Syzygy

Sometimes a name is everything. Syzygy certainly comes close.

My boat was without one. It was new to me. Living on a boat was new to me. In fact, the entire direction of my life was new. It was time to put together a good boat, bring it up to shape, and spend a time living according to tide, current, wind, and weather.

The question of a boat name sat with me for a long time, until one day when I was researching tides and came across the word 'syzygy.' In astronomy, syzygy is the alignment of three heavenly bodies. We get our highest tides at times of syzygy, when the earth, moon, and sun are in alignment.

But a quick Google of 'syzygy' turns up more meanings than I ever would have imagined.

In Gnostic Christianity and and Jungian psychology syzygy means a matched pair of male and female archetypes.

In biology, syzygy has several meanings including the end to end alignment of protozoa.

The word has meanings in mathematics, poetry, and philosophy, and probably more that I don't know yet.

Wikipedia is a good start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy

But here, Syzygy is a sailboat headed for the Northwest coast of Canada, a Carl Alberg designed Cape Dory 28.

And Syzygy is the alignment of the stars which brought me together with Jiayu to take this journey.

(翻譯）

有時候名稱代表一切。Syzygy這個字尤是如此。

我的船原本沒有名字。對我，她是個新的體驗。住在船上也是新的體驗。事實上，我人生方向的改變也是新的體驗。當時似乎是個好時機去找一艘好船、將她整理好、花些時間依據潮水、洋流、風和天氣生活。

幫我的船找個名字一直縈繞我心。直到有一天我在閱讀潮流資料時，"syzygy”這個字出現眼前。在天文學上，syzygy是指三個星球連成一線。在syzygy(朔望)的時候有大潮，也就是當地球、月球與太陽連成一線時。

但是當我在google快速搜尋syzygy時，我發現到更多令我無法想像的意義。

在諾斯替（Gnostic）基督教派與榮格心理學，syzygy代表相配的陰、陽原型。

在生物學上，syzygy有數個意義，其中之一是單一細胞與細胞之間的連結。

這個字在數學、詩、哲學上都有其專屬意義，或許還有更多我所不知的意義。

維基百科是個很好的尋找起點：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy

但是在這裡，Syzygy是一艘即將航向加拿大西北海岸的小船，由Carl Alberg設計的Cape Dory 28。

並且，Syzygy也因著星球奇妙的排列，帶著Jiayu和我開始這個旅程。