Tag: vancouver

MEDITATION 61

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Neilus Aurelius

I am still staying here on Vancouver Island in my aunt’s apartment and I am once again writing by lamplight and not my usual candlelight. My aunt goes to bed early so there is a stillness in the apartment and there is much of the evening left. I have been out on her balcony looking at the sky. The sky always seems more open and expansive here than in my little garden at home in the UK. Of course the sky is open and expansive everywhere, but here there are less houses to block the view. Tall spruces and pines on the horizon add to the sky’s grandeur. High as they are, they are dwarfed beneath its immensity.

A full moon has already appeared, even though the sky has not yet darkened and is still a light azure. Streaks of pink twilight clouds try in vain to hide the moon from view. I am reminded of Shakespeare’s line from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’: ‘the watery eye of the moon.’ The moon does look like a watery eye tonight. Its shadowy contours look like tears forming. So as I gaze at the sky, I am at one with Shakespeare again. Those moments have been magical in my life. I am sure he was a sky-gazer himself in his youth in rural Stratford and in London for that matter for there were fewer tall buildings then to block his view.

As I look at the moon, I wonder what it would be like if could see two moons from the earth in the night sky. What if they were in orbit close together – like two great eyes shedding tears for the woes of our world? My reverie is broken as a flock of crying seagulls, presumably on their last flight of the day, suddenly dart through the sky beneath the moon as the chill night breeze rustles the leaves of the pines.

I sit down and admonish myself for not sitting in my own garden enough so far this year and looking at the sky. Marcus would have spent hours gazing at the sky on the Danube plains on his campaigns, helping him to reflect, as much as gazing at the fire in his tent would. Sky-gazing is an ancient form of meditation and no doubt it was practiced by the indigenous communities on this island as it was by indigenous communities across the world.

I am now thinking back to a little ceremony I was privileged to witness this evening. It was conducted by Bruce Underwood, a representative of the Salish nation. The Salish are one of the Canadian First Nations. They are the indigenous people of this particular part of Vancouver Island. The Pacific Ocean on this coastline is also known as the Salish Sea, being named after them.

Bruce Underwood, the Salish representative was performing a ‘blanketing’ ceremony. In the ceremony, someone receives a blanket as a symbol of high regard and respect from the Salish nation. The blanket, which has a clasp to turn it into a cloak, is placed over the person’s shoulders, like a ceremonial robe. Before he did this, Bruce gave a speech explaining that we are all people of the spirit and that our own spirit speaks to the spirit in another person. Just as the spirit of one nation can speak to another nation, one community to another community and needs to in these fractured times.

Then he chanted a song, a blessing, while slowly beating a small drum. The slow beat of the drum reminded me of the slow beating of the heart. The chant was haunting, strong and resonant in his baritone voice, yet gentle and beautiful. As soon as he begin to sing it, I was aware of the echoes of distant times and places. It reminded me of the soaring of the human spirit through the centuries, as simple as a sea bird in flight.

Through this simple chant, this Salish man’s spirit spoke to my spirit and perhaps the spirits of his ancestors did too. For there is more to us than our physical selves and our cognitive selves for that matter, our critical and analytical faculties. Our minds are never still, forever processing the endless bombardment of different media. It is only in stillness and silence that our own spirit can speak to us and the spirits of others too, as his spirit did to me. We are mind, body and spirit and the chant was an integrated expression of all three: the drumbeat signifying the body; the words of the chant, the mind and the music of the chant, the spirit. So his slow dignified chant helped me to listen to my own spirit and to experience the spirits of other times, of other ages.

It also prepared me for the blanketing ceremony that followed. There is nothing regal about a blanket yet the ceremony was as dignified as a coronation. A coronation robe is a symbol of power and therefore of finest gold cloth and bejewelled. A blanket is a piece of woollen cloth after all, but it is warm, protective and comforting over the shoulders. I could see from a distance that the blanket had a special woven design. What it signified I do not know. But it was lowered on the person’s shoulders with great dignity.

There have been times when I have felt lonely, apprehensive or lost and it has seemed as if my shoulders were covered with a blanket of snow. But there have been other times when I have felt surrounded by love – the genuine love and affection of friends and family, the respect of colleagues and students. The ceremony I witnessed tonight has made me realise that I am more than surrounded by love – I am blanketed by it. This is what covers me, keeps me warm, protects and comforts me. It invests me with a special dignity. We are all blanketed – it is just that we don’t stop and listen to our spirit to realise it.

By now I imagine you are wondering who was ‘blanketed’ at this little ceremony and where it took place. You may even be thinking it was myself! Well it wasn’t. Although, as I have just explained, in a highly personal way, I did feel ‘blanketed’ myself.

The person who was ‘blanketed’ was a priest, Fr Rolf Hasenach, at the beginning of a party at his church to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of his ordination. The ‘blanketing’ was a sign of respect which the Salish nation have for him as he does for them. It was an acknowledgment by Fr Rolf and his parish community that the celebration was talking place on the sacred ancestral lands of the Salish people. So Bruce Underwood, their representative was invited to give a welcome and a blessing before the great ‘potlatch’ – the great feast – to celebrate the anniversary. Hence his chant with the drum.

It was a wonderful occasion with 350 parishioners and I felt privileged to be invited and especially to witness the blanketing ceremony at the beginning of the festivities. Some of Rolf’s brother priests were present and the local bishop and yes, prayers were said too. I felt that he was also blanketed with the deep and warm affection of all the guests in the room. As was I being only an annual visitor.

But as the Salish representative said, we are all spirit and our spirits speak to eachother. Fr Rolf’s celebration was a witness to that. In the Christian church we speak of the ‘communion of saints’, of being one, through prayer and through silence, with the holy men and women who have gone before us. Perhaps there is also the ‘communion of spirits’: of being one with the spirits that have gone before us. They may not be people we have ever met or even read about or know about. As I listened to the Salish chant, I was experiencing this, as much as when I listen to ancient plainchant sung by monks in a monastery. There is a unity of spirit which binds all humanity together. Any attempts at uniting peoples is an expression of this.

At the celebration, I felt myself wanting to stand up and recite a toast written by Noel Coward for a one act play of his called ‘Family Album’.

‘Here’s a toast to each of us
And all of us together.
Here’s a toast to happiness
And reasonable pride.
May our touch on life
Be lighter than a seabird’s feather
And may all sorrows in our path
Politely step aside.’

May our touch on life be lighter than a seabird’s feather, indeed, and may our own spirit circle and soar like a seabird too.

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