MEDITATION 79

I am seated here again beside my candle engaged in my occasional nocturnal pursuit of composing a meditation. Unlike Marcus Aurelius, whose own Meditations are the inspiration for mine, I do not present to the reader lists of philosophical maxims or observations. My own philosophical observations (if any) arise from descriptions of places I have visited, people I have met or have admired and from revisiting my memories.

The Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) explained that poetry is inspired by ’emotions recollected in tranquillity.’ He might be describing these modest meditations. For it is only in tranquillity, in stillness, that I can be detached enough to glean some small seed of philosophy from moments in my life. If we cannot learn from our memories, from what we have lived and felt, what can we learn from?

Books, you might say, or the internet. I would consider using the internet as ‘casual learning’ as it is not so easy to assimilate information and deeply reflect upon it, at least, that is how I find it. Learning from books I find easier, perhaps because that was my method of learning since my childhood. That must be be true for most of us who are not young enough to have been exposed to the digital revolution in education. I feel I can bring my whole self to a book rather than a screen, which includes my life experiences and memories of course and hence there can be an interplay between the book and myself. The book may even bring memories to the fore in my consciousness. Although, it must be admitted that memory can be deceptive and even chaotic and confused at times. Hence the need for the cool air of detachment.

Cool air or rather the lack of it, has been on my mind these last few days, because of the high temperatures we are currently enduring. I have also been thinking about cool water lilies. I have been looking at photos I have taken last week of water lilies at Swanwick in Derbyshire while attending the annual Writers Summer School there. I spent some time stopping and looking at patches of water lilies on my walks around the lakes in time out from the week’s activities of talks and workshops.

Water lilies are among my favourite flowers. If my back garden was big enough and grand enough I would have a pond of water lilies. One of my favourite places at Kew Gardens is the water lilies hothouse where they have the largest one on record. There the lilies recline resplendent on the dark waters, colourful, exotic and expansive (like myself – well expansive anyway!).

The water lilies at Swanwick are much smaller but no less colourful: deep pink petals with white tips, enthroned on large dark green leaves. They float on top of the lake, congregating together in shady corners. Just as we delegates have been congregating together and hopefully floating ourselves, born up by new ideas and perceptions, by the deep but gentle waters of creativity.

I have mentioned the Swanwick water lilies before in one of my meditations. That was in 2019, after my second visit and now I have just completed my fourth (as 2020 was understandably a fallow year for the Summer School). It was on my first visit, in 2018, that I was encouraged to write this blog. New ideas and new directions always emerge from that place.

Swanwick has two lakes adjoining each other, but strangely no swans! It has extensive gardens and terraces and is an Edwardian house with modern extensions, housing the dining and conference rooms and a large residential block too. As I would return from my lakeside visit to the water lilies, I would see some of my fellow delegates moving around on the terraces to another talk, to their room or to tea, cake and more conversation in the lounge. Conversations with others who share our burning interests or enthusiasms are as important as the talks and presentations on offer at any conference.

As writing is a solitary activity so conversations with other writers are essential to keep going. It is why individuals join writers’ groups, not just to get feedback on their work and to learn from others and to receive hopefully support and encouragement, but to feel validated as a writer sometimes. To make being a writer seem real. The same is true of the writers’ summer school.

I do not think I have talked so much over the six days I was there. One evening I even developed a sore throat. I was giving talks myself on scriptwriting, four one hour sessions over four days, which led to more conversations from delegates so perhaps that contributed to it. It was good to be teaching again and to adults for a change who were eager to learn, unlike my former students at times! I have never felt so much at home there as this time.

Because we are all together for a intense six days, over that time we become an informal community, forming an invisible bond. This is quite extraordinary when you think that every year this unofficial community fluctuates. Not everyone attends every year and there is always an influx of new people. Yet over the days we are together, amidst all the activities and chatter, that bond silently evolves. It reminds me of rehearsing and performing a play. For a short length of time the cast become a community – as at Swanwick.

I was reminded of this informal community when I arrived at Derby station in 2021. I walked over the enclosed bridge with my luggage and down in the lift as usual to wait for the coach to take delegates to the summer school. Looking over the bridge as I waited for the lift I could see some familiar faces below at the coffee bar who would be getting the coach with me. I felt quite emotional as I hadn’t seen them for two years and we had all gone through the pandemic in the meantime.

In my mind’s eye I am returning to watching those delegates ambling around the property as I wander up from the lakes. Why are they here I ask myself? To learn, to improve their writing in some way, to find out about different genres of writing, about the world of publishing perhaps or how to self-publish. They may want to spend most of the week just writing, using the summer school as precious time away from home to concentrate and create. They might be successfully published themselves, or trying to get published, writing may be their career or a sideline or they may be an enthusiastic amateur. They might be writing articles, short stories, crime novels, children’s books or poems or plays or just scribbling. They all have a passion for writing, they have to write. To make sense of the world in some way through words (as I am doing now). They all need a creative outlet otherwise, as the American Dorothea Brande (1893-1948) observes in her excellent 1934 handbook ‘Becoming a Writer’, without a creative outlet life can be ‘unhappy, thwarted and restless.’ I have felt this myself at times.

What have I learnt from my week at Swanwick, you may ask, even though I was a tutor there? Well I have learnt many things from talks and conversations. And from the adult students on my course, just as occasionally I would learn something from my young students when I was engaged in my teaching career. I feel inspired to get on with ‘Driftwood’ my collection of short stories, having had a consultation with another tutor.

Most of all, I have learnt that it’s all about the writing and not the end product. It’s not about winning a poem or short story competition or the Booker Prize for a novel or even to be published in some way, wonderful though these would be. It’s about the writing, the process.

The great Russian theatre director Konstantin Stanislavksi (1863-1938) came to same conclusion about acting: the process, the in depth research and rehearsals were as important than the final performance. In the last stage of his life he formed his own studio of young actors who concentrated on the process and performed rarely.

It is all about the writing, the process. Because I have to write.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 50

As I sit here, gazing at the candle next to me, it is hard to believe that I have reached my 50th Meditation. I began them just over two years ago, so I guess I have posted one every three weeks or so. It has been a pleasure to share my ambling thoughts with you, dear readers: my final moments as a drama teacher; my travels; my visits to theatres and galleries; my thoughts on the tumultuous times we have been through and above all, my reflections on life, acting and being human.

I wish to thank you for subscribing to them, especially those who have followed these meditations from the very first one. I also wish to thank my dear friend, Henry Riley, who despite his gruelling schedule at LBC Radio, has posted these reflections for me. Incase you think that these words sound as if I am saying ‘Vale’ (as Marcus would put it) or ‘Farewell’ because I have reached number 50, I am intending to continue with them, though there will be a break for a little while.

When I started these meditations, blogging was entirely new to me. I had begun to write a novel (a collection of short stories really) and had attended a writers’ summer school at Swanwick in Derbyshire. One of the myriad of things I learnt there was that it was important for a prospective author to have their own blog, if only to promote their own work.

A few years prior to that course, I had read Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Meditations’ and had been very impressed with them. I wondered if I could eventually write something similar, as a way of thinning out the thicket of thoughts in my head if nothing else. So eventually the idea for the blog came to me. And with the help of a few ex-students for photos, layout and posting, here we are!

It is a strange co-incidence that my name – Neil – in Polish (where my father came from) is Neilus. My father’s sister, Barbara, who resides on Vancouver Island, calls me Neilus. So I came upon the name of ‘Neilus Aurelius’. There: I have spoilt the illusion now! Perhaps some of you have been thinking that I write these meditations, seated in a tent and wearing a toga like Marcus did. He may have used a tablet to write on just as I am now.

However, I must stress that I am no guru. Like Marcus, I am writing these meditations as much for myself as anyone else. Because of that, I hope that they have become wider in scope than the self- promotional blog of an author. Several friends have suggested I create a podcast, a visual version. However to stay true to the spirit of Marcus, I feel that my blog has to be a series of written reflections. After all, Marcus was never on camera, nor would he have wanted to be, I think, in his private moments. Having read his ‘Meditations’, I have a sense that he was quite a private and introvert person.

In recent months, we have all been getting used to being on camera. Platforms like Face Time, WhatsApp and Messenger with their video call facility have become a wonderful way of keeping in touch in lockdown. The ability to both hear and see family, relatives or friends who live far away as if they are in your own room with you is a great comfort, especially to those of us who live alone. I had never really used any kind of video call (except Skype very occasionally) before lockdown.

Then there is also the phenomena that is Zoom, a platform which seems to have made itself very quickly indispensable in a matter of months. It has transformed teaching at every level and along with YouTube and I player and other streaming services has kept our spirits buoyed up in the recent dark months. Indeed, but for the Internet and online facilities our lives would have been very bleak indeed. They have fed our impoverished spirits at this time.

Imagine if we only had letters and the telephone to keep in touch with everyone in lockdown. We would have coped I am sure but life would have been bleaker and more fearful, I think.

Imagine being without streaming for entertainment (another recent technological development) and only having four or five TV channels to watch – or even 2 or 3 (as was the case in my childhood)! I am sure we would have been less restless. I have come to think that my unease and restlessness in the earlier stages of lockdown was magnified by having so many different viewing options in the evening. Sometimes I would flick from one channel to the other then on to I player, Netflix or Amazon Prime and in the end I would get fed up and watch nothing. I would end the day feeling more unfocused than when I began it! My way through this was to watch a TV series on BBC, for instance, on the day and time it was broadcast (like in the old days). This gave structure to the evening and something to look forward to as well.

I was also grateful to the National Theatre, who put a new production on YouTube every Thursday evening for something like 16 weeks. These were productions that had been filmed previously and shown in cinemas. They dated from over the last ten years, which is when cinema relays began. Fortunately for me, I had missed most of them when they were originally performed and watching a play filled the evening without having to think about what to watch.

Through Zoom, I have attended several talks by the Dickens Fellowship and heard actors Ian McKellen and Roger Allam in discussion for the Royal Shakespeare Company; I’ve watched a webinar on the US Election from my old college; and I’ve taken part in a regular meditation class and even in a one-day retreat. This is not to mention the numerous times I have chatted to friends on Zoom. I have a regular glass of wine and chat with two of my friends. One session went on for two hours: we just left the camera rolling, so to speak, when we needed to replenish our glasses and go to the loo!

Of course, meeting family or friends on Zoom will never replace being able to be with them properly, nor will it replace the physical presence of a teacher or lecturer in a classroom and neither will streaming theatre replace being able to watch a show live in a theatre. But all these things have been necessary for the present and a great comfort.

I must admit that initially I found being on camera on Zoom made me feel tense and I still do feel tense in meetings to some extent. It is partly being able to see myself on camera I think. After all, the camera doesn’t lie and sometimes I have looked at myself and realised that yes I am growing old! I have heard it said on numerous occasions that the camera makes people look fatter in the face than they are in real life. Having seen my face on Zoom, of course I fully agree! I am quite used to communicating in a classroom and performing on stage and being filmed, for that matter. But I think it is seeing myself on screen while talking that I find uncomfortable. Only yesterday, someone showed me (in a Zoom meeting) how to hide my face while talking so that everyone can see me but I can’t see myself. So maybe I’ll feel more relaxed from now on!

Even when sitting on the sofa in my lounge and talking to friends, I have felt quite tense. My posture isn’t relaxed and it is definitely unrelaxed when I sit on a chair in my kitchen. I wax reminded of this when I was watching an episode of the new series of ‘The Crown’ on Netflix. There was Olivia Colman as the Queen sitting on the edge of a chair with upright posture in one scene. It was exactly what I was doing a few days earlier in a Zoom meeting in my kitchen. When she was a child princess, the Queen was trained in that posture. I seem to have acquired it naturally through Zoom meetings. Perhaps many other people, up and down the country are sitting like the Queen infront of their laptops in their kitchens too!

Contributors on news programmes at the moment are often interviewed via Zoom. There are even discussions on programmes like ‘Question Time’ or ‘Newsnight’ where some guests are in the studio and others on Zoom. Of course the audio and video quality on Zoom varies considerably and cannot match the audio and video quality of the TV studio. More disconcerting, I often find myself looking at the room the speaker is zooming from rather than paying too much attention to what they are saying. Sometimes they film themselves in their lounge or study and I am wondering what books are on their shelves or admiring a picture or poster on the wall. In the heat of the events of the U.S. election recently, a lady Politics lecturer was interviewed on ‘Newsnight.’ She was obviously filming from her desk in her bedroom which was plain but neat except for the bed behind her, which was unmade! Either she was too busy all day to make the bed or she had got out of bed to give the interview. I hasten to add that she wasn’t dressed in her nightclothes! But the sight of that unmade bed behind her made me pay less attention to what she was saying and in a subtle way, have less respect for her.

I understand that you are now able to choose your own background if you want to. You can use a favourite location from one of your photos, if you wish. Dear me, we are becoming amateur film directors: ‘Is the background ok?’; ‘Is the lighting ok for my face?; ‘Can you hear me alright?’ We’ll be getting into make-up next! Or saying to the other person on the zoom call, ‘Hang on a minute, I’m just going into the lounge on the sofa. I photograph better there!’ followed by, ‘Wait a moment! I just need to put on the right light for my face.’ As Norma Desmond says in Billy Wilder’s film masterpiece about a faded film star, ‘I’m ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille!’

To be serious again, it has been wonderful that, through advances in technology, we have been able to stay in touch with eachother in different ways and to support eachother. We have become a digital community.

Before writing this 50th mediation, I looked back to my very first one. In that reflection, I concentrated on the candle beside me for a moment. Some words of St Francis came to me: ‘All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.’ I did not know then, in September 2018, that we would be living through a pandemic in 2020 and that the world would suddenly become a different, dark place.

As these meditations progressed and Brexit loomed, I imagined that, post-Brexit, the U.K., might become a different, dark place and Europe itself too, being splintered but not shattered. I expressed my concerns in these meditations from time to time. But fears about the effects of Brexit pale into insignificance compared with what we have been facing in these last months.

Sometimes it has been difficult to find hope in the bleak months we have been through. But now in the News today, it appears that a vaccine is on its way. Perhaps by next Spring we may begin to emerge out of the dark tunnel we have all been in and meet our family and friends in the flesh instead of digitally.

In the meantime, in this very different, dark winter, if our hope falters, perhaps we should find a moment to gaze at the flame of a candle, unextinguished by the darkness around it.

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

I am gazing at the flame of the candle beside me. Normally it is a steady flame which reminds me of Marcus Aurelius himself or rather what I imagine him to have been like as a person. Statues of him show a steady stoical gaze on the world, confident but not arrogant. For surely it is a lack of self reflection which leads to arrogance in a person and from his ‘Meditations’ we know that Marcus was, par excellence, a man of reflection. There is a stream of humility flowing through his mediations. Some of our current world leaders would do well to drink from it!

At the very least, perhaps they would not tweet so much or would stop and think before they did. Perhaps they may even begin to consider that their comments might be of little interest to others, except that they are the person posting them. But then that it true of all of us who indulge in media messages and posts. And blogs! Perhaps we should all stop and think carefully before we post or even blog. (I do try to!). Aside from important news, if we think before we post, there may be less posts flying around the Internet, but those there are, would possibly be more heart-felt or thought-through than knee-jerk.

I very much doubt that, aside from official pronouncements, Marcus would have indulged himself in messaging on Twitter let alone Facebook or Instagram et al. He would have remained aloof from such means of communication. You may be thinking it is alright for him to be aloof as he was an emperor and remoteness goes with his social status. But I have a feeling that his humility would also have prevented him from engaging in ill-considered internet discourse.

I am reminded of some advice an American Jesuit priest gave me when I was a student at Oxford. He was explaining that you can achieve highly in the world without losing your humility. He added that you could even be President of the United States and still be a humble person. I would like to know what he thinks about his current President! But then we do not know – deep down inside ‘the Donald’ might be striving to be humble – but sadly with little effect.

The flame I am gazing at is larger than usual. It is is not a Marcus steady flame and is not flickering either as if it might go out. It is dancing. I am captivated by its constant movement. The shape of the flame changes moment by moment, rising and falling in the air. There is no draught in the room from the open window. The flame’s movement has not been caused by that. It is because the wick of this new candle is wide and made of cord. It is not a mass-produced candle but made by an ex-student of mine who has taken up beekeeping as a hobby and makes his own honey and candles. So the wick of the candle I am observing is wider than a mass-produced one and so has a more spectacular flame.

The dancing flame gently flares up and down joyfully. It has made me think of the creative mind: constantly in motion; ideas and thoughts dancing around our consciousness and, at its best, a joyful process. I have realised that inspiration is not a steady flame but it flares up and down like this candle’s effortless choreography.

I have been thinking about the writer’s creative process recently. Last week I spent six days at the annual Swanwick Writers’ Summer School which takes place in a conference centre in the Derbyshire countryside. The summer school has been running for over seventy years and provides talks and tuition on all genres of writing: everything from full length novels and TV Drama to short stories and poems and children’s picture books as well as ways of promoting and publishing. It was a busy week as there were talks and entertainment into the late evening.

We were a disparate group of 300 people of different ages and backgrounds, with different interests, genres, skills and aims. Some were there for the talks, others so they can have a space away from home or work to write. Some are keen to find a publisher for their work or to self-publish on the Internet, others enter writing competitions (of which there are many) or they write as a hobby and go to a local writer’s group perhaps. Some are committed to most or all of these. Some were keen to promote their work among the participants there.

All were committed to writing: to expressing themselves in words and to learning the craft of shaping those words into whichever form or genre seems most efficacious to express themselves. I remember once writing to the celebrated actor Sir Derek Jacobi about becoming an actor. This was when my teaching career was getting off to a shaky start (did it ever improve?). His advice was the advice that had been given to him: ‘If you want to act, think twice. If you have to act, go ahead.’ It was advice I later gave to my own Drama students. Many of the participants at the summer school have to write. I have realised this about myself now.

Everyone I met there was keen to talk, to share and to help and encourage. This created a kind of solidarity among us and as writing is, in the main, a solitary pursuit, I found this both comforting and energising. I remember going for my daily walk around the two lakes on the Swanwick site. Both lakes have beautiful flotillas of water lilies floating on them. Some were already in bloom, a delicate pink and white; others were still green in foliage. But they were all clumped together in those large floating pads. There wasn’t one water lily floating on its own. Though highly disparate, and though there were 300 of us, we Swanwick writers were like those lily pads, at different stages of bloom, of development, but together. We became a community for the week. I find this remarkable. The school was like the flame in front of me now: dancing with ideas, flaring up and down with inspiration.

This was my second visit to Swanwick. I first went there last year. On my first visit I spent some time at the prayer labyrinth which has a water feature in the centre. The labyrinth is marked out on the floor and is like a maze without the hedges. When I got to the centre, I noticed the water feature in detail. It was a large silver globe on a raised bed of pebbles. Water poured from the top of the globe and cascaded down into the pebbles in a continuous motion. The water reminded me of the writing process. Like the flame I have just mentioned the water is carefree. It just flows down not worrying where it is going. I decided to see where my writing would lead me.
It led to this blog.

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

If you are interested in purchasing local Kingston honey or beeswax candles please contact Vale Beekeepers of Kingston Vale: valebees@btinternet.com.