Pills, Potions And Piety

The Guardian

The remnants of Gonzalo landed on these shores last night and today. It had long blown out its destructive fury across the other side of the world and the gales and rain storms it brought our way were unpleasant but not deadly, although a woman was killed when a tree fell on her.

Sitting in the conservatory this morning,  looking out at the high winds playing with trees and shrubs and listening to small twigs, beech mast and leaves cluttering on the glass roof, I felt snug and warm and safe. Breakfast over, but the day not fully begun I was counting out pills and capsules - all supplementary vitamins, minerals, fish oils, plant sterols, glucosamine and chondroitin, etc. etc. for the next twenty days, thinking how soon daylight will end at four pm again and I will once again struggle to cope with SAD.

It’s my name day today, Oct 21. I don’t celebrate it as I would in Germany, in fact, I usually forget it. Ursula was adopted as a Christian saint and a great embroidery of innocence, piety and sacrifice was stitched around her in a long, involved and frequently changing legend, (depending on who is telling the story).

A more interesting story can be read in a 6000 year old script, 'Old Europe Script’,  symbols invented by ancestors of the Celts,  seen by some as the earliest proto-language. which refers to the ‘Bear Goddess’ : The Bear Goddess and the Bird Goddess are the Bear Goddess indeed. It could mean that the bear goddess and bird goddess merged into a single goddess.  Some archaeologists have claimed that the bear is the oldest European deity. I like this historically equally unproven story better than the legend of the holy maiden who was martyred for her piety.

Looking into the Perpetual Almanack for inspiration I found this short entry for Oct 22:

**By Tradition, the anniversary of Creation:

“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. Which beginning of time, according to our Chronology, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October, in the year 4004 before Christ.”

James Ussher  -  The Annals of the World 1658**


I thought that William Blake’s work “Europe a Prophecy"
The Ancient of Days, copy K from the Fitzwilliam Museum, would be a fitting end to Ussher’s pronouncement and to this rather cobbled together blog post.

It’s been one of those days.

A Friend

Many of you praise the friends you have and how you would find life without them much less rewarding. You speak of the support they give, how they help out when there is need, how you enjoy each other’s company, the hours you spend together for no particular reason, just being friends.

I always say I have acquaintances, not friends. Being able to make friends seems to elude me, it’s not one of my, admittedly few, talents. It doesn’t occur to me that anyone would want to seek my company, although I am quite reasonably polite and not altogether socially inept. Just not madly forthcoming.

And yet, to my surprise, there are people here in Valley’s End who want to spend time with me, just like that. Not for any ulterior motive. Even an intolerant old grouch like me finds that gratifying. There was an Open Studio event the other day; a dozen or so of the many artists living here opened their doors to give the rest of us an idea of how they work (and perhaps sell a few pieces). Not only did somebody suggest we accompany each other on these visits, but I was also greeted by a few people I hadn’t seen socially for some time with warmth and pleasure. All most encouraging. Thank you.

o-o-o-o

My mac is going to a nice man  for a little bit of care and attention tomorrow morning. Some gremlin has moved in who greets me with a stupid ditty of “this is what you want, this is what you get” when I go online and he needs to be evicted before he does further damage, or invades other computers. I hope all will be well again soon.

Who Cares

except me,

that the grass in the lower field, where Millie and I walk daily, is finally being cut and I can actually see her again  rather than just follow a movement in the grass,

and that a nice farmer is turning the rows to dry them prior to baling the hay, all out of the kindness of his heart - I really can’t see the Duke of Norfolk, who owns the land, paying to have it cut - and for the sake of the village carnival at the beginning of August,

and that the garden is a perfect wilderness and my despair, but that Paul is back and is hard at work cutting hedges and trimming shrubs and that he and I are planning to dig up lots of herbaceous plants this autumn and replace them with shrubs to lighten the load for future years,

and that after a very hot period today was actually made quite pleasant by the addition of a few clouds but that a heatwave (i.e. nasty and sticky weather with thunderstorms) is forecast for the weekend, and that that means that I will once again have to disappear from view and hide behind a book and a tall, cool drink,

and that I’ve been to a vernissage and bought a couple of water colours for which I have yet to find the most suitable space in the house,

and that WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS,

Image Source: Sticky Wallpapers

although, come to think of it, there may well be a few million other people who do care about the latter. I sat up half the night watching the celebrations on German TV, wishing myself to be part of it. And I’m not even a football fan. (I lost a follower the night of Germany v. Brazil;  if you are a Brazilian, I am sorry; 7-1, what on Earth happened?)

It’s been too hot to blog, there’s been Wimbledon, the Football (soccer for you in the US) World Cup, some theatre, an informal party or three, a bit of gardening in early morning and late evening and not a lot else.  Nothing to blog about. I wouldn’t want to admit to reading rubbishy thrillers and very light-weight novels for hours on end, so I won’t mention doing that. Absolutely nothing to blog about.

After all, who cares about other people's boring recital of the banal doings of their daily grind. Just pretend you hadn’t read any of this. Sorry to have been wasting your time.

Mother’s Day

It’s Mother’s Day in some parts of the world, including Germany. More than a decade-and-a-half since my mother’s death I am still working on our relationship. All I can say with any certainty, is that I am beginning to understand her. Perhaps understanding will eventually become acceptance and forgiveness for both of us. 

My post today is not about me; it is about an artist friend living in Valley’s End, Russell G. Morris, who lost his mother after a long illness. This is what he says:

“During the four years that my mother was hospitalised I kept a visual diary, making one or two drawings per visit. This became a way for me to remain engaged and attentive once my own conversation was exhausted. Mum had ceased to speak long before she was admitted to hospital and communication was only made possible by her tapping on my free hand whilst I watched, waited or drew.

Each day I simply made a record of the time spent between us - and whether a drawing was good or bad seemed irrelevant, because they were done just for us. Mum was happy to be the object of my attention, although there were obviously times when enough was enough, and then silent regard remained between us.”

Although the drawings were “done just for us “,  Russell was persuaded to exhibit them. I took photographs of several in the series, and have chosen to publish four of them here, starting with the earliest one and progressing to the last one of Russell’s mum's final day.

Russell is not only a painter, he is also a poet.
These are three poems he wrote after his mother’s death.


For a time of lasts

Your last breath
your unexpected tear
the making of my last drawing
and then with your eyes closed and arms folded
I leave a few coins tucked inside your evening bag
for the crossing over
before the last kiss
of a particular coldness

Invitation

At least for tea,

would you come?

I’d meant to ask sooner

before you left.

I have your good china

the best set washed

and the silver pot for Sundays.

I’ve kept all of that

in case you might find a way

to set endlessness aside for a moment.

Lifeline : A Drawing

It’s the way you were left,

with one hand clenched

in a fierce and pitiful claw,

your anchor, 

blood-slow, cursed

and hooked fast between a dead sea of pins.

Whilst the other turns to tapping morse against my palm

a code I’ve come to understand and translate line to line.

For each visit a fresh page

where my first few lines float upon the surface,

until you appear

to be mostly watching me

struggle to watch

as you endure

a few more hours of my desperation.

R. Morris

1st April 2013

Curiosities

Wordless Wednesday

For other participants look here

There’s No Need For Guns,

Shakespeare manages to kill off almost the entire cast of  Titus Andronicus without a single shot being fired.

In this play we have it all: war, murder, dismemberment, rape, stabbing, back stabbing, deceit, mutilation, conspiracy, feigned madness and cannibalism and, above all, bloody revenge. Tarantino couldn’t have done worse. Whereas I wouldn’t dream of going to a film where violence is the main ingredient, Shakespeare is different. There’s the beauty of the language, of course, and then, somehow, the violence makes sense. There’s a harsh but elegant symmetry to the action, in spite of the relentless slaughter. My sons are killed, I will sacrifice your eldest to appease the gods. Your sons have violated and dismembered my daughter, yours will suffer death at her and my hands. Well, stumps in her case, because it was her hands that the rapists chopped off.

Production Photo

Stephen Boxer as Titus and Rose Reynolds as Lavinia

“The play is set simultaneously in timeless myth, imperial Rome and Shakespeare’s own Europe. It should be read as a compendium of two thousand years of warfare and violence.”  (programme notes)

“Ever since the time of ancient Greek tragedy, western culture has been haunted by the figure of the revenger. He or she stands on a whole series of borderlines between civilisation and barbarity.” (programme notes)

There were moments of horror so great that I gasped with shock; in a film I would have hidden my face in my arms, yet I never once looked away during the play. Not when Alarbus was executed, or when Lavinia was raped and mutilated; when Titus allowed Aaron to cut off one of his hands in return for the  lives of his sons, only to find that they had already been murdered. Or when Lavinia helped her father  butcher Tamora’s sons. 

And yet there were moments of grim humour too, when an unforced laugh burst out of me and everyone else in the audience, proof that we were all wholly engrossed in and captivated by the performance.

Production Photo

Katy Stephens as Tamora with members of the cast

Several times I wanted to shout out loud: when Marcus, the Tribune, comes upon his niece Lavinia after Chiron and Demetrius have finished with her and instead of comforting her or at least falling into a stunned silence, he delivers a long, dissonant, stomach-churning speech.  Or when the lifeless bodies of Alarbus, Chiron and Demetrius are hauled up to the ceiling high above the stage very slowly, hanging upside down by their feet. In the first instance I could only just manage to stop myself from advising Markus to shut up and get an ambulance and, in the latter, I wanted to urge the stagehands to get a move on and get the actors up before they died from too much blood on the brain.

All four of us came out of the theatre speechless to begin with. And then, with one accord, we exhaled deeply and fell into raptures over the performance. None of us had seen the play performed before. Beloved, who is usually rather subdued in his praise, said “That’s what I call a play!"

Synopsis of Titus Andronicus

Believed to be Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy Titus Andronicus is famed for its scene of cannibalism, when a mother unwittingly eats her own children, baked into a pie.

Titus, Rome’s most honoured general, returns from a brutal 10 year war  against the Goths with their queen, Tamora, her sons and her lover, Aaron the Moor, as captives. Her eldest son is sacrificed by Titus in revenge for his own sons, lost during the war. Tamora vows revenge.

The brothers Saturninus  and Bassianus are in contention for the Roman emperorship.

On his return, Titus is nominated emperor by his brother Marcus, one of Rome’s tribunes. Titus declines, instead nominating Saturninus. To seal the bond of friendship, the new emperor, Saturninus, offers to marry Titus’s daughter, Lavinia. But she is already secretly pledged to marry Bassianus, Saturninus’ rival for the crown of Rome. Saturninus, by now infatuated with Tamora, the queen of the Goths, makes her his empress instead.

Manipulated by Aaron, Tamora's sons, Chiron and Demetrius, avenge their mother by raping and mutilating Lavinia, and killing Bassianus. Aaron falsely implicates two of Titus's sons in this murder.

In his turn Titus vows revenge and sends his one surviving son Lucius to the Goths to raise an army against Saturninus. With the help of  Lavinia, he achieves his revenge against Tamora by killing her sons. Titus invites Saturninus  and his court to a banquet.  After having strangled his defiled and mutilated daughter Lavinia in an act of mercy, he serves the remains of her sons to Tamora and kills her too.

Ttitus himself is killed by Saturninus and his death is avenged by the returning Lucius, who is made emperor.

St George And The Dragon

St George is the patron saint of England and each year his death is celebrated on this day. John Aubrey of Brief Lives, 1626-1697,  English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer, composed the following ditty on the matter:

To save a Maid, St George the Dragon slew

A pretty tale, if all it told be true

Most say, there are no Dragons and tis said

There was no George, pray God there was a Maid.

St George And The Dragon
Paolo Uccello - 1397-1475

“It happened that George once travelled to the city of Silena in the province of Lybia. Near this town there was a pond as large as a lake where a plague-bearing dragon lurked; and many times the dragon had put the populace to flight when they came out armed against him, for he used to come up to the city walls and poison everyone who came within reach of his breath. To appease the fury of this monster the townspeople fed him two sheep every day; otherwise he would invade their city and a great many would perish. But in time they were running out of sheep and could not get any more, so, having held a council, they paid him tribute of one sheep and one man or woman. The name of a youth or maiden was drawn by lot, and no one was exempt from the draft; but soon almost all the young people had been eaten up. Then one day the lot fell upon the only daughter of the king, and she was seized and set aside for the dragon…when, weeping, he had blessed her, she started toward the lake.” (The Golden Legend)

At which point the gallant St George, who happened to be passing at the time, decided to intervene.  According to Uccello, he is a knight in slightly shining armour with  the face of a very young insurance agent,  holding an inordinately long lance (very useful for dealing with plague-breathing monsters). He goes straight to the root of the problem and spears the halitotic dragon in the back of its foul-smelling throat. Gouts of blood drip on to the rocky ground.  As the beast ducks away,  the remarkably unruffled heroine, not a hair out of place and not a stain on her royal garments after her ordeal,  snares it with her girdle. She holds the dragon as you would hold a dog on its lead, her hand telling the cornered and fatally wounded beast to ‘sit’.

I am not sure what happened afterwards; St George being a hero and a saint, he probably had no time for dalliance, never mind matrimony, and returned the haughty maid unsullied to her father’s protection.


If you want to see what the English poet Ursula A. Fanthorpe had to say about the whole thing, painting as well as tale, take a look at Friko’s Poetry and Pictures. Fanthorpe gives each of the three protagonists ample room to voice their innermost thoughts.

Today - A Meme

Today,

Lorna phoned to cancel our poetry meeting;

I am relieved that I don’t have to go out.

Is this winter never going to accept defeat?

Outside my window 

a scene out of Brueghel, and the leaden sky promises no respite.

Trees bow their crowns before the bitter east wind,

and sleet and snow drive all life to seek shelter.

Even Millie refuses to go out.

I am thinking

of last night’s play, Allan Bennett’s ‘People'

brought to a screen near you by ArtsAlive,

straight from The Lyttleton Theatre in London.

Aston village hall was packed. 

not a soul under fifty.
If it weren’t for people like us,
incomers all,
there would be no art in England’s provinces.


From the kitchen
comes the rumble of the washing machine.
There’ll be a line of laundry
marching hand in hand with poetry.
Otherwise,
all is silence.
Hungry birds came to feed early today.
their busy flights stilled again,
holly hedges and yews their haven from the storm.


I am hoping
stray dogs and rough sleepers
will find a helping hand before nightfall.
That generosity of spirit
will succour those in need.


I am reading
the strange fiction of W.G. Sebald,
the man who described, like no other,
the eternal search of the dispossessed, displaced,
for a place to call home,
a place to belong.
Listen to him,
as he writes about waking up to the sounds of the city
intruding through his hotel room window:
"That then, I thought on such occasions,
is the new ocean. Ceaselessly, in great surges,
the waves roll in over the length and breadth of our cities,
rising higher and higher,
breaking in a kind of frenzy when the roar reaches its peak
 and then discharging across the stones and the asphalt
even as the next onrush is being released from where it was held by the traffic lights.”


I am planning
a simple supper for the two of us.
Some fish perhaps,
a medley of vegetables,
a dish of fruit for dessert.
Elderly stomachs sleep better on light meals.
Perhaps a glass of wine will further aid digestion.


Today
will end in peace and harmony,
if it is up to us.
Music, a book, a poem, a story on a flickering screen,
should there be one to please us both.
And now and then,
a look, a word, a question,
the offer of a cup of tea perhaps.
And as night falls
if we remember it,
we may just breathe a heartfelt sigh of thankfulness.

The lovely Cait O’Connor at her blog of the same name has introduced me to this  meme, she may even have invented it. Cait’s versions are infinitely more lyrical than mine, sheer poetry, but I thought a meme can equally well apply to the humdrum days of lesser mortals, the days when nothing much happens but days which have, nevertheless, a gently poetic rhythm because of their uneventful nature.

Time Drags

Klaus Rinke :
Bahnhofsuhren, Duesseldorf,  Volksgarten, 1987*

How heavy time hangs when you appear to have a lot of it and nothing much to do. Marooned in the house by snow and ice, free to read and write - or as some people might say: do nothing - without let or hindrance, the endless hours of enforced leisure are becoming an irritant. Normally, pleasurable hours of self indulgence are a gift, a time to be treasured. Many of us spend our lives as slaves to clocks,  merciless accountants who drive us on, second by second, taskmasters holding the whip. Who has not wanted to manipulate time, stop it, slow it down or speed it up. We say that time marches on, regardless of our needs. There are many phrases that include ‘time', most of them too clichéd to repeat here, so I won’t. Besides, searching the internet for lists does not fall within this blog’s aim in life. But what to do? What to do? My book has lost its attraction, it’s too dark to watch the birds from the window, I have caught up with telephone and email debts, dinner has been eaten and cleared away, I can’t knit, paint or make music. Only the TV is left as a last resort.

But things are bound to get better, because time heals all, and we must take it one day at a time. And platitudes rule ok!


*The German artist Klaus Rinke ‘planted’ his piece ‘Zeitfeld’ (Time field), of 24 railway station clocks in the Volksgarten, Duesseldorf for the city’s Garden Show,  All clocks show the same time but looking from one to the next, the hands, and therefore time, have already moved on.


PS: Beloved and Millie have just come in after a quick piddle run, it’s snowing again; both of them were bearing a load of white powder on their backs.

Impermanent Art - Our World Tuesday

Our World Tuesday Week 12 took me to the little town of Craven Arms, which calls itself the Gateway to the Shropshire Hills. The Secret Hills  Discovery Centre  takes you 4,500 million years back in time. There are exhibitions and displays and when you've had enough of lectures and a wonderful hot air balloon flight over the awe-inspiring Shropshire Hills in the company of our erstwhile Shropshire Hills neighbour, Pete Postlethwaite, you can refresh yourself with food and drink, all under the same grass-covered roof.

The outdoors isn't bad either; miles of wonderful meadows, hills and marshland, with a river running through, are yours for the price of a sturdy pair of boots and a walking stick. And if you have a dog to come with you, so much the better.

Nearest to the Discovery Centre is a large nature reserve and here artists are encouraged to display sculptures made from natural, mainly found, materials. The exhibits are left for nature to play with and if nature decides that their lifetime has come to a natural end, then so be it.

 Two Fingers Up To Art?

No, a lot of fingers.

A wind harp?

I've heard it play. It clatters rather unmelodiously, but the sounds are interesting.

Better is the play of light and shadow on the wooden planks, as they move in

the wind. 

A fish head in the trees.

A whole tree of fishes.

A colourful arrangement of drum-like shapes.

Perhaps the birds play them when they come for the holly berries.

I don't know what the last two sculptures represent 

but I recognise the dog.

This is one of nature's own sculptures: 

I can see a toad with golden pond algae still clinging to him.

I think this rock will still be here when all the other

exhibits have long withered away.

A Pile Of Bricks

WILLOW'S MAGPIE No. 51

We lie together, huddled in the dust,

as boys and girls and chimney sweepers must.

From such abasement we will never rise,

but in our day we won the Turner Prize.

Equivalent VIII, usually referred to as "The Bricks", is the last and most famous of a series of minimalist sculpture by Carl Andre. Constructed in 1966, it was bought by The Tate Gallery in 1972. The exhibit comprises one-hundred-and-twenty fire bricks, arranged in two layers, in a six-by-ten rectangle. All eight structures in the series have the same height, mass and volume, but different shapes. Thus they are all "equivalent".

When first exhibited at the Tate Gallery at Millbank in 1976, the piece drew much criticism in the press because of the perception that taxpayers' money had been spent on paying an inflated price for a collection of bricks.



Quotation:

"Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers come to dust."


Cymbeline
Shakespeare