Boating In The

Territory

  by Bonzai Yak

  112 pages

Chapter 3: Territory Maps (part b)

 

Territory maps are something rare, they're maps without attachments. They're not the same as the everyday kind, but still even so, you should stay inclined to handle them gingerly. The Territory has a more fluid shape than the everyday world that we see everyday. It's the emptiness that gives rise to the form, so the form it informs is constantly changing. What you put down on your Territory map will not always stay the same. But it will probably call attention to a place where the Territory has a tendency to give rise to some active form.

Here's an example, take that first small Territory map you made of the park where you practice. Maybe the first time you sailed there you used a big field in the middle of the bay. But next time out when you arrive there's a whole lot of guys with caps and gloves and a baseball game is going on in the everyday world. The bay isn't all that placid this time, how can you sail your boat in left field where hail the size of baseballs fall from the sky overhead? You can, I have, it was lots of fun; the game and the sailboat were easily one and all of us playing there liked it a lot. We didn't stay long, we were just boating through and the path that we sailed was right in tune with the shape of the game that the baseball guys played.

Now don't get me wrong. It makes no sense to go out looking for difficult places to sail your boat through. You don't take a rowboat out in a gale. And if you see another ship sailing by the last thing you do is to ram it broadside. See, a baseball game is just another way for those everyday guys to sail. It's like their boat in an unconscious way, so why try to sink them, it'll just sink you. Better to see the Territory that gives rise to the game that they play. A baseball game in the middle of a bay is a form of weather I'd say. Choppy seas with a mast bending wind, you can sail right through if you really want to, but you have to do it differently than you would when the day is calm. Depends on your crew and the state of your boat, you'll have to reef sail to stay afloat. But if you see the emptiness that gives rise to the form of the game going on, you can sail right through it anyway if you use some tact and stay on the right tack.

And that's just exactly the thing to do when you boat in the Territory. The point is to use whatever is there whenever wherever you are. The everyday world that we see everyday can't ever intrude if you see what is there in the Territory and change what you're doing to suit. In the case of the bay in the park where you go with your crew to practice, the second time through you found something new was going on. Go back to the Territory map that you made and make a notation out in the bay - "Hard to sail when the wind blows high" or maybe just a symbol or two for waves and wind. Could change the name of the place as well. Call it Nine Man Bay or Spitball Spit. The whole event you found that day could become a Territory story. Maybe whenever the tide is low, ghouls come out for a game of ghoulball that's played with bones instead of bats and a skull instead of a ball.

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