MEDITATION 70

‘Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions,’ I think to myself as I sit here beside my candle and begin to write. A New Year’s resolution might be a change of habit, or it might be taking on something new or reviving a good habit that has fallen by the wayside. It is traditionally a time to pull ourselves up short, take stock and see how we can better ourselves in the year ahead. It therefore involves a little reflection: to be resolved about something means that you have thought it through first. It is not some vague plan but a definite course of action. To be resolved also means you have to be determined to carry it out, to see it through (even though that initial determination may eventually dissipate, human nature being what it is!).

Vague courses of action may be all we can manage at present. We have all been living unfocused lives because of the lockdowns and unpredictable (and usually unwanted) changes in our daily routines. Also plans for the future have been necessarily tentative. This lack of focus has been further exacerbated by our greater reliance on our IPhones, the internet and streaming. We are bombarded with choice. We are presented with too many alternatives. So we dissolve into the ‘I might do this or I might do that’ syndrome with the result that we probably end up doing nothing at all!

I am sure that it is possible to find examples of New Year resolutions on Google. Perhaps some people may get their resolutions from there: ‘This one one looks good and suits me. Yes I might do that one. Or should I have a go at the one underneath?” scroll, scroll etc. Perhaps in these desultory times it is good to have a few resolutions or even just one. It might help us to focus, to get a stronger grip on our lives, to plan our day and our leisure time better.

Our dear friend Marcus Aurelius would approve of New Year’s resolutions, I think. As I have said in these pages, his own Meditations were a private document and addressed primarily to himself so they are littered with discreet resolutions of his own. The above paragraphs in this meditation of my own are addressed to myself too, as well as yourself, dear reader, of course!

Marcus was definitely one for being focused as he says in Book 4: ‘No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life.’ This focus derives from a personal urgency: ‘No you do not have thousands of years to live. While you live, while you can, do good.’

Yes we can all resolve to do good in 2022. Or on a more personal and practical level, to be kind to others. In his poem ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey’, William Wordsworth mentions:

‘the best portion of a good man’s life,

His little nameless unremembered acts

Of kindness and of love.’

(My apologies to modern sensitivities: as Wordsworth was composing the poem in 1798, he writes of ‘a good man’s life’ rather than ‘a good person’s.’)

These lines of Wordsworth are quoted in a recent biography of Dickens by A.N. Wilson, ‘The Mystery of Charles Dickens.’ A.N.Wilson makes an excellent attempt to analyse the psychological seeds of the author’s prodigious imagination. He devotes a chapter to Dickens and Charity, which inevitably centres on ‘A Christmas Carol’, Dickens’ most famous novel. He points out that though Dickens actively supported numerous charitable institutions and campaigns in his lifetime, he felt that personal acts of charity and kindness were more important, perhaps because he received so few in his own deprived childhood.

In the closing scenes in ‘A Christmas Carol’, it is the reformed Scrooge’s acts of kindness towards the Cratchit family on Christmas morning that we remember more than his donations to the Charitable Gentlemen he had snubbed on Christmas Eve or even his reconciliation with his nephew Fred for that matter. In the novel, over the course of the visits of the Ghosts, Scrooge learns what Marcus Aurelius advocates: While you live, while you can, do good.’

So let us resolve to be kind to others in the coming year. But also, in view of the difficult times we have experienced over the last two years, let us also be a little kind to ourselves. By that I do not mean self indulgence, but by looking after ourselves a little better and trying to understand ourselves a little better too. To be a little merciful to ourselves, if you like. From that greater understanding of ourselves, other, perhaps deeper, resolutions may emerge.

As Marcus writes in Book 7: ‘Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging.’

Wishing you a Happy New Year, dear reader.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell.

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Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 69

As I sit here by my candle beginning this meditation, I am reminding myself of when and where Marcus Aurelius wrote his own ‘Meditations.’ At night of course, on his military campaigns in his tent. He may have written them with a candle by his side, as I am now, but more probably with oil lamps. I may have mentioned this before.

I do not think I could find the peace of mind to write in a tent, although I imagine Marcus’ tent would have been very spacious, more like a marquee. Perhaps I could write in a marquee, as long as I had my habitual comforts around me and providing the weather outside wasn’t too wild and stormy. The winds across the plains of Hungary (or Pannonia as he would have know it) would be most severe and biting, I imagine.

The weather would not have bothered Marcus of course. He would have accepted all kinds of weather with stoic endurance. As he writes: ‘How easy it is to drive away or obliterate from one’s mind every impression which is troublesome or alien, and then to be in perfect calm.’ (Book 5).

He may have found this easy, having presumably developed the ability to blot out distractions form his mind and totally ‘zone in’ (as we would say) on the task in hand. I do not find that easy and I am sure most other people wouldn’t either. Perfect calm is also difficult to achieve and comes to us only momentarily, like happiness, but when it does it is blissful because unexpected.

However, Marcus’ maxim is a good one to adopt and strive for, especially in these days of the pandemic. Although, we must remind ourselves that Marcus wasn’t visited by ‘troublesome or alien thoughts’ from an I phone! Perhaps he was being ironic or sarcastic against himself -he occasionally mentions his quick-temper for instance!

It is possible that he may also have written his philosophical notes in various palaces on his campaigns. I would definitely have no objections to writing in a palace! Childhood memories of those Roman epic movies swarm into my mind again! I would be sitting on a red velvet cushion on a pristine white marble chair scribing away on an equally white pristine table, with elegant drapes fluttering in the delicate (summer!) breeze behind me. And a large silver goblet brimming with deep red wine near to hand of course!

Though I have a deep affection for Hungary (and hope to return there in April – if the fates allow) I could not see myself seated in a tent and trying to write while those severe biting winds swirl around outside! My theatrical campaigns were in the the warmth of Budapest theatres, after all, and not the windswept Buda Hills of antiquity! The winter winds here are now rather biting but at least I writing in the warmth of my little house.

In my front garden there is a small rose bush. It was a birthday present from my sister Maria and her husband several years ago. The rose is called a ‘Darcy Bussell’, named after the ballet star and, yes, the blooms do dance in the wind sometimes. They are unable to twirl and pirouette on their stems however! The flowers are rather small and red and they fade into to a deep purple before they expire. Because of the mild Autumn weather buds have still appeared until recently so it was not possible to prune the rose bush in October.

The other day I noticed that one of the buds had begun to flower. It was a darker red than usual but nevertheless its petals were emerging. I cut it from its stem and put it into a small vase indoors where it has since flowered further. The petals are not fully open as they would be in summer but they have opened a little further now and there a scent, if a little feint.

Maybe like the rose, we are longing to open out fully but at the moment, because the virus is still with us and a new variant has appeared and perhaps another lockdown is imminent, we are unable to. But like the rose, despite the harshness of this winter, we are still here and flowering as best we can.

And despite everything, in the darkness of winter there is still the warmth and glorious light of Christmas coming too.

As I walked out of my front door this morning I noticed that another two roses are blooming in the bitter cold. May we bloom like them, in the warmth of Christmas joy.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas, dear reader.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell – until the next blog in the New Year!

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 62

As I sit here and begin to write beside my candle, I am not thinking about Marcus Aurelius, the inspiration for this blog. Instead, my thoughts have drifted towards another Roman emperor.

I have recently visited the city of York and in the square in front of the cathedral there, York Minster, is a bronze statue of the Emperor Constantine. He sits on a throne looking appropriately powerful and commanding. His gaze seems to go beyond the square to take in the centuries since he reigned (306-337 CE). Perhaps this was intended by the sculptor, Philip Jackson, as the statue was officially unveiled in 1998. It was a millennium project I suppose, suggesting that Constantine transcends the millennia, (as does Marcus, not least, I hope, in my humble blog!).

There is a small marble bust of Constantine dating from Roman times in nearby Stonegate, an altogether more modest image but with that commanding stare nevertheless. When I was in Rome, I saw the fragments of a colossal statue of him (including a very large head with a more mellow gaze and and a hand pointing upwards) in the entrance to the Capitoline museum. It must have been a massive edifice and would have dwarfed all around it. Should my school decide to place a statue in my honour outside my dear Drama studio, I would be quite happy with a small marble bust. In reality, I am happy with nothing at all (just as well, you may say!) as you only have to stand in the centre of the studio and look around you to see my monument!

It may seem strange but Constantine was actually crowned Emperor in York which was then a Roman settlement called Eboracum. There is a large stone column from that time quite near to the statue on the small square. Constantine had served in the army under his father Constantius since 305 (having fled from the reigning Caesar, Galerius, to serve the army in Western Europe). When his father died he was declared emperor by the army. It is appropriate that the statue is situated in front of the Minster as Constantine was reputedly crowned near that spot, and also because eventually he became the first Christian emperor.

York is a city steeped in history: it not only has a Roman past, but also was a Viking settlement and was a thriving medieval town around the Minster. There are also some elegant 18th and 19th century buildings and some beautiful city gardens and parks. I very much enjoyed staying with friends in York and having a little city break – my first break since last autumn and my first major venture out of the lockdown stockade. It was heartening to see the streets busy, not with international tourists of course, but with visitors from the UK. The city seemed to be going about its business in a relaxed way, unlike my visits to London last summer where the streets were virtually empty and a tense atmosphere pervaded the metropolis. There was a gentleness about the place which I hope won’t be swept away when lockdown ends (possibly) in a few weeks. At the moment in this hopefully last stage of lockdown, we seem to be in a gentle and quite relaxed phase. I wish this could be the so called ‘new normal’ and that we do not return to a frenetic or even frantic lifestyle once lockdown ends. I hope we do not forget what we have learnt from lockdown.

My first reason for travelling up North was to be with my sisters and family in Leeds. I hadn’t seen them since last August and was so very pleased to be with them, especially as we were unable to spend Christmas together. So we had Christmas in June instead! I travelled on the train with my Christmas gifts for them, like a Santa who had lost his way on Christmas Eve and had spent six months trying to find his way home! We exchanged gifts and had a turkey dinner and hats, crackers and games and it was a wonderful festive occasion especially as we hadn’t seen each other for so long.

It has been wonderful that families have been able to get together at last over the last few months. I imagine not a few have also re-celebrated Christmas, with all the family together at last. At the end of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge is a changed man and the narrator comments that ‘it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well’ and hopes that ‘may the same be said of us and all of us.’ Well my family and I did our best last month. They had already been together last December 25 and celebrated without my being with them but, nevertheless, the spirit of Christmas was present among us on June 24!

On that trip to Leeds and York, I came to realise that I never travel light. I always have too much stuff with me. I suppose I had a good excuse this time as I was carrying presents for seven people as well as clothes for a five day stay up North. Also I must confess to being quite nervous about travelling even though I have made the journey so many times before. I think the pandemic may have made us all nervous at times about the most ordinary things (especially travel). I spent the day before I travelled packing and repacking and deciding what to wear (as the weather is so changeable at present) and what else to take with me: books, I Pad, headphones for my music etc. My bag was heavy enough without my personal accessories.

Of course I was forgetting that I would be spending most of my time in the company of my family and my friends. I would have little time to read or play music. They weren’t important. My bag wasn’t much lighter either once I had emptied out the gifts in Leeds and gave them to my family as I received gifts too from them to take home with me. As I trundled along station platforms with my large tunnel back at my side and my backpack

on my shoulders and heaved myself onto trains for my journeys from London to Leeds then from Leeds to York and later back home again from York, I slowly began to realise that I was literally weighed down with possessions. I came to the conclusion that I need to live lighter let alone travel lighter.

I had also forgotten one of the lessons I had learnt from the lockdown last year: that people are more important than possessions. And more especially from our days of isolation, that the company of others is very precious.

Yes, I hope we do not forget what we have learnt from lockdown.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 61

As I sit here beside my customary candle, I am not in my lounge but in my kitchen at the table, looking out of the window onto a balmy summer’s evening. Now that we are hopefully approaching an end to lockdown, it is a time for looking out, as our vista is gradually widening. Soon we will once again be able to make some firm plans for the future instead of gingerly taking tentative steps for fear of disappointment.

As I look out into my little garden, twilight is approaching. It is my favourite time of day, especially in the summer months. It is the time when the garden is cool and still, the flowers quivering in the sultry breeze, their fragrance heightened in the evening air. I like to stand in my kitchen doorway and breathe in the subtle sweetness of the lavender at the edge of my little patio, which lays almost at my feet. It reminds me of twilights on Vancouver Island: there the lavender combines with the breeze from the Pacific Ocean creating a heady perfume.

I have once again begun to read Marcel Proust’s six volume novel, ‘In Search of Lost Time,’ first published a hundred years ago. Reading the great French novelist’s masterpiece is one of my retirement projects. I am reading it in translation I hasten to add! I do not think, my O Level French would cope with Marcel’s long lyrical sentences! Proust is a writer to be read slowly, a writer to savour. You have to enjoy good prose, like a good wine, to appreciate him. And good prose, like good wine, should be enjoyed slowly. I am hoping that reading him will slow my reading down and that I will overcome my habit of endless skim reading, as a result of becoming addicted to my iPhone.

The first volume begins with the narrator thinking back to when he was an adolescent, living in Paris but vacationing at his grandparents’ home in the fictional town of Combray. While staying there, he is invited to the house of a cultured widowed neighbour, M. Legrandin, and they dine on the terrace by moonlight. M. Legrandin comments, ‘My boy, there comes in all our lives a time, towards which you still have far to go, when the weary eyes can endure but one kind of light, the light which a fine evening like this prepares for us in the still room of darkness, when the ears can listen to no music save what the moonlight breathes through the flute of silence.’

I do not think I have reached that time of life yet. I am not yet in the late evening of my life, but have arrived at the twilight. Fortunately, I do enjoy twilight’s muted sounds and stillness. As twilight is my favourite time of day, I should be very happy and comfortable in my twilight years. I hope I will. At the very least, I am beginning to relax into retirement, now that the lockdown seems to be easing and there may be an end in sight.

I shall definitely feel more comfortable when I no longer have to wear a mask. I am sure we all will. Though I have got used to wearing one, I still find them obtrusive especially when wearing one for a length of time. My spectacles still get fogged up even after using a mask for over a year now. My brain gets fogged up too as, after a while, the mask leaves me light headed, because I am not breathing in fresh air. I have noticed this when I am in the supermarket. After a while I get all fuddled and end up putting the wrong items in my trolley, generally the more expensive ones. Perhaps this is a ploy of the supermarket. I have yet to sit in a cinema or theatre and wear a mask. I wonder how that will feel. But then I am used to sometimes being left bewildered or confused by a play or a movie, so I guess it won’t be a new experience.

There are so many different colours and designs of masks. I was amazed at how quickly companies produced them for sale last year. There are a plethora of different colours and shades and patterns available: everything from camouflage to polka dots. Then there is the ubiquitous, dependable dear old pale blue surgical disposable one, which I mostly use. We are all walking around as if we are auditioning for some medical drama like the BBC’s ‘Casualty’. I find the ones with an air filter rather sinister as they appear to cover a wider area of the face than the others. They would not be out of place in a science fiction movie and they magnify the wearer’s breathing so that he or she sounds like a Cyberman from ‘Doctor Who.’

Because a mask covers the lower half of a person’s face, it highlights the person’s eyes and potentially the emotions behind them. When I was teaching Drama, I was constantly underlining the importance of eye contact between actors and of the emotions behind the eyes, especially when the actor is reacting and not speaking. Of course this is virtually impossible to achieve if you are constantly looking at a script (as I constantly reminded my student thespians). I used to tell them not to just look at the other actor but to really look.

I have noticed when I have been on buses, trains, in shops or in the street that people are really looking at each other more and engaging in more eye contact because they are wearing masks. This leads them to be more aware of the feelings of the other person than would be usual, I suspect. I have also noticed that this has led to little acts of kindness.

I remember going into Kingston for essential shopping in April or May last year and noticing so many anxious faces. The masks seemed to accentuate the wearers’ fears. I remember standing outside Boots in the queue to enter. I was collecting my repeat prescription. The lady in front of me turned and looked at me with frightened eyes. ‘I am so scared,’ she said. I encouraged her by saying she would be OK if she stayed safe and followed the rules and that the pandemic would soon be over. Little did we know! Now, a year on, happily there are fewer fearful expressions on the streets and public transport. I do hope she is well. It has been heartening too to see strangers talking to each other during the pandemic ,especially in those early months of lockdown.

I have been trying to work out the difference between the face masks we are currently wearing and the masks worn in Venice at the famous carnival. The traditional Venetian face mask covers the upper face except that there are openings for the eyes of course. The lower part of the face and the mouth are visible. And yet both masks allow the eyes to be seen. But of course it is more difficult to discern the expression of the eyes in a Venetian masks as the forehead is completely covered. You have to look very closely at the face to see the eyes of the wearer clearly. Therefore there is an air of mystery about the Venetian mask; it is provocative and alluring, inviting a romantic assignation and has done so down the centuries I am sure. That is not to say that our ubiquitous pale blue disposable ones could not be equally as provocative, if our mask makes us look more closely at the other person. It could provide an opportunity for flirtation, a romance of the eyes. I wonder how many lockdown romances have begun because of masks.

However, it is also possible for the expression in the eyes to be misread. I was recently in Waterstones bookstore in Kingston. I had not been there for some time, not since before the long lockdown I think. I had gone in to browse as I had a voucher to spend from Christmas. But the deeper reason was because for me a bookstore is a place of normality. I imagine we have all been looking for places of normality recently, places that comfort us. Normality is comforting. Well one of my places is a bookstore. I feel comforted by being surrounded by books. I do not think a kindle or an Amazon website can provide the same comfort. In any case a website like Amazon agitates rather than soothes. A bookstore is like a blanket, a blanket of culture.

It is also a place of quiet, of hushed conversations. Even though Waterstones in Kingston is situated on the top floor of a shopping mall, above the Apple Store crèche of young people faffing around with the latest expensive gadgets, yet the second you enter, the quietness calms you. At least it calms me. I actually find it refreshing to walk into a bookstore. It revives me.

It is not a place of stillness, though, as obviously there are customers milling quietly about and this branch of Waterstones is quite busy. Neither was I still myself, on that afternoon. I was perusing the shelves to see what I might buy (as if I need any more books on my shelves at home). For a moment I stood in the centre of one of the rooms in the store. I don’t remember what I was looking for, if anything in particular. But I stood there in my mask and looked vacantly at an assistant who was passing by. Behind my mask, I was in need of some fresh air. My discomfort must have put a frown on my brow, because the assistant came up to me and asked me if I was ok and needed any help. He must have thought I looked lost, or was becoming ill. I smiled (behind my mask) and said, ‘No thank you. Very kind of you’ or something like that.

A little later, I went into another room and browsed in there. Then I stood still, struggling to find air behind my mask again and must have frowned again because this time another assistant, a studious looking girl, came up to me and asked the same thing. Well at least the assistants in Waterstones are kind and attentive, even if they sometimes misread the expression in a customer’s eyes. I was forgetting of course that I am an actor and have an expressive face. When I was teaching my students, I would always ‘overplay’ expressions to demonstrate to them. Perhaps I haven’t got out of the habit. I guess I need to make sure I ‘play neutral’ in future in public places. Heaven knows what trouble I could get into otherwise!

I have a feeling that, even after the lockdown ends, masks will be with us for a while. When we are able to finally get rid of our masks, I hope we will not get rid of being aware of others.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 60

I have been thinking about the stained glass window again, as I sit here by the steady flame of my candle. In my last meditation, I mentioned a visit to the beautiful church of St Pierre in Montmartre in Paris several years ago. I explained how the panes of different colours in a stained glass window which I saw there reminded me of all my friends and loved ones. The window also reminded me that I am not alone. Isn’t this one of the positive features of these long months of lockdown and uncertainty, that we have been reminded that we are not alone, and that we have all been working our way through this most difficult of times together?

However, as I reflect upon it now, that stained glass window has taken on another meaning. The window is me. It is myself in all the different facets of my life, including my relationships and friendships of course. I have also come to realise that at certain times in my life, I have been polishing one pane in that window at the expense of others.

This is certainly true of my career, enjoyable and fulfilling as it has been. Because I have had a long career in mainly one school (with only one year in another one!) and especially because for over two thirds of my thirty- seven years there, I ran my department on my own, I came to be defined by my career. There were times when work was in charge of me rather than the other away around. It is a common mistake if you are committed to your occupation to a high level: call it a vocation, if you will. Perhaps this was exacerbated by living alone, without a partner. In other words, I was polishing that one pane in the window until the glass was wearing thin, or rather I was. It was part of my mid-life crisis when I became 50 years old, and I am sure others have had a similar experience too.

At that time, during the crisis, I became aware of being too consumed by my career and then I began to polish a few more panes of glass in my window and to lead a more integrated life. I was able to develop this further in my final years at the school when I relinquished my role as head of department and became a part time member of staff and, as a result, had more spare time. Then, after my retirement, I continued directing and going into school as necessary with more spare time still.

Nevertheless, I still felt defined by my role in school. I was still polishing that pane of glass to some extent. I couldn’t stop myself. It was a habit with me. Moreover, it had become an image of myself. It is a difficult image to shake off. I did not realise how ingrained it was in my consciousness until I finally left the school last February.

I call it my ‘King Lear’ syndrome, after Shakespeare’s tragic hero, who though he gave up the throne, could not give up being King. ‘Aye, every inch a King’ he says in his madness on the heath in the storm. I do not think I am slipping into madness or have been guilty of his rages for that matter, but the problem remains: retirement can be tough if you are defined by your work role or become aware that you are and then try to divest yourself of it, to start a new life. A friend said to me, ‘It is difficult to live in the shadows, when you are used to the limelight!’

You may remember that the window I described in my last meditation was of a modern, abstract design. It was not dominated by a scene from the Bible or an incident from a saint’s life, as stained glass windows in churches normally are. There might be intricate foliage etched around the edges of the scene or in a bigger window, smaller scenes from the Bible or the saint’s life in squares or roundels might decorate the top and bottom of the main picture.

Perhaps my own personal window would also be dominated by one scene in the centre: Neil, with a large copy of Shakespeare in his hands and a group of totally attentive students at his feet. Or Neil, holding a script whilst directing a couple of eager students in a scene. It wouldn’t be a window of Saint Neil – I am definitely no saint. Neither would it be a stained glass window of a school production when I played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s ‘Importance of Being Earnest’!

But no: the window that impressed me was not dominated by one image. In fact there was no one image at all: it had an abstract pattern and the glass was multi-coloured and of different shapes and sizes. It was multi-faceted as we all are, if we really look at ourselves.

I have recently been enjoying a beautiful pink camellia shrub in my garden. It is near my kitchen window. The flowers tend to last for a month or so and are fading now. Their pale pink blooms will soon be gone for another year. So I have been savouring them in their delicate glory. I inherited the shrub when I first moved in, 27 years ago. The flowers look pink from a distance, but when I look at them more closely, some of the blooms are a hybrid of a lighter and a darker shade, so dark it is almost red. There was one flower this year that was completely dark pink.

I pick them and put them into tiny vases on my kitchen table, which gives me the opportunity to really examine them. Actually, the petals are not completely pink. They have a thin white border and, if you look really closely, behind the pink of each petal is a white membrane making an intricate variegated pattern. At the centre of the flower is a deep golden stamen. So they are not just pink at all.

Just as we are not just one thing as individuals. Hopefully this last year will have enabled us to sit back and reflect on ourselves a little and may have led us to appreciate that there are many different facets to our lives, other than the persistent drives that fuel our interior selves; that make us deaf and blind to the truth of ourselves in all its stained glass splendour.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 59

Marcus Aurelius is in my thoughts tonight as I write this meditation. Recently I had my first visit to the barbers since the long lockdown ended. When the barber had finished my haircut and beard trim, I checked my face in the reflection in the large mirror in front of me. It looked a little like Marcus himself. Reflected in the mirror, I seemed to look more like him than in my photo at the top of this blog.

At last, after nearly sixty meditations, it is time to explain the origin of that blog photo. I am going to come clean. The photo was not taken in the ruins of Rome, but in front of a black scenery flat in my Drama studio. I wasn’t wearing a Roman toga either but a white sheet draped over my shoulders to look like one. The inspiration for the pose was partly statues of Marcus himself, which I had seen on visits to Rome, but more specifically a bust of the emperor Hadrian, Marcus’ great-uncle. Several years earlier, I had been to an exhibition at the British Museum about Hadrian and brought home a postcard of a striking black and white photo of the marble profile of the emperor. The postcard gave me the inspiration for the image for my blog and it gave my photographer an idea of the image I wanted.

Our image of Marcus is somewhat idealised, coming from statues which were meant to flatter the Emperor. However, statues or busts of emperors were more realistic by his reign (161-180 CE) than those of the earliest Caesars. In all of the statues or busts I have seen of Marcus, his hair and beard are not as close cut as mine are. Recently a statue of him has been discovered in Ryedale in North Yorkshire. It looks quite primitive compared with the elegant ones I have seen in Rome and was probably carved by Roman settlers. However the beard and hair are unmistakable and there is writing underneath confirming that it is Marcus and not Hadrian, though it could be him as he ordered the building of the famous Wall that bears his name to mark the perimeter of the Roman province of Britannia. The Wall is situated further North from Ryedale,

I find it interesting that the lives of Marcus and myself are once again in some small way connected. I was born officially in North Yorkshire before the area where I was brought up became Teesside and then Cleveland. And now a statue of Marcus has been unearthed in North Yorkshire. He never visited there of course but he did stay in Pannonia, which is now Hungary, on his military campaigns. I have also spent time in Hungary leading my school Drama tours and I mentioned in a previous blog that coins bearing his image have been found in the Buda Hills on the outskirts of Budapest. I did not know any of this before launching this blog in Autumn 2018, with his Meditations as my inspiration. So the connections are quite uncanny. I would love to play him in a play or a movie. For the moment, however, I’ll settle for this blog. I definitely need to re-read him – another one for my retirement bucket list!

Perhaps when I was looking at my reflection in the barber’s chair the other day, I was idealising myself. Or was I seeing just a glimmer of Marcus in myself? I hope there is at least a glimmer of him in these meditations.

We sometimes have an image of ourselves in our mind’s eye, don’t we? Hopefully it is a positive rather than a negative one. This self-image can change depending upon the circumstances we find ourselves in. It will never be the whole truth about ourselves, but hopefully not completely false either. Moreover, to believe in a false image of oneself and try to live up to it could spell disaster, or would at least be a huge ego trip. I am sure we could name quite a few celebrities who have fallen into that trap (not least the last incumbent of the White House). We need our friends and family to shatter that false image, not bolster it. I have had those moments once or twice in my life and fortunately for me, close friends have coaxed me back to reality.

I have also had my delusions of grandeur when preparing productions. It is important to have expansive ideas when directing a play and some kind of creative vision for the production. These have usually come to me away from school (at home or on my travels or even sitting in a theatre). But the reality of being back in the drama studio, my classroom, would soon make me pare down some of my ideas to fit my young and inexperienced cast (and the small budget!). I remember a colleague, who had trained as an actress, once told me she was amazed at the number of productions we managed to stage over the academic year: usually three as well as re-staging of two on the Hungary Drama tour, the practical exams (which involved staging scenes) and the House Drama competition. She said that the department was like the National Theatre, staging one show after another. It was a great compliment. I must confess that there were a few moments when I thought I was running a mini-National Theatre and forgot about the rest of the school!

I have the impression that Marcus was above self image. In his ‘Meditations’ he describes himself as ‘a male, mature in years, a statesman, a Roman, a ruler.’ He does not mention his official title of Emperor. His ‘Meditations’ were no ego-trip, in fact the title of the first printed edition (in 1559) was ‘To Himself’. From his ‘Meditations’ we can see that he is looking at himself to see his faults and failings in an attempt to rectify them; and to reflect upon and use his experience of life to primarily teach himself. But of course, he is also teaching others who read his book, although whether he intended others to read his Meditations is unclear.

Marcus was very much aware of his friends and family (alive and dead) as is evident from the very first chapter, his first meditation if you like. There he gives a list of the family members, friends and tutors whom he admires and he also lists what he has learnt from them and would like to emulate in his own life: ‘From my grandfather, Verus, decency and a mild temper’ for example. I mentioned this in one of my own earliest meditations.

In that early blog I recalled that I was once in Paris (heaven knows when that will happen again) and having a miserable day, exploring the city or rather, my mid-life crisis at that time. I found myself in Montmartre and wandered into the medieval church of St Pierre de Montmartre. It is the oldest church in Montmartre and has been restored. Its ancient walls have been cleaned up so they are a pristine grey. I remember sitting in a quiet side chapel. At one end was a beautiful stained glass window of a modern abstract design. It stood out because it seemed incongruous in its medieval, Gothic setting. The window was a blaze of different colours as the sun shone through. Gazing at the window, I was reminded of my family and friends, each one a pane of glass, a different colour and shape, individual, yet somehow linked to me, just as each pane of glass is

essential to the overall design of the window. It was a great comfort to me then and as I recall it, it is now.

I could only appreciate the overall design of the window in its intricacy and vibrant colours because I was sitting at a distance from it, of course. A stained glass window is never seen at its best close-up. To some extent we have all been sitting at a distance from friends and loved ones because of the restrictions of the last year. At times we may have felt that physical distance acutely. It may have been palpable or, in our darkest thoughts, almost insurmountable. I am reminded of the old adage: absence makes the heart grow fonder. It is the physical distance of absence that helps us to appreciate others more and to realise how much they mean to us and how much we miss them. There have been occasions in this last year when I have been able to experience the ‘stained glass window’ effect in my moments of loneliness. Perhaps after a phone call or zoom or even just a text I have been able to see the other person as a bright colourful pane within the design of my own window. And there have been rare moments when I have seen in my mind’s eye the whole window itself in its intricate design and varied hues and have once again appreciated how essential my friends are in my life, different as they are.

I hope that you have experienced the ‘stained glass window’ effect too, in the last months, and, like me, will remember it, and carry it with you as we hopefully move on from lockdown.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 58

As I sit here this evening, beside my candle, memories from my youth come to mind. These have been prompted partly by my time of life and partly by our current situation. Inevitably, retirement is a time for thinking back on our lives. Our minds are no longer filled up with the busyness of work, so they are freer to roam and inevitably we find ourselves revisiting paths already trod. Sometimes these moments of recall will arouse a smile or a laugh, sometimes feelings of pride, sometimes regret or even embarrassment! For myself the lockdown has created even more time and space for this, as the active retirement I envisaged has been put on hold along with everything else. But then, I have been active. After all, I have continued writing these meditations if nothing else.

I am aware that watching television has prompted memories of my youth. This is not to say that I have been glued to the nostalgia channels on cable to avert lockdown blues. It is possible to live in the 1970’s or 80’s or 90’s by watching them all day, I am sure. I discovered this quite a while ago when my aunt from Canada came to stay with me and loved watching old 1970’s series on my cable TV in the afternoons. Every afternoon we were back in the 1970’s as if the world outside was in the 70’s too. She still watches the old detective series ‘Murder She Wrote’ every weekday afternoon in her apartment on Vancouver Island. She has confessed to me that she must have seen every episode by now (all 264 of them!) and is now working her way through them all again. At least she has now moved on to the 80’s and 90’s! In her honour, I filmed a spoof version of the show (actually of the cheesy title sequence) for my retirement cabaret. I called it, ‘Murder He Taught’. Some of my lessons have been murder at times: either for myself or my students or both!

No, I haven’t been gorging myself on nostalgia TV. Like everyone else, I have been streaming away and sampling new Netflix and Amazon series. So I have been very much keeping up to date with my viewing. Well, inevitably these days conversations with family and friends end up with ‘What have you been watching on Netflix?’ so it is best to have something to share! The conversation usually continues with regurgitations of the labyrinthine plot of whatever series. I am being hypercritical. I tend to watch (and share with others) the shorter series as they tend to be more credible and entertaining than the longer ones, which drag out the plot like a piece of chewing gum until the holes can be seen in the middle.

I think watching and sharing TV series has kept us all going over the last year (as we have had little else to share). I include in that programmes from the terrestrial channels. This reminds me of when I was a schoolboy and sharing ‘last night’s TV’ with my friends in the classroom or playground. Of course, in those days nothing was streamed and nothing could be recorded either so if you didn’t see a programme when it was scheduled on one of the two or three terrestrial channels available you missed it. You would have to wait in hope for a repeat months later – or even longer! I remember at age 15, watching the first ever episode of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ and being really enthusiastic about it to my friends at school the next day. By the end of the series, six weeks later, most of the class were watching it and sharing the funny lines of dialogue. With all the channels now available and with streaming, I suppose that communal aspect of viewing is receeding now.

I have made a serious effort, living alone in lockdown, to watch series on the terrestrial channels on the right day and at the right time as scheduled, just as I would all those years ago when I was at school. This would give some structure to my viewing (and the week) and also something to look forward to in the evening. I have generally found that I have been more focused on the programmes and have enjoyed them more as a result. I have started to adopt the same regime with streamed programmes, by making my own schedule in the evenings.

From talking to my friends, I am not the only one who dips into streamed programmes and half watches them or records programmes which never get watched at all. I think it is symptomatic of the malaise we have all been suffering: that inability to settle because of the unease caused by the situation we have been living through. To be honest, I haven’t indulged in ‘binge-watching’ on streamed channels over the last year as others have. I’ve taken in two consecutive episodes of a series at most. I guess I’ve been quite disciplined!

Recently the BBC has been showing past TV series to fill up the schedules, because the various lockdowns over the last year have to some extent affected the filming of current or future ones. Some of the series are old, dare I say it, venerable, such as ‘Fawlty Towers’ and ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.

Every Wednesday evening over six weeks at 9 p.m. I have recently been watching the re-run of the classic historical drama, ‘Elizabeth R’ starring Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I, a role that made her a star. The first episode of the series was screened on the exact date it had first been transmitted fifty years ago in 1971. I remember watching the series then. It was really useful as I was studying the Tudors in A level History at the time. I am unsure whether we had a colour TV at home by then. Or the correct television set. If you didn’t have a 625 line set you couldn’t watch BBC2 and would have to wait until the series was repeated on BBC1 (which it was). And of course, if you didn’t have a colour TV you would be watching in black and white, which would have been a great shame as, from my recent viewing, the costumes and sets were outstanding. It is odd but I do not remember watching the series in black and white or colour, though I did remember some of the scenes vaguely.

Of course the presentation was very different from today: scenes were mainly filmed on videotape in the studio with inserted outdoor scenes shot on film. Also scenes were longer and heavier on dialogue than today. In fact, ‘Elizabeth R’ is a series of six separate 90 minute historical plays each with a different scriptwriter, focusing on key moments in her long reign. The formula had been a huge success with ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ a year or so earlier, with each of the six plays focusing on a different wife and with a different writer. I have a suspicion that this formula has influenced the structure of Peter Morgan’s recent series ‘The Crown’ about our own Queen Elizabeth.

Despite what now looks like an archaic technical presentation, the series holds up well because of the well-written scripts and the excellent acting, particularly from Glenda Jackson herself, who has to age from a young teenage girl to a very old woman (for those times) of 69. The scripts do capture the dramatic events and crises of her reign really well and therefore were most useful at that time in bringing my dry A level History notes to life!

Revisiting the series in 2021, I enjoyed picking out the actors and actresses who were regularly on the TV in my youth and whom I wanted to emulate. At that time in my life, I wanted to be on that screen with them, in a costume drama. I wanted to be an actor or perhaps a TV scriptwriter. That has come about in a different way of course. I became a teacher of drama instead and wrote plays for my students. I didn’t become a classical actor like Robert Hardy (who played the Earl of Leicester in the series), though I would have liked to. But then I can’t image Robert Hardy directing a school play or pushing pupils (talented or not so talented) through a GCSE Drama course. He has played Winston Churchill on various occasions so perhaps that would have helped!

The final scenes of the series depict Elizabeth’s death and closely reflect true events. In her final days, knowing that she was close to death, Elizabeth refused to lie down on her bed, let alone sleep. Instead she spent hours sitting up, on an cushion. The dramatisation has her sitting there in full regalia on a large high-backed chair, gradually going silent and refusing to indicate by even a nod to show her agreement that James VI of Scotland should succeed her to the throne. The scene includes the actual words of Elizabeth. Robert Cecil, one of her ministers, politely tells her she must go to bed; to which she replies angrily, ‘Must is not a word to use to Princes, little man.’ Eventually, sitting on the chair, with a finger in her mouth like a child, she passes away. It is a remarkable scene, watching her using all her strength (ebbing away though it was) to resist death.

Elizabeth reigned for 45 years until her death in 1603 and was the longest reigning monarch up to that point in our history and for many years afterwards: until the 18th Century and George III (60 years) then Queen Victoria (64 years) and our own Queen Elizabeth who has currently reigned for almost 69 years (as long as the first Elizabeth’s lifespan).

Elizabeth I had spent the 45 years of her reign holding onto the crown despite initial political and religious upheaval, several rebellions, numerous plots against her life (and numerous attempts to get her to marry, which she refused) and even an attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada. So perhaps she can be excused for using the last dregs of her formidable willpower to hang onto her crown even against death. All her energies since she was a teenager had been spent in survival, to the extent that it was ingrained in her. So why change now, in old age, even at the point of death? Or was she scared of the after life, having a religious faith, of meeting her Maker with the blood of those she ordered to be executed on her hands?

The scene conveys how difficult it can be to let go of power. We have been made very much aware of this in recent times with the scenes that played out in the White House last winter. Sometimes it is difficult to accept the inevitable, or more precisely, to accept that there is and will be a future without you. So, just as Elizabeth I refused to lie down on her bed, so Donald Trump refused to concede electoral defeat. Eventually, both had to give in to the inevitable.

Strangely I sympathise with these two powerful but disparate figures.

It is difficult to let go of the career that has defined you, especially, in Elizabeth I’s case, when it has defined you for a length of time.

It is difficult to let go.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 57

As I sit here gazing at the candle beside me, I am thinking ahead to the future. I imagine most of us are looking to the future this week as at last the gates of the long winter lockdown have opened – even if only slightly. Perhaps those of us who are prudent souls, are making short term plans rather than long term ones, if any. The dark clouds of disappointment have not quite dissolved into a bright shiny day. We have not quite reached a new dawn yet. So it is as well not to make too many plans to travel or meet up with loved ones and friends, incase they are scuppered once again by re-imposed restrictions. Nevertheless, plans are a way of hoping for the future. Though we may feel rather downtrodden by the last long months, we must not give up hope. We have got this far.

How will we view these strange times when they are all over? How will we look back? In one sense, as we return to some kind of normality and begin to engage again in our usual pursuits, it will be as if nothing has happened. The months of lockdown may begin to fade away in our memory, unless we have been seriously affected by the pandemic on a deeply personal level.

Yesterday morning, on the first day of the lighter restrictions, I walked past the barber shop I usually frequent. There was a small socially distanced queue of customers outside the front door eagerly awaiting a haircut. I remember seeing that queue last summer, when the shop had re-opened after the first lockdown. It seemed to me as if the months in between had not happened. I have not yet ventured into my nearest town, Kingston, but I imagine when I do, I will see shoppers going in and out of the shops or queuing outside, just as before the lockdown and again it will be as if the lockdown has not occurred.

Once we start milling around the shops, or share a meal and bottle of wine with a friend in a bar or restaurant or drive off into the sunset, perhaps the events of 2020 and most of 2021 will dissolve, unless revived by the TV documentaries which will inevitably be screened afterwards along with media articles, books and movies. But then we are not obliged to watch them or read them. After all we have already got used to screening the latest Netflix series to anaesthetise us from the pandemic and lockdown if necessary.

In Virgil’s epic Latin poem ‘The Aeneid’, Aeneas, one of the royal family of Troy escapes from the burning city with his lame father Anchises on his back and his son Ascanius at his side. Along with his band of surviving heroes, they flee the city by boat and after many adventures arrive on the shores of Italy. In the Roman legend, he is the first true hero of Rome and the ancestor of Romulus and Remus who, also according to legend, eventually founded the city.

At one point in the epic story, Aeneas cries out and weeps bitterly as he recalls the blood shed at Troy. In the poem, Virgil comments that Aeneas is suffering the ‘lacrimae rerum’, the ‘tears of things’. He further observes that ‘The world has tears as a constituent part of it and so have our own lives, hopeless and weary.’ He might have been describing our own pandemic. Our lives too have seemed ‘hopeless and weary’ at times and we have been made acutely aware that tears, that suffering, is an inevitable part of our world, of the human condition.

This is after all what the Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius is all about: acknowledging the tears and suffering in life and finding a way of accepting it. In our own post-Christian era we would add, finding a way of alleviating the suffering of others too.

Hopefully, when the pandemic has receded, like Aeneas, we too will pause, look back and remind ourselves of the ‘tears of things’. Also, like him, hopefully we will be thankful that we have survived. Perhaps too we will be a little more grateful for what we have in our lives. Surely this enforced hiatus we have all been through has made us appreciate each other and ourselves more, along with the clutter and the bric-a-brac we have accumulated around ourselves.

For Aeneas and his companions in the story, the destruction of Troy became a painful memory, a past event. For us, though the lockdowns may become a past event, we may still be living with the virus for some time.

There has been much inevitable speculation about what the ‘new normal’ will look like: in other words, what we will be able to do and not do. For how much longer must face masks be worn? Will office workers be working from home or back in their offices or both? When will our schools and hospitals and surgeries be back to normal? When will there be full gatherings in pubs, bars, and restaurants and in arenas, theatres, cinemas and in churches? When will air travel recommence at full throttle and when will it be as easy and casual as before?

There will also be a lot of changes and the transition from lockdown to a kind of normality may take quite some time. To some extent, just as Aeneas and his followers on the shores of Italy, we too will be walking in a new and different world for a while, perhaps for a long time, if not forever. Let us face it, we already are.

These questions are obviously highly relevant to our own lives and to our society. But perhaps we should not be asking ourselves what we may or may not be able to do in the future but what we are going to be in the future. What have we learnt about ourselves in the last year? Will that change our own individual lifestyle and attitude to life and towards others in any way? Maybe we should be reflecting on what the ‘new normal’ will be for ourselves as individuals. Perhaps we should be saying, I am going to create a ‘new normal’ for myself.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Lockdown

The ‘new normal’

Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’

Post-Covid

Aeneas

Roman legends.

MEDITATION 56

If I had begun to write this meditation yesterday afternoon, I would not have been able to see the candle beside me clearly. The screen of my iPad would have been cloudy too. Yesterday morning I went to the eye clinic at Kingston Hospital for an examination and consultation. The examination was very thorough and involved two different liquids being squirted into my eyes by a nurse so that photographs could be taken of each eye. I was told that the liquid would make my vision blurred for up to five hours afterwards. In addition to that, the final examination involved an extremely bright light being shone in each eye. So when I came out of the clinic into the hospital car park and bright daylight, I felt a little disorientated, almost as if the ground was going from under my feet. It was a momentary sensation making me tread slowly and carefully. The blurring in my eyes went on for some time.

However, this temporary change of vision did not stop me for getting on a bus and going into Kingston for a walk along the river Thames with a take-way coffee. I needed fresh air and a wider view after being in the clinic. To my eyes, the swans serenely skimming through the water had a white sheen around them as if they were photographed in soft focus. Indeed, everything I looked at had a softer edge to it. I had to avoid looking into the sunlight, however, as the glare, welcome though it is in these days of early Spring, made my eyes smart. I also had to really focus on my coffee in its paper cup in case I spilt it all over myself.

I moved over to the barrier and rested my cup on it while trying to focus on the traffic on the river. Several canoes and a rowing boat with eight rowers at the oars scudded past along with the swans, geese, seagulls and little terns bobbing about. They were all enhanced with that soft edge because of my slightly impaired vision. I began to think that as we are coming into Spring and the lockdown will be slowly opening up, our lives are beginning to take on that softer edge and maybe a brighter future is coming into focus.

When I got home, I did not feel like writing as the hospital examination left me a little exhausted. Medical tests and examinations, even though they may be straightforward, always upset our personal equilibrium, don’t they? They are invasive even though they are for our own benefit. The personal equilibrium of all of us has been severely upset this last year. We have been truly shaken up. The relentless restrictions have been a major intrusion to our everyday lives and plans and like medical tests, they have been invasive too though also ultimately for our own benefit. Perhaps we can consider ourselves fortunate, as I am able to do, that the virus itself has not been a major intrusion in our lives. As I sat in the clinic yesterda, waiting for my appointment, I was reminded of how very precious our eyesight is and I thought how difficult this last year must have been for those who are blind or whose sight is severely or even partially impaired. I have been very fortunate.

Now, this evening, as I sit here by my customary candle and write this, my eyesight is clear again. But I keep thing back to yesterday and that experience of walking around Kingston with slightly impaired vision. It reminds me of my childhood and youth, when I lived in Redcar, in Cleveland by the North Sea. Sometimes if the weather was cold and turning to rain, a very light, delicate drizzle would come in from the sea. It made the horizon indistinct, with a soft blur, almost like an Impressionist painting or one by J.M.W. Turner. Perhaps that delicate drizzle, which was like looking through an intricate veil, is what inspired his blurred seascapes. We used to call this opaque mist, ‘sea fret’. It was as if the sky was anxious and fretting before pouring out its tears of cold rain. Although it could be cooling and even refreshing, the arrival of sea fret was always the signal to leave the shore and go back into the High Street or home as rain was on its way.

At times, we have all been fretting in the last year and our anxieties may have blurred our vision too, making us get things out of proportion. Fretting was at the root of all that panic-buying in the supermarkets this time last year: all the trauma over toilet rolls and the intrepid pursuit of paracetamol. It all seems senseless now but was the result of that first shock of lockdown, which sharpened our instinct for survival. Just like myself in the hospital car park yesterday, we have felt disorientated at times. as if the ground were going from under our feet. It is as we have all been in a sea fret ourselves unable to see the horizon clearly, with the future just an indistinct blur.

Of course, the future is always an indistinct blur, despite all our plans for going here and going there. We do not know what the future holds and we are certainly not masters or mistresses of the future, though, with all our plans and projects we may think that we are in control. I seem to recall I made this comment in one of my meditations last Spring. I have come to see that perhaps I over-planned the early months of my retirement, with several trips abroad and various theatre visits with dear friends. As those early months coincided with the early months of lockdown, those plans have come to nothing or are hopefully being put on hold. I have been left with copious travel and theatre ticket vouchers to use when lockdown is over. But I shall be pacing myself and the travelling and performances will no doubt seem so much more precious to me, having been deprived of them for a little while.

But not as precious as my eyesight.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

MEDITATION 55

May I first mention, dear reader, two mistakes, in the last two meditations, which a couple of friends have very kindly pointed out to me. In Meditation 53, ‘I pad’ should read ‘iPad’ and in Mediation 54, ‘fit of peak’ should read ‘fit of pique.’ I stand corrected.

Sitting here as usual beside my candle I am thinking back to a year ago, March 9th 2020, which was the last time I visited a theatre. It was the Royal Opera House, where I attended a performance of Beethoven’s only opera, ‘Fidelio.’ How was I to know then that I wouldn’t be visiting a theatre with friends again for some time in the future? Also how was I to foresee that eating a meal with friends in a restaurant would be a rare experience indeed over the months that followed? Then a few weeks later, we were in total lockdown and here we are now, still locked down a year later, despite a few months of respite here and there.

Beethoven’s opera is a very moving plea for political freedom. A political prisoner, Florestan, is unjustly imprisoned and about to be executed but he is saved by his faithful wife, Leonora, the ‘Fidelio’ of the title. Little did I know when watching the opera and being transported by Beethoven’s rapturous music, that we would be in a kind of imprisonment ourselves a few week’s later – but in a just cause.

Marcus’ stoicism has certainly been stretched to the limit within me in the last twelve months. He writes, ‘You have the power over your mind – not outside events. Realise this and you will have strength.’ This is true of course, but difficult when my iPhone wants to have power over my mind all the time and it is very difficult to have the strength to resist that insistent mistress, the iPhone! He also advocates, ‘Confine yourself to the present.’ This has been most useful over these last months. Concentrating on and enjoying the present moment has helped me get through, as have family and friends, my dear friends. St Thomas Aquinas, the medieval theologian observes that ‘There is nothing on the earth to be prized more than friendship.’ How right he is.

Where are we now, a year on? From the friends I have shared with, it seems we are all exhausted and burnt out with living on adrenalin as much as coping with the changing restrictions. We are like an old clock that has slowly wound down. And, much as it has been a comfort and support, our eyes and our brains are exhausted with technology, at least, mine are. I am streamed away and zoomed out, exhausted by a plethora of media platforms and endless choices for digital entertainment. I feel as if I am like a little over-tired child, unable to settle to anything yet refusing to give in and rest. Rest is what we will need when all this is over.

In the last few days I have been in my garden inspecting my plants. When the weather is cold and rainy and especially when the sky is overcast or just dull and dismal with no sign of the sun, it is easy to forget that signs of Spring have appeared. Buds have emerged on my magnolia and apple trees and on my pink camellia shrub, the first slithers of pink are just appearing in the buds. My daffodils and alliums have also made an appearance, though they are not yet in bloom. Similarly there are new vivid red and green shoots on my rose bushes.

I think it is the same with our current situation: our eyes are dulled to the signs of hope (such as the vaccine) by the monotony of these months. We have been locked down into winter and probably have never felt winter so keenly or heavily. Though we have been overstimulated as usual by streaming and media platforms, these haven’t been enough to alleviate the weight of this winter. Usually perhaps we would get through winter by being overstimulated in other ways: by seeing people, going out for meals, socialising and partying over the Christmas season, jetting off to the sun, Christmas shopping or taking in a show or an exhibition. Most of this has been impossible or severely restricted. So, we have felt the weight of winter.

It seems that we have felt the weight of winter on our shoulders to the extent that maybe we have not noticed the first signs of Spring at our feet. We are all so exhausted with the physical and emotional demands of the last year that it is difficult to perceive the signs of hope, the light in the tunnel.

The other day I came across a video clip on the BBC News website. It was from a frozen lake in Canada somewhere – the location was not specified. A man with a broad grin on his bearded face was joyfully dancing a Bhangra on the ice. Gurdeep Pandher had just received his first vaccine shot and was dancing to ‘share the positivity and joy he felt’.

I have recently discovered a rare word from the 16th Century which is not in use anymore but should be at this present time. It is ‘respair’. It means ‘fresh hope and recovery from despair’. Now after long dark months of near despair at times, we are in a period of respair, a time of fresh hope and recovery. The man on the ice, therefore, was performing a dance of respair. Perhaps it is time for us to dance too, to dance in our hearts. To share the positivity and look to the coming months with fresh hope.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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