Meditation 89

It is still light this evening as I sit beside my candle and gaze through my lounge window. However, my thoughts are led to wider vistas than my modest front garden can provide. I am thinking beyond compact suburbia to more expansive scenes. I am remembering wide-ranging mountains capped with snow. Not the mountain ranges that my dear friend and inspiration Marcus Aurelius might have seen on his military campaigns: the Carpathians, the Tatras, or even the Buda Hills, which, though smaller, can be capped with snow too.

I am remembering the Canadian Rockies which provide the epic backdrop to the city of Vancouver, which I have recently visited once more. My thoughts have also turned to the Olympic mountains in Washington State in the U.S.A. This equally impressive mountain range lies on the misty horizon across the water from where I also stayed: a little town called Sidney on Vancouver Island, where my relatives live. My friend and I could see the mountains from the little balcony of our hotel suite, mysterious in the early haze of morning. We saw their grandeur more clearly when we were bobbing about in a boat on a tour around Victoria harbour.

Victoria is quite near to Sidney and despite being on Vancouver Island and therefore not on the mainland, is the capital of British Columbia. It has a nineteenth century colonial atmosphere, with its Royal Empress Hotel, named after Queen Victoria, whose statue stands imperiously outside the Parliament building by the harbour. The Parliament building is lit up at night – as are our own Houses of Parliament of course. However, as well as being floodlit, the outline of the building is traced by lines of lights too, making it look like a fairy castle or a Disneyland attraction, which contrasts strangely with its legislative dignity. I digress and I am being unkind as I like the city very much.

Indeed, on this recent trip, I realised how much the Island has become a part of me. Perhaps I have become aware of this because I last visited in July 2019, before the pandemic. Prior to that, I made visits nearly every year for 15 years or so. It was good to be back and my relatives are fine thanks. It was also good to show a friend around a little. I enjoy showing people around places I have visited before. Over the years I have learnt a great deal about the history of Victoria. This was because I became interested in the work of Emily Carr (1871-1945), the artist and writer who was born in Victoria and spent most of her life on Vancouver Island. Maybe showing him around also made me realise how attached I am to the place.

Because I spent so much time in Sidney, staying with my aunt in her apartment, I gradually became so attached to the sleepy retirement enclave of Sidney that I began to write stories about it several years ago. Or rather about the people who may have retired there. What might be the secrets from their past which they are now forced to face up to? Or the feelings of guilt or grief, remorse or regret that return to haunt them, eddying around their thoughts, like waves over a rock pool? What might be happening behind the placid exterior of the town? I called the collection ‘Driftwood’ after all the strange shaped logs that lie around on the beaches there. I’ve almost finished a (hopefully) final revision of the stories now and my next stage is to see how I can get them published as a collection, or even separately in magazines.

One of my reasons for starting this blog was to promote my writing. It is strange that only now, four years after I started publishing these meditations, I am finally mentioning ‘Driftwood’ in them. But then, there has been so much else to reflect upon over the last four turbulent years, hasn’t there? I will keep you posted about the future progress of ‘Driftwood’ in these pages no doubt in the future.

Of course, Sidney has changed since I was last there, nearly four years ago. Shops and restaurants have closed down and new ones have opened, as has been happening here in the UK. The pandemic seems to have drawn a line in the sand, hasn’t it? It has caused some businesses to go under and new ones have replaced them. In the same way, I sometimes wonder how some small businesses or independent cafes or eateries have survived through it all. I thought as much when walking around Sidney. But then, nothing is immutable, not even us. Yet, like the little town of Sidney, we change and yet we don’t change. We move on, often imperceptibly, and yet somehow we are the same person. Something retirement has taught me: just because our circumstances have changed, we don’t have to give up who we are. Retirement should enhance who we are.

Aside from new businesses emerging, new apartment blocks are going up everywhere. The town doesn’t seem so small now or so cozy. It had a ‘village’ atmosphere about it when I first went there in 2004. Now it is definitely a small town and growing. Things have moved on. And yet if you walk down the main thoroughfare, Beacon Street, at night, it is as quiet and sleepy as ever.

The streets are definitely quiet and sleepy in April, before the summer season starts, as everything closes around 9. Except, we discovered, the Dickens Pub at the top of the town. I think Charles Dickens would be pleased that despite the low season, conviviality was continuing in a pub named after him. Although somehow I can’t imagine him watching ice hockey games on the TV like some of the customers in the bar. He would be more interested in engaging them in conversation and observing the other customers casually but intently (as a possible inspiration for a character or story). However, as he was fond of games and pastimes, he may not have been averse to shooting a game or two of pool with some of the regulars.

Always observing everything and everyone around him, Dickens loved to walk the streets of London late into the night. It was a compulsion in him and of course his nocturnal rambles provided him with so much material for his novels and stories. I think he would find the streets of Sidney rather tame in comparison. Like me, he would have to imagine what was behind the silent facades of the properties. Dear me, I should not be linking myself to Dickens in a sentence! It is most immodest of me!

Sadly one of my favourite haunts, the Rum Runner bar and restaurant, right by the ocean, was closing the week I was there. It was a happy coincidence that I was visiting Sidney before it finally closed its doors. The Rum Runner (under a different name – The Cannery) has a story all to itself in my collection, and the story is coincidentally about its possible closure. Dickens would definitely have been at home there. He often frequented waterfront inns and pubs, though the ones he visited would have been far less salubrious than the Rum Runner, as is evident from the low dives along the Thames waterfront that appear in his novels.

I think he would have got on famously with Bill, the landlord, and would have commiserated with him heartily on the Rum Runner’s closure. No doubt he would have dashed behind the bar, juggled with a couple of lemons and immediately set to making his own rum and brandy punch to cheer Bill’s spirits. The recipe is mentioned in one of his letters and, indeed in ‘David Copperfield’. When David finds Mr Micawber at home in a melancholy mood, he asks him to make a bowl of punch and immediately Mr Micawber’s spirits soar as he begins to make the punch, ‘his face shining out at us out of the delicate fumes’. Perhaps Dickens would get Bill to join in to cheer him up. When I return to Sidney, I shall miss the Rum Runner.

My visit to Sidney has reminded me of how much change we have all been through in the last few years. I am no longer able to stay in my aunt’s apartment now, as she is in a care home. She is still very much alive and alert, aged 88! Her accommodation may have changed, but she hasn’t. There may have been many changes in and around Sidney, indeed, in our own lives, but there is so much that hasn’t changed. The Pacific ocean for one and the driftwood on the shore, blanched by the endless ebb and flow of the waves. And the mountains on the horizon shrouded in the morning mist.

And the stillness.

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Buda hills, Canadian Rockies, Carpathian Mountains, Disneyland, Emily Carr, marcus aurelius, Tatra Mountains

MEDITATION 73

This evening the candle beside me is not lit in imitation of Marcus Aurelius writing his own ‘Meditations’ far into the night. Nor is the candle there on my table in an attempt to create a relaxed ambiance conducive to writing. It is kindled for the people of Ukraine who at this moment are suffering a horrific invasion with heroic endurance.

I have struggled to write a meditation in the last week or so. It has been a while since my last one. The ideas in my head have been mown down by the relentless onslaught of events in Ukraine and Russia, which I have found myself compulsively following on the BBC News, so courageously reported by their correspondents.

But then, the peace of Europe has suddenly become precarious after nearly eighty years, a peace I have been fortunate to enjoy all my life and a peace and a freedom I have flourished in. It is a peace and freedom I have taken for granted, until these recent days. So perhaps I can be excused if my thoughts have been too distracted to put into words.

Once again refugees are shuffling across Europe carrying their suitcases. Once again they rush to climb aboard overcrowded trains, holding children aloft to make sure they find a space however small in a carriage to freedom. Freedom from fear: fear of shelling and bombing; fear of the onslaught of the enemy at the gates and freedom from the potential fear of living under a new repressive regime.

In the faces of the children I see my own father and his sister, aged 8 and 5 when German troops invaded Poland in 1939, who became refugees themselves through the Second World War. After the end of the war in 1945, when over 11 million people were homeless in Europe and no longer living in their native country, the phrase ‘displaced person’ was used rather than the term ‘refugee’. In the last few days in Ukraine, with the conflict and ensuing evacuation both escalating, the numbers of ‘displaced persons’ heading for the West is fast approaching a million. They have become displaced so quickly that I wonder if their minds have become displaced too, though not their hearts, which remain in their homeland.

As refugees, Ukrainians have already found or are discovering a temporary refuge in neighbouring countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, Romania and opportunities for further sanctuary are swiftly emerging in Europe. The welcome and generosity of these countries is staggering, heartwarming and humbling. In these dark days we are seeing the worst of human nature and the best. The U.K. government must play its own part and in the same openhanded spirit of goodwill, rather than letting open hands be bound together by red tape.

It is difficult to know how to respond to the deeply tragic events we are witnessing, except to make a donation to relief agencies. So much has already been said in the last days and the international response has been at all levels generally supportive of President Zelensky and Ukraine and condemnatory of President Putin and Russia.

Perhaps a Ukrainian lady can comment. She was interviewed on the BBC News about twelve days ago, when Russian forces were amassing on the borders several days before the invasion began. The interview was filmed at the rudimentary checkpoint between Ukraine and separatist Donetsk. The woman, who was middle aged, had to go through the checkpoint to Ukraine for her regular cancer treatment. Originally the checkpoint wouldn’t be there of course. She was understandably fearful and could not understand what was happening. It seemed senseless to her. She opened her arms and said ‘I only want to love everyone: I want to give the world a big hug.’ I am sure many Russians do too. But sadly not their leader. As Shakespeare says in his play ‘Measure for Measure’:

‘but man, proud man,

Dressed in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep.’

In my numbness and emptiness I turn to another poet, W.H.Auden (1907-1973) and his poem ‘September 1 1939’ which he wrote in New York, when war was imminent in Europe. He is perhaps now best remembered for his poem ‘Stop the clocks’ which featured in the romantic film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’.

‘September 1 1939’ was reprinted in ‘The New Yorker’ and then some newspapers after the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York in 2002. It became a kind of anthem associated with that other horrific event. It is a long poem but the last lines suggest a response to the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine:

‘Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair

Show an affirming flame.’

May we all show an affirming flame. And may we remember with St Francis that ‘All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.’ Or an affirming flame.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell.

PS: The quotations in this latest meditation may have appeared in earlier ones. I make no apology – they express my response at present.

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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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Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 68

As I sit here gazing at the candle before me, one of my favourite actors has come to mind: Alec Guinness. There is a connection with Marcus Aurelius as he played the philosopher emperor in the epic movie, ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ in 1965.

I remember seeing the film on of my annual visits to London as a child in the large Astoria Cinema in Tottenham Court Road. In those days, of course, there were no multiplex cinemas with screens of various sizes so the large single screen of this grand cinema fitted the epic sweep of the movie itself. Perhaps the cinema seemed larger and more palatial than it really was as I was only 11 or 12 years old then. There were many Greek and Roman epics in cinemas when I was a child and biblical ones too. My mental image of Classical times came from the movies rather than school history books or the children’s magazine ‘Look and Learn’. When I was studying Latin at grammar school, these images from the movies would flood back into my imagination. In my mind’s eye I would be swanning around in a toga as I learnt to conjugate Latin verbs by rote. But I digress.

I have been thinking about Alec Guinness for two reasons. One is that I paid a visit to him with my friend Simon in the summer. More accurately we paid a visit to his grave in the cemetery at Petersfield on our way to Chichester. We had been talking about him and thanks to Wikipedia (which has replaced the great library of Alexandria of classical times), we discovered that he was buried only an hour’s drive or so from my home. So on our way to the theatre at Chichester (where he appeared several times) we paid our respects on a glorious summer morning.

I imagined that the cemetery at Petersfield would be a small village graveyard. In reality it is an expansive undulating field. But we found his resting place quite easily (thanks to the eerie website ‘Find a Grave’) and it was not far from the entrance. His wife, Merula, is buried next to him. She only survived him for a few months or so after his death in August 2000. I had forgotten that he died over twenty years ago. This is probably because he is still very much present through his many films, which are regularly shown on the TV, not least in his role as Obi -Wan Kenobi in the first ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, the character which most people would associate him with.

His film career was more extensive of course, in which he he played a gallery of detailed portrayals, too many to mention here. My favourites are his Fagin in David Lean’s ‘Oliver Twist’; the Ealing comedies ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’ (where he plays six different characters) and the black comedy ‘The Ladykillers’ in which he plays a sinister crook; as King Charles I in ‘Cromwell’ and as Dorrit in the little known 1987 adaptation of Dickens’ ‘Little Dorrit.’

These and many other portrayals revolved in my thoughts as I gazed at his gravestone. I also had the good fortune to see him several times on stage. As with his film performances, he had great presence on stage but he was not a ‘showy’ actor being reserved, dignified and capable of infinite stillness, even in comedy (which he excelled at). He could make the raising of an eyebrow dramatic or comic even to plebs like me up in the theatre’s balcony seats. Somehow he drew you into the story and the character which is what great acting is all about. His strong vocal presence helped in this, as he had impeccable diction of course. I remember moments from his theatre performances vividly even though I saw them over forty years ago as a young man. These flooded in as I looked at his simple gravestone with its quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ at the bottom: ‘The ripeness is all.’

I said to Simon as he stood beside me that it seemed so odd that this big star who is still so famous and in a way still alive to us, through his films, should be here at rest in this grave in this quiet countryside cemetery. A tinge of resurrection perhaps.

My second reason for mentioning Alec Guinness is that I have been watching two BBC Drama series which he appeared in. My visit to the cemetery led me to look them up. He played the role of George Smiley in excellent adaptations of novels by John Le Carre: ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ and ‘Smiley’s People’. They were filmed in the late 70’s and early 80’s and were immersed in the murky world of Cold War espionage before the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The first one ‘Tinker, Tailor’ had a labyrinthine plot which I found hard to follow at times but the sequel, ‘Smiley’s People’ was more straightforward. I hadn’t seen them in a long time, in fact I am not sure if I had seen all the episodes of ‘Smiley’.

Spy thrillers are not my thing really but Guinness’s performance as Smiley, the semi-retired world-weary member of the British Intelligence Service was magnetic. His reactions to persons and events were subtle, indeed, immaculate, as was his ability to register nothing with his face or his eyes if appropriate, as I suppose a spy must do in certain circumstances. It is very difficult to play inscrutable or ambiguous as an actor but he achieved it, while maintaining his strong presence in the scene. He had this amazing ability to make everything interesting, engrossing: even searching someone’s room or climbing a staircase or getting into a cab.

My own performances can be rather overblown at times, which comes from having to demonstrate in drama lessons. Perhaps now that I am away from school, I could return to the amateur stage and emulate my idol, Alec Guinness in restraint and stillness. Who knows?

Smiley inhabits a different world to us: a world of letters and notes; microfiche and rolls of film, elaborate hidden cameras and microphones and tapped phone calls on landlines.It is far away from emails, mobile phones (with cameras), CCTV and zoom meetings and hacking into computer systems. We are in a world of digital surveillance now and the Internet is rapidly diminishing the possibility of secrecy. But still individuals have to be tracked down physically and ‘safe houses’ set up, I imagine.

I don’t think I would be very good at playing a spy let alone being one: I am no good at trying to lie or being duplicitous. I was once rather close to espionage however. No: I wasn’t recruited while a student at Oxford for MI5 or the other side. Although someone who was at my college at the same time as me did end up spying for the Russians and was caught.

I was in a train either going to or from Leeds. The carriage wasn’t very busy. A man behind me was making numerous business calls on his mobile in a far from discreet voice. One involved the details of an upcoming business deal. I heard every word clearly. Had I been from a rival firm I could have written every detail down and passed it on. It would have been an act of industrial espionage but my rather indiscreet fellow passenger deserved it. I wonder if it has happened sometime or somewhere.

That was quite a few years ago now and today everyone is constantly doing business on their phones in public places or on public transport. I hear it all the time and it may have increased now that everyone is wearing earpieces with their phones. I often see individuals talking way into their phone as they walk in the street. I find it amusing sometimes as it looks as if they are talking to themselves. It is even more amusing when you see two or three people walking along and talking to themselves in the same street. They are oblivious to their surroundings just as the businessman was in my carriage ages ago.

It can be very annoying too. A few Fridays ago, I was visiting friends in South London and on a fairly packed commuter train from Waterloo East. Most of the passengers were going home from work and were probably tired. A young woman was on her phone presumably to a friend and loudly arranging her weekend social life, The call went on for over 15 minutes so she must have had a busy weekend ahead of her. But it was quiet annoying for the rest of us sitting or standing near her.

Similarly I heard a girl on a bus once splitting up with her boy friend and egged on by another friend and another one giving the results of her pregnancy test to her mother. They were different buses I hasten to add!

It is not the device that is the problem, but the way that it is used. People have little sense of privacy anymore or awareness of others for that matter. The device encases them in their own world, their own bubble. So they become oblivious to the fact that strangers might be listening in. We might as well be spies with headsets listening in to their private conversation as if we were leaning against the wall of the next room.

Some words of the Greek philosopher Epictetus (c 50 – 135 CE), who greatly influenced Marcus Aurelius’ own thinking, might be appropriate to the use of mobile devices, indeed to our lives in general:

‘We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak’

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

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 66

The days are becoming shorter now and the evening air is chill as winter, in the guise of autumn, stealthily approaches. I have lit my candle earlier than usual to write my meditation as the skies are darkening earlier. As the season changes, summer travels seem a long way away, even if they were only a few weeks ago. They have receded into memory, memories enlivened hopefully by photographs.

As I gaze at the flame’s light, my mind has gone back to a very different kind of light and another memory of my stay in Castle Thirlstane in the Scottish Borders a few weeks ago. I am remembering a thin pale light in the dark, not from a candle or a lantern (as would befit a historic castle) but from a mobile phone.

The journey from the Castle to Lauder, the nearest village, is straightforward on foot. On our first evening, my friend Simon and I walked down the long drive, passing the field with grazing sheep I mentioned in my last blog and then another two fields with corralled horses on each side of the path and a field of cattle beyond. We then veered to the right and ascended a small but steep hill which took us into Lauder’s high street. What could be simpler? And a delightful saunter in the sunshine before supper, too.

However, the walk back after our meal was very different. As we left the high street with its street lights, we slowly walked down the steep little hill again but into enveloping darkness. It was pitch black ahead of us until we could see the lights of the castle in the distance as we tentatively turned the bend. I have often wondered what it would be like to be a character in a Gothic horror tale and now I was experiencing it: walking on foot in the sombre darkness of night, my only beacon, the light from a window in a looming castle as I drew closer. It was a scene worthy of Mary Shelley and ‘Frankenstein’, Charlotte Bronte and ‘Jane Eyre’ or Edgar Alan Poe. I was truly under the ‘cloak of darkness’ and at last I understood the meaning of that cliche.

Except that the lighted castle window wasn’t our only beacon. My friend Simon was using his mobile phone screen to light us on the pathway. Eventually we could see a glimmer of another little oblong light. It was as if this light in the distance was signalling or answering the little oblong light in my friend’s hand. The light was from the keypad which opened the wooden gate to the castle drive. Once we were there and put the code onto the keypad, the gate opened to us, in a very slow, eerie Gothic manner, to reveal the final stretch of our nocturnal walk to the side entrance of the castle, where our apartment was situated.

On that first walk home to the castle, we were so intent on finding our way that we hardly noticed the night sky except it’s gloomy pall as we commenced our descent from the high street. Walking in that darkness and trying to see the ground under my feet made me feel a little vulnerable despite my friend at my side. I felt uneasy as I couldn’t see the path ahead of me clearly. One of my foibles is that I have a fear of falling, and fear of failing too, if truth be known. The answer is to slow down and take one step at a time, as I have had to do over the last eighteen months, indeed, as we all have had to do. We haven’t been able to see the path ahead clearly in the pandemic gloom. Fortunately we now seem to be emerging from it slowly.

I cannot remember when I last walked in such complete darkness without street lights. I do have a vivid memory of walking in the dark in the countryside when I was a teenager. I was a member of Teeside Youth Theatre then, when I was in the Sixth Form. A group of us were on a weekend to Stratford – Upon -Avon in the summer holidays. We saw two plays in two days, I remember. Some of us also wanted to go for a midnight ramble along the streets of Stratford and ended up in some barely lit lanes till there were no streetlights at all and we were in a small wood or field. The place is probably all built up now as my teenage years were a long time ago! It was a magical walk, a kind of enchantment. I had a sense of Shakespeare whenever we ambled. Perhaps it was my youthful excitement at being there, along the lanes and paths and fields he may have trod. I was every impressionable then. No – I still get that sense of Shakespeare in and around Stratford at times when I visit. I had no fear of falling then, wandering around in the dark with my fellow actors. But of course youth was holding me up.

We had supper in Lauder again on the final night of our holiday. So, once more we had to make our way back to the castle in the dark. This time I was more relaxed about it. We stopped to look at the night sky sprinkled with glittering stars. Simon pointed out to me the Plough constellation and some of the others. He gave me quite an astronomy lesson as we looked up into the clear night sky. He pointed to the North Star, which I found interesting as it is mentioned in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. ‘I am constant as the Northern Star,’ says Caesar ironically to the Senate, a few moments before he is assassinated. I remember the line well, having directed the play three times. I also played Caesar myself in the second of those productions and remember enjoying the speech. It suggests total confidence based on absolute power. So different from keeping order in a classroom – or trying to!

Looking up at the North Star in the night sky, it was larger and grander than the other stars clustered around it: like Caesar, at that moment in the play, surrounded by the senators. Perhaps Shakespeare gazed up at it in Stratford, as I was doing now in Scotland, and perhaps it gave him the image he needed to describe Caesar’s power and total self-belief. Perhaps, he stood in that field where I stood on my Youth Theatre ramble.

Looking up at the night sky made me realise, of course, that I am not in my own universe, another trait of mine! I belong to a far more expansive one, beyond comprehension. I am one tiny being in a huge cosmos. I did not feel vulnerable this time, but I did feel finite, in the face of the infinite. Just as Caesar, in his own universe, is very definitely made to feel finite when the senators stab him to death a moment after his speech.

Buddhists engage in sky meditation, looking at the sky for a length of time. I found this very useful when I was in the throes of lockdown. It helped me come out of myself, as I stood gazing at the sky from my garden. All those months in lockdown made me even more self-conscious than I usually am, and self-consciousness can be debilitating. Sky meditation is also an act of humility, reminding us of who and where we are in the cosmos; of our finiteness as one tiny being in a huge universe.

It can also be comforting. Our dear friend, Marcus Aurelius, had that same sense of being part of the Universe. The Greek Stoic philosophers called the Universe, ‘to pan’, which means ‘the All’. He writes, ‘Think of the universe as one living creature, comprising one substance and one soul: how all is absorbed into this one consciousness.’

The poet Dante (1265-1321) in his poetic masterpiece ‘The Divine Comedy’ gazes at the stars and sees, like Marcus, the unity of creation. He sees it as a volume whose pages are bound together by divine love:

‘In its depth I saw that it contained,

bound up by love into a single volume,

the scattered pages of the universe.’

He is seeing beyond the universe to a divine author behind it, binding the pages together: to a loving creator, which, those of us who are religious, also see. Again it is a comforting thought: we are not a random scattered page, blown hither and thither, or a mere cipher on it, but we are bound to the rest of the universe in grand design. In other words, we have our place. It is our role in life to find out what or where that place is.

So because of its stellar beauty on the final night of our stay, the sky did not seem bleak and foreboding like the first night. The stars and their little glittering lights, observed by Marcus, Dante, Shakespeare and countless generations as well as ourselves were warm and reassuring in the deep impenetrable blackness of the night sky. Burning thousands upon thousands of miles away, they were little flames in the darkness.

I am reminded of some words of St Francis, ‘All the darkness of the world cannot extinguish the light of one single candle.’ We too must be little flames in the darkness like the stars.

I mentioned that quote in my first meditation, which was exactly three years ago. I would like to thank those of you who have followed my blog over the last three tumultuous years and those who have joined the journey along the way. In particular, I would like to thank Henry, one of my former students, who set up the blog and who posts the meditations, even though now he is very busy as a producer on LBC radio.

Because he is having a holiday, the blog will be taking a break too for several weeks.

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 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.

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

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

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