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 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.

It is quite a while since I last sat beside my candle to reflect and to compose a meditation. I have been busy directing and presenting our latest school production at the Rose Theatre Kingston: ‘The Prince and the Pauper’, which took place last week.

As I sit here preparing to write my meditation beside my candle, I am thinking of Marcus Aurelius, my inspiration. I am remembering his face. I have seen it recently or rather a marble representation of it. I have just been on a visit to Florence and there, in the Uffizi Gallery, were two very long corridors lined with numerous Greek and Roman statues. Among these there were many Caesars looking down in imperial disdain on the herds of visitors as if they were captives dragged home to Rome. There seemed to be a statue or bust of every Emperor that lived. I noticed Hadrian, who looks quite similar to Marcus himself as they both have beards. Indeed, for a moment I thought Hadrian was Marcus until I read the little card in Italian and English on the wall beside the bust and realised he wasn’t. My mistake led me in search of Marcus himself.

Marcus was born during Hadrian’s reign. His rise to power was by adoption: when his wealthy father died, he was adopted by his grandfather and then, when his grandfather died, by his uncle, Aurelius Antoninus. Marcus then took his uncle’s name: Aurelius. Hadrian had no sons to succeed him so he adopted Aurelius Antoninus as his heir and when Hadrian died, he became Emperor Antoninus Pius. There is a temple to him in the Forum in Rome. And so, when Antoninus Pius died, Marcus Aurelius himself became Emperor, through all those adoptions. It could be argued he became Emperor by accident.
Half way through my search through the thicket of tourists in the long corridor I found his old uncle Antoninus Pius, looking serious and grave as a ‘pius’ (dutiful) man should.

I finally discovered Marcus at the end of the corridor with his stoical detached gaze on top of a black marble plinth. It was an older Marcus that I saw, with his curled hair and full beard, very much the philosopher rather than the military commander.

Because I was looking at a bust of his head and shoulders, it seemed as if he was about to turn his head and share his thoughts with me. A full length statue would have emphasised his power and conquests like the huge bronze one of him on horseback, hand raised in blessing, in the Capitoline Museum in Rome which I have seen several times and which has never ceased to impress me.

Yet here there was an intimacy about our encounter even though his eyes seemed to be looking beyond and above the corridor, lost in meditation again, perhaps sensing the aimlessness of the constant movement of the crowds around him. In his “Meditations’ he writes ‘No action should be undertaken without aim or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life’. In other words, our actions should be focused and should conform to our own philosophy, a philosophy that upholds life. We have seen very little of that among our politicians recently!
I must admit to being a little hard on my fellow gallery visitors. They are not necessarily aimless. After all one of the aims of going to a gallery is to explore, to discover and to appreciate. Not all visitors are aiming for a famous picture or sculpture or the work of a favourite artist. However so many were moving quickly from picture to picture, from statue to statue without staying long enough to take in what they were seeing, except perhaps to have the obligatory selfie with the famous ones.

This was borne out by a video presentation towards the end of the gallery route. My friend Alan, who accompanied me, watched it. A photographer, posing as a gallery visitor with an I pad, filmed the reactions of visitors to some of the gallery rooms. He turned these into a short film. His montage included people who would come up to a picture, take a photo of it and then move on, without even a cursory look at it. Our culture seems to be about grabbing and taking home, about acquisition and possession. Grabbing the picture as a digital image on a phone or I pad is more important than letting the picture grab the person. Possession is more important than interaction.

But back to Marcus. I was interacting with him even though his gaze was not on me but above me. His eyes looked real and the artist, whoever he was, had caught the depth of Marcus’ personality in them. They were the eyes of a real thinker. I have always presumed that classical statues had blank eyes with no pupils, to signify either that the statue was a representation of a dead person, who’s spirit was no longer in the body or that the statue was just that, a statue and not a real person. But apparently, the Romans gradually developed the idea of portraiture in statuary.

Impressive though Marcus’s stare was, it could not match the intensity and fire of the eyes Michelangelo’s David, which we saw at the Academia Gallery the following afternoon. But then, David is not a philosopher but a youth about to fire the stone from his sling that felled the giant Goliath. Situated in its huge grey alcove at the end of a great hall, the sheer size of the statue created an atmosphere of hushed respect, of silent awe among the onlookers. The overwhelming magnetism of the statue forced visitors to stop and look.

It is sad that Michelangelo’s David, along with Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ has become an artistic cliche. They are the most famous works of art and have been reproduced in so many different ways and used to advertise so many different products from chocolates and fridge magnets to underwear. On my trip I noticed ‘David’ kitchen aprons and briefs and a tee shirt with a cartoon Mona Lisa doing the ‘dab’ arm gesture of current youth culture.
Yet, David certainly towers above all this banal consumerism. I have yet to see the Mona Lisa in the Paris Louvre. David’s face is an enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s smile is purported to be. Sometimes he looks very stern, at others serene and then as if he is smiling. The young Michelangelo’s achievement is to create a figure that is the embodiment of stillness and yet about to exert great energy and strength. His achievement is even more emphasised by six other male statues in the great hall, all unfinished from his later life. Their bodies seem to be wrestling with the rock that still confines them, their torsos writhing to come alive. From a rock such as theirs, David was brought to life.

The eyes, it is in the eyes -as a good actor and director knows. How do we look at works of art? With the intense, focused gaze of David? Or with the meditative gaze of Marcus? Or with the blank almost pupil-less stare of an Ancient Greek statue?

Ave atque vale 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