sun rising in the background: a different ‘way of being.’
The Niagara Escarpment landscape here at Hope Ness and in the Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park nature reserve has many natural features well worth appreciating and protecting. I am fortunate to live, literally, in the midst of it. Among that wonderful diversity of features are numerous moss-covered rocks left here thousands of years ago when the vast ice-age glaciers began to melt and recede. At dusk, their moss blanket takes on a luminous glow that I find spell-binding. As I walk the Bruce Trail in the woods near my home, I always stop beside beside one large rock and marvel at the little garden of flowers and other small plants at its top that somehow survive the cold winters.
“There’s life in that rock,” I have said, stopping there for a while, imagining the stories it could tell of its creation, and, yes, the spirits within.
There is another rock, though, that is perhaps more special. I call it ‘my touchstone.’ If that sounds like I’ve somehow taken possession of it, I guess that’s true in some sense. When Buddy, my beautiful canine, German Shepherd came to live with me, and then a short time later, Sophie the mischievous Cockapoo, we three started walking north down Cathedral Drive. There was one of those moss-covered rocks standing alone beside the road, and partially hidden by wild raspberries bushes, tiny maple and ash saplings. The little trees never got bigger because the municipal plows, mowers, and those infernal machines that whip the young tree growth to an ugly death, wouldn’t allow it.
I suppose too the machinery sometime gets damaged because the rock is easily overlooked during the growing season, or covered with snow in winter. I get it; and to that extent, I understand.
Still, I was surprised and shocked to discover last Friday morning about 9:30 my touchstone had been demolished.
With few exceptions, my dogs and I have walked down Cathedral Drive every morning after breakfast for five years, or thereabouts, to the touchstone. Usually it’s just as the sun is rising over the woods to the east. Between the road and those woods, a former farm field that hasn’t been worked for a long time is filling up with wild apple trees as the field is left to revegetate naturally. When we reach the rock I put my right hand on its moss blanket. My left hand holds Sophie’s leash. Buddy stays close by. Often, especially when someone in my family was not well or for other reasons needed spiritual help, or I was myself feeling not so good, I pray; usually the Lord’s Prayer – because that’s what I grew up with, and I’m a creature of habit – with some additional words.
The road, Cathedral Drive, Hope Ness
Sometimes, I let the rock inspire my spiritual imagination; or should I say, ‘horizons;’ because we are, above all, spiritual beings, and it is no small matter to go there and grow. Our spiritual journey is the most important one we will ever take. So, an extended opening of unknowable depth near where the rock met the earth, became a portal to the Cosmos, and beyond that, the Great Mystery, which is what I call God in my open-minded way.
And then suddenly at 9:30 am Friday morning, there it was: in a few minutes at best broken into pieces large and small, each exposed and strangely raw and white in the morning light, except for the one partially covered by what was left of the moss blanket. Further along Cathedral Drive other rocks that must have been causing problems for municipal equipment were also broken up.
“So, this is what a rock looks like when it dies,” I think just now, as I write this and look at the photos I took this morning. But, on second thought, I don’t think so. It has taken on a different way of being, as I will when my time comes. And that gives me much consolation.
This morning, Saturday, November, 4, 2023, the dogs and I took our morning walk as usual. I note the date here because, after all, that rock was millions of years old, and it only seemed right. Buddy, off leash, was the first to reach the site. I could see he was surprised, as he carefully explored the ground where the rock had been, and then the pieces, large and small, before he looked back at me as I approached.
So, there it is; but I will continue to go to the place, pay homage to what remains, and quietly say the words I need to say.
How long is a moment? I think the assumption has been that it’s not very long at all, a brief and passing thing that comes and goes in little more than the blinking of an eye; and if you want to make the most of it you better seize it while you can.
The problem with that, first of all, is there are moments; and then there are moments. The one is a ‘thing,’ a rather uncertain way to describe a measure of time, as in “give me a moment.” The other is a ‘thou,’ a special, even wonderful experience that when appreciated to the fullest extent possible is timeless.
I knew a man years ago who understood that perfectly. His name was Dan. I believe I’ve mentioned him before in this blog, a not very big man physically, but wise in the ways of the world and humanity. That summer of 1962, my friends and I were a group of usually five or six young men, just finished our first year of post-secondary education. We would drive downtown from our suburban Toronto homes every Saturday evening. We soon found a special place in the old, downtown ‘village’ to drink expresso coffee and talk about weighty matters. I’m not sure how it happened – maybe he was sitting at a nearby table and was amused and interested by our discussion one evening and couldn’t resist leaning over with a comment – but, in any event, Dan became a regular at our table, and in fact was often the focal point. Not that he was that talkative, or trying to be the center of attention; on the contrary he would sit and listen, until inevitably we would here him say, “boys, I tell you something,” in his unusual European accent.
At some point Dan told us he was originally from Luxembourg, a small country surrounded by France, Belgium and Germany. But, really, he was a ‘man of the world’ who had travelled much and done many things, though he didn’t talk much about them. However, one time he happened to mention he had been a talent agent in Los Angeles and that one of his clients was the well-known, Hollywood star, Tony Curtis. In Toronto at the time he had a travel agency. We came to believe there was more to it than travel, though again, he didn’t say anything more. What Dan’s academic credentials were, if any, he never said, but clearly he was a philosopher. Without any doubt he was the best, the most profound philosopher I’ve ever met; and yet he spoke in a way that was remarkably clear and understandable, while at the same time powerful and inspiring. Many’s the time I was high on inspiration as I walked the many blocks home to my garrett room in a rooming house near Cabbagetown.
But I digress. I guess I got into ‘the moment’ there, reminiscing about Dan when I set out to recall one of those times when he would lean forward a little (our signal to listen) and say, “Boys, I tell you something.”
And, this one time, that was followed by, “the man who invented time was a fool.”
“Hah!” my old friend Roger exclaimed. He got it right away, while the rest of us didn’t, not even Bill, who would go on to become one of Canada’s most prestigious academics. Around about the same time, I was reading a book of Zen Bhuddist stories. One stands out in memory, about a man walking alone in nature when he suddenly discovers he is being stalked by a tiger. He tries to run away but of course the tiger is getting closer. The man comes to the edge of a cliff, so high that there would be no hope of survival if he jumps. He notices a bush growing out of the side of the cliff not very far down. He jumps down and desperately grabs hold of the bush, which soon begins to pull out by the roots. He looks back up to the cliff edge. The tiger is there now, snarling hungrily down at him. The man notices berries are growing on the bush as it tears away from the cliff. As he is falling to his death, the bush still in his hands, the man picks and eats some of the berries. He is amazed how wonderful they taste.
That story has stayed with me all those years; but I confess, even so, I didn’t really understand it, not until some years ago when I told it to an angel-woman I had just met. “Well, of course, it’s about living in the moment,” she said, rather dismissively, I thought, my precious little ego bruised.
By then, and still now, ‘living in the moment’ had become a byword for how to live one’s life. I confess, again, only in recent years have I really understood the vital truth of the expression, though I give myself some credit for intuitively sensing it. As my old friend Roger once said after he struggled through a personal, existential crisis, “One of the hardest things for a man to accept is his own limitations.” So true too, Roger, wherever you are.
But trust me, my children, and anyone else who might need to know, you don’t have to be the brightest star in the heavens, nor is it ever too late to understand the big stuff, like living in the moment or becoming the person you really are. I thank goodness, and count my blessing, that I’ve lived long enough to know both of those things finally. Coming to an understanding of living in the moment is mostly a function of the spirit, and becoming who you really are by embracing the child within is the key that helps unlock that door.
These thoughts arose from the morning walk with the dogs after a fresh snowfall. I had found myself falling into that old trap of thinking of a Canadian winter as something to be endured. I saw another dark, snow-squall cloud coming off nearby Lake Huron; but still, blue skies breaking through, and my dogs burying their noses into the snow and savouring fresh scents left overnight by various creatures. Their excitement put me to shame, for not embracing ‘winter as moment.’
It must also be said that for many people winter is surely something to be endured, on top of the tragedy they’re already suffering. The people of Ukraine come readily to mind, as Putin’s Russia seeks to destroy essential infrastructure and make winter unbearable for them. Meanwhile, there are people not that far away in Canada who are cold and homeless this winter. Those are also examples of ‘winter as moment,’ but in the worst sense of the expression.
That last profoundly mysterious verse from Robert Frost’ great poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, came to mind as I walked the dogs down Cathedral Drive just after sunset.
Great poems come in different ways: in some the wording is complex, thoughtful, and for some readers, obscure to a degree or more regarding the meaning. In others, like Stopping by Woods, the wording is simple and straightforward, while seeming to be perfectly well-chosen. It’s as if the poet doesn’t want the words – too many, and too heavy – to get in the way. I think it’s true to say a great poem often essentially writes itself. The words come on a wave of inspiration, and the poet has a sense they are merely the vessel through which the words flow. The same goes with great music. Still, there may be skillful work to do, to carefully polish the gem without ruining it. Stopping by Woods is that kind of great poem, and a miracle of words because so much of what it says is without words.
Robert Frost
The opening line, for example, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” I go back to that time and time again, as I did this evening, knowing full well what it’s about in my heart and soul, after almost 80 years of life on this little jewel of a planet: so wonderful, so troubled, so joyful, yet so terribly heartbreaking and too often hard to bear.
We all grow weary, do we not? It is the tragic sense of life, my children, my friends, my fellow member of the human family. We all share it, one way or another, and we all have our own way of dealing with it, or not.
So yes, no doubt there is a tree, under which a man could lay down and find some rest, snow and cold or not. Yes, it is a “consummation devoutly to be wished,” to quote Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy. Now there’s a poet, Shakespeare, who knew a thing or two about ‘the tragic sense of life’ and all the bittersweet rest of it, to be sure.
In Stopping by Woods, Frost finally speaks of having “promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.” His repetition of that last line is the most perfect expression of the mood, the fate we all share, the need after all to “keep on keeping on,” as many of us often say in our plain-speaking way.
What I saw that helped me feel hopeful about keeping on, and hopeful for what tomorrow might bring for the world in general, was the line of setting-sun light on the horizon, beyond the woods, below the clouds.
I took it as a sign. One never knows what the next moment will bring, something good, something wonderful, a new day in every sense of those two, simple words.
The historic Great Hall of Toronto’s Union Station
“Keep your heart and mind open to the possibility of wonder: you never know what the next moment will bring.”
Recently, I have found myself saying that often, especially when someone I know, or have just met, talks about a personal struggle they’re experiencing to the point of despair, or how much they’re troubled about the terrible state of the world.
The wonder that might be seen, heard, or thought in the next moment may not save the world. It may be a relatively small thing in the broader personal or global context; but if it lifts your spirits to suddenly see the rising sun shining bravely through a small break in dark clouds, that is also wonderful. Let it lift and embrace you, and give you hope. “Anything is possible,” I often end up saying.
I took that attitude to heart myself just over a week ago when I ran into trouble trying to get to Kingston via Toronto to visit my daughter at her horse farm in rural, eastern Ontario.
I had it all worked out. At least I thought so; except what’s the point of having a plan if you don’t write it down and pay attention to it?
So, instead arriving at Guelph Central Station in time to catch a 12:55 pm GO bus to Union Station in Toronto, that bus had already left. I assured my good friend and son-in-law Ryan not to worry, and to head back north. I still had four hours to get to Union Station, even if I had to take another GO bus to Square One, in Mississauga, and then transfer to yet another one.
Fortunately, as it turned out, I took a seat near the driver, after he showed me how to scan my Visa card on a thingy near the door. Other people boarding the bus, most if not all of them, had something called a ‘Presto’ card to scan, as if they’ve done it every day, twice a day or more, for years, which they no doubt have. I, on the other hand, haven’t used public transit in the Toronto area since the virtual, technical Stone Age.
The Queen Street W. streetcar, circa 1950s
Yes, my children, I am old enough and far enough removed from those days to remember when a child could board the Queen Street West streetcar and drop a nickel into the fare box for a trip downtown. And then when the Yonge Street subway, Toronto’s first, was built and running in 1954, I could put a quarter into a fare box at a glass booth watched over by an actual person at every station.
So, to put it mildly, I was feeling my age, and like a stranger from the boondocks, though Toronto is my hometown (with a couple of breaks to live for a few years on southern Ontario farms). But it has been 42 years since I moved up to the Bruce (Saugeen) Peninsula, and I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of times I’ve been back. And that’s when I was still driving.
But then on the troubled trip some wonderful things started to happen, and this is the real subject of this story: the kindness of strangers who helped me on my way.
When the second driver gone on the bus to await his turn to take over the wheel at a stop before Square One, the first driver brought him over to where I was sitting and explained that I was trying to get to Union Station to catch a Via Rail train leaving there at 5:32 pm. The second driver nodded his head as he looked at me with an expression that told me he would do what he could to help me get there on time. And he did indeed, or perhaps I should say, he tried his best.
He was driving the bus when it reached Square One. I was the last person to get up to leave when he told me I’d be better off to stay on the bus as he drove it south into Toronto to the Kipling bus terminal where it was to be parked for the night. There, he said, I would be able to get on a Bloor Street subway train, which would take me to the Yonge Street subway; and then I could take a southbound train to Union Station. My experience years ago on the subway told me he was right. It was my best hope to get to Union Station quickly by avoiding surface traffic.
I thanked him for his help and checked the time. I had less than 45 minutes to get on the train to Kingston. “Be sure you get off at the St. George stop, and go south on the Yonge Street subway,” he said helpfully. I nodded my head and reassured him I understood.
I want to say something here for a moment. I don’t routinely identify people by their ethnicity. I believe there is one human family of many nations, and I don’t think that’s a contradiction. I am proud of Canada’s multicultural, welcoming diversity. I want to make a point of saying both these drivers appeared to be of an east Indian nationality, likely either immigrants to Canada or first-generation; and they are my friends now even though I only met them once and may never meet them again.
I missed my train by five minutes; but that’s my fault: with their help I almost made it.
I maybe could have stayed overnight somewhere in Toronto and taken a train to Kingston early the next morning. But my daughter Susan, who I was going to visit, wouldn’t hear of it. If I could take a GO train as far east as possible, to Whitby or Oshawa, she would drive there from her farm north of Kingston and pick me up.
With help from a security guard at Union Station, I quickly found the GO Rail area. I approached a woman identified as a GO employee, there to help folks like me. She helped me use my Visa card to buy a ticket to Oshawa, then walked with me to the platform where that train would soon be arriving. She was genuinely kind and helpful and wished me well.
It was late when my daughter and I reached her beautiful farm-home where I spent a lovely week. The trip there did not go as smoothly as I had hoped; and yet I have nothing but good thoughts about it as I think about the kindness of the good people who helped me.
Pepper, sweet mare.
I also think about the woman and her husband on the GO bus who were on their way to Pearson Airport and with whom I had a pleasant conversation. Turns out they had recently been guests at a friend’s cottage on the peninsula, and they were also avid gardeners.
It’s still there in my list of favorite movies; right up there with Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath and The Passion of Joan of Arc; Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon; Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring; Tennessee Williams/Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire; Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront; Grigory Chukray’s Ballad of a Soldier; and most recently Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent.
Although the original film version of The Poseidon Adventure, was the top-grossing movie of 1973, most reviewers didn’t regard it as anything that special: just an above average example of the then-popular disaster-movie genre with an exceptional cast. They included previous Academy Award Oscar winners Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, and Red Buttons. It was nominated for eight Oscars, winning two second-tier awards, one for Best Original Song, ‘The Morning After,’ the other for Special Effects. Hackman won the British Academy Film award for Best Actor in a Starring Role, and Winters won the Globe aware for Best Supporting Actress. Summarizing 25 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes gives The Poseidon Adventure a modestly good score of 6.94 out of 10.
I’m not even going to go there, other than to say 20th Century Fox, the producers, and director Ronald Neame could have done a better job of first realizing, and then focusing more on what I regard as the story’s powerful, allegorical message of hope.
Based on a 1969 novel by Paul William Gallico, I can only suspect “adventure” was added to the book and movie title to attract a mass audience. Fair enough, especially if, as a result more people get the message consciously or subconsciously; and remember it now meaningfully, as I do, in a world turned upside-down.
Here in a nutshell is what The Poseidon Adventure is about: The Poseidon is an aging ocean liner on its last voyage before heading to the scrap yard. It is New Year’s Eve, and the clock is about to strike Midnight. There has been an earthquake deep in the waters of the Mediterranean Ocean. A huge Tsunami wave strikes the ship, causing it to capsize. Sensational scenes of chaos and death ensue in the great banquet hall where New Year’s celebrations are in full swing when the everything is suddenly turned upside down. There appears to be no way out as explosions rock the ship, leaving only a small portion of the hull above water. However, learning from another passenger that the thinnest part of the hull is at the propeller shaft beyond the engine room, Reverend Frank Scott instinctively sees hope. He begins to urge people around him not to give up and soon has a small group willing to join him in a journey through the bowels of the stricken ship. He calls on others to join his little group and climb a tall Christmas Tree raised up to a door in the now upside-down banquet hall. Most survivors gather around the ship’s purser, the officer in charge of money and material needs. Others try to climb the tree after all, but under the weight of too many people, and with the explosions continuing, the tree falls.
Rev. Scott, played by Hackman, and his group begin their journey. They include a Jewish couple from New York on their way to Israel to see their newborn grandson; a police detective and his wife, a former prostitute who he loves dearly; the ships singer; a young brother and sister going to meet their parents on holiday in Greece; and a mild-mannered, life-long bachelor obsessed about his physical health.
With Rev. Scott’s help and advise they overcome many obstacles. At one point, he gets into trouble swimming underwater in a flooded area to find the best way forward. He is saved by the middle-aged Jewish woman, played by Winters, who just happens to have been a competitive swimmer. But as a result, she has a heart attack and dies.
They come upon an area where the way forward seems impossible. Down below is a deep chasm of burning oil. Before them, just out of reach, is a valve spewing burning-hot steam. The detective’s beloved wife slips and falls to her death. The broken-hearted detective, played by Borgnine, angrily blames Rev. Scott. He in turn vents his anger at God.
“How many more sacrifices? How much more blood? How many lives?” the admittedly unorthodox minister asks God. “You want another life? Take me,” he cries, before jumping over the burning chasm to grab hold of the burning-hot valve.
Gradually, slowly, with painful effort he turns the valve off. But his strength is fading.
“You can make it,” he calls out to the survivors of his group. “Keep going,” he says.
He turns to the detective, still grieving the loss of his beloved wife. “Get them through,” Rev. Scott says, falling to his death
And so the detective does, until they finally reach the point where the propeller shaft goes through the thinnest part of the hull; but they have no tools. What can they do? They hear a sound outside, the roar of a helicopter engine, and boots walking above them. They begin to bang on the hull. Those above hear it. Soon, an acetylene torch is cutting through the metal. A hole big enough for people to get through is opened. Hands reach down to pull them up.
Then we see the helicopter taking off again into the sky with the only survivors of the Poseidon aboard.
That’s hardly a ‘nutshell,’ I guess.
So be it. Just as well: it doesn’t leave much room for too many words of discussion, analysis, and argument about the meaning of it all. Some might say there is none; others of a certain evangelical religious bent might see a transcendental message, the helicopter being a metaphor for the long-awaited fulfillment of ‘end time’ prophecies
If he were alive today, I might ask Paul Gallico what meaning he meant; but from what I’ve read about him I have a hunch the very prolific author/journalist would laugh uproariously.
I won’t judge or question. I will only I say what I still see: a message of profound hope: hope for life, and for those who weep and struggle in these seemingly hopeless times to keep up their spirits, but who ultimately renew their love and their faith in life, and do not give up.
Finding Hope Ness 