A welcome parentheses

An elusive Borges poem greets you at the main entrance, and then, wall-to-wall windows draw in the profundity of the sea.

You step in, hesitantly, lured into the spaces that exist between human words. Whispers navigate sturdy silences as visitors drift between displays. You listen to the haunting language of whales; wander through exhibits that straddle the wavering border that separates air from water.

There is a flurry of the transcendent here, in this place called, succinctly, Ecocenter.

Perched over the plunging cliffs of the Valdes Peninsula, in Argentina, this marine learning center has the feel of a Buddhist temple and the spacious levity of a modern art museum. Its reverent white walls hold histories not of painters or sculptors but of whales and seals and other beings of the sea. Ample wooden decks reach out into the ocean in a final attempt to merge with the ocean.

During six glorious months of the year, schools of Southern Right Whales swim past these coasts during their yearly breeding migrations. Century after century, the whales follow the same route for reasons only just gleaned by man. The knowledge of this migration is carried on within their bodies over generations. We, humans, flock in thousands from all of the world, to see them pass by, content to just catch a glimpse of the mystery, one which we will never fully comprehend.

Amid the tourist frenzy, this building stands as an emblem of the mystic and serene. We walk in tranquility here. Windows of all shapes draw in the profundity of the sea.

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The Sea (El Mar) by Jorge Luis Borges

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Before dream (or terror) wove
Mythologies and cosmogonies.
Before time was coined into days.
The sea. The ever sea, existed and was there.
Who is the sea? Who is that violent
And ancient being that gnawed the pillars
Of the earth and is one and many seas
And abyss and brilliance and fate and wind?
Whoso watches, sees it for first time.
Always with the amazement that the
Elemental things leave behind. The beautiful
Afternoons. The moon. The blaze of a bonfire.
Who is the sea, who am I? I will know the day
Beyond that follows agony.

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(My translation.)

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For more info on the Ecocentro, go to: http://www.ecocentro.org.ar.