MOTHER GRIZZLY BEAR AND PLUCKY CUB

 

A parable for these times.

Keep going, folks!

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

It has been a weird and upsetting year for many. On the local and international front unexpected political changes have caused dismay and mistrust. Also the terrible situation in the Middle East, that supposed genesis of civilisation and the original home of someone who preached, "Love thy neighbour as thyself", shows no sign of abating.

So it is hard to wish everyone a "Happy Christmas", a phrase which trips lightly off the tongue. Let me just hope that yours will be peaceful and that as we enter yet another year, somehow, things will, gradually, resolve. That very Middle East was the originator of this phrase:

"This, too, shall pass" 
(Persian: این نیز بگذرد‎‎, īn nīz bogzarad; Arabic: لا شيء يدوم‎‎, lit. "nothing endures"; Hebrew: גם זה יעבור‎‎, gam zeh ya'avor)
it is an adage indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary.

In this year, too, Leonard Cohen entered "The Tower of Song". I published this clip some years ago, but make no apologies for sharing it with you again. After all, shepherds are supposed to have heard angels singing "Hallelujah" on that first Christmas Day.

                         

ELEGY (?) IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

A morning spent cleaning out the garage (it needed it). A pleasant afternoon meant I could take the e-bike out for some relaxation.

(Click on images to enlarge for more detail)

St. Rumswold Churchyard, Bonnington was a good destination for a short ride (about 12 miles) and a stop for coffee. It is a favourite spot, where one day (not too soon, I hope!) my ashes will be scattered. My seat there is courtesy of Steven Cross, in whose memory it was erected. The Robert Louis Stevenson quotation carved on the back is most apt, for an avid yachtsman. (Home is the sailor/Home from the sea)

Close by is his grave with an unusual "stone" made of good English oak. His wife Cynthia, a "passionate horsewoman", who died a bit later, is buried beside him in her own grave - not side by side, but with their memorials facing each other. Poignant. Both had short lives, I see.

The church stands on the boundary of Romney Marsh. It is the oldest in the area being first constructed in 796. It would once have been on the banks of the ancient river Limen which wound its way over the Marsh from its Channel estuary near Hythe and was probably a point for unshipping  goods for the old road northwards.

But the local topography is steeped it history. When Napoleon Bonaparte threatened invasion it was decided to construct a defensive Canal across the Marsh, feeding it from the local rivers which were diverted into it. The photograph below shows the old river Limen bed to the right at the field's edge with the later Military Canal running behind it through the trees.

Interestingly there is a relic of a later war, a machine gun observation post, when, in 1940 Hitler's armies again threatened this frontier of Kent.

A little afternoon meditation encapsulating history -  796, 1806, 1940 all from a country churchyard

ADLESTROP

Adlestrop Station before its destruction in the '60s Beeching cuts

Yes.  I remember Adlestrop—

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly.  It was late June.

The steam hissed.  Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther

This poem, by Edward Thomas, holds for me that moment during a busy, noisy journey when everything
stops for a moment and one is a traveller in an unfamiliar place. Indeed, it has an essential sense of time and place which seems almost unequalled.

And yet it was one of Thomas's very first poems. By this date (1914) he had had an unsuccessful career as a journalist and literary critic and was in a profound depression. He had been befriended by a fellow depressive, the American poet Robert Frost and was in fact on the train journey to meet him at Frost's home near Ledbury, Gloucestershire. Because of that meeting Thomas's poetry blossomed.

It was a short blossoming. The first world war started a few months later. He was 37, married with 3 children but insisted on enlisting although he would have been exempt at the time. In 1917 he was killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras..

I wonder if he felt that the England he had so perfectly captured in "Adlestrop" was in danger and he had to do his bit in its defence? Perhaps a fitting meditation as the first World War is remembered now on its centenary.

KEEP RIGHT ON.......

I have owned, ridden and restored motorcycles now for over 50 years. It is an activity I love and enjoy. Thus, in spite of increasing arthritis I do not intend to give it up.


I found this video clip a poignant and inspiring commentary, not merely about motorcycling, but on the general battle against life’s little difficulties as we approach old age.


Best watched with your sound on. You may click on the "4 arrows" symbol, bottom right of link, to increase view to full screen size.

AT EASE

Lined coat, warm cap and felt slippers,
In the little tower, at the low window,
Sitting over the sunken brazier.
Body at rest, heart at peace; no need to rise early.
I wonder if the courtiers at the Western Capital know of these things or not?

                                                                                                           Po Chü-I (772 – 846)

Congratulating himself on the comforts of life after his retirement from office. (c844)
(Arthur Waley translation)

These lines, I have always felt, convey absolute comfort and contentment. (my feelings when taking early retirement!).

I dedicate them to you all as a wish for the coming year.

MEDITATION ON A DOOR LATCH

(click to enlarge)

My favourite local cycling area, Romney Marsh, is littered with ancient mediaeval parish churches. Reflecting the social life and population rise and fall of these little marsh villages, they are a particular interest of mine. So much has changed. There are quite large churches where the village has all but disappeared. Why? Well, the low lying marshlands, in former times, were very unhealthy due to malaria (and you thought this was a tropical disease?) and the Black Death of 1350 AD completely ravaged these villages, decimating the populations.

This by way of an introduction to the church of St George at Ivychurch. A large church for a (now) small village (it is known as "The Cathedral of Romney Marsh), it is no longer used for general services, the village population being so small, but is lovingly preserved. The ancient floor tiles of the northern aisle have been heavily cracked or destroyed as a result of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers stabling their horses there during the English Civil War.

But it is the latch to the church door that I want us to examine. It is obviously very old - it could even be as old as the oak door, which is as old as the church (1360). How many times has this latch been lifted over the centuries? For the usual services, for the school which was held there in ancient times, in times of sadness (see The Black Death above!) and in times of joy (the church has chapels and corners dedicated to various saints, each of whom had a village society who each celebrated "their" saint with a feast day each year).

My late father-in-law was a master blacksmith and I worked for him for a number of years, so have an appreciation of iron work that is probably above the average. This latch would have been made by the local village smith - a man who would have been well-respected, as workers with the sacred iron had been since its original discovery. A general job - a latch for the new church door, but he worked at it carefully and decorated it proudly, according to the limits of his simple village craftsmanship. He must have touched his work and checked it out each time he entered the church (as I still do when I see wrought ironwork that I crafted over 40 years ago).

The iron would have been delivered to him as heavy "pigs", carried by pack horses (the Marsh roads being usually impassable to wagons) probably from the local Sussex iron mines. He would then have to heat a pig yellow-hot in the forge and chisel off a lump for his latch. This then would be re-heated, beaten, shaped and chisel-cut to form the latch length. Look carefully at the latch and you will be able to see that there are no machine or file marks on it - it has been shaped by hammer blows alone. See how he has fined it down ("drawing it" is the craftsman's term) so that it is thinner where it meets the spindle coming through from the outer door. Here it has been flattened by heat and hammer - it would have been easier to make this bit circular, but, pride in his work, he has lengthened out the tip to form a heart shape - a grace note.

Now turn your attention to the latch end. It could have been left plain and would have worked just as well. But here was a craftsman, proud of his standing in the village and of the work he would do for it and his church. He is a simple country fellow but wanted to give it his mark. Notice that these diagonals, dots and lines would not have been made with files, but, again, have been worked in the fire. The metal has been heated to red-hot and the decorations have been made with a hammer and chisel. You will know this because no metal has been removed from the latch. Where the chisel has struck downwards the metal has been pushed to either side, causing raised "cushioning".

A village craftsman, long forgotten. But allowed to live again for just a little while because of the work he has left behind. One of our forefathers, summed up beautifully in Edmund Blunden's poem.

AT THE ORCHARD PAVILION

AT THE ORCHARD PAVILION
(Wang Shi Chih 321 – 379 AD)

This is the ninth year of Yung Ho (AD 353), kuei chou in the cycle. We met in the late spring at the Orchard pavilion in Shanyin to celebrate the water festival.

All the scholar friends are gathered and there is a goodly mixture of old and young. In the background lie high peaks and deep forests, while a clear gurgling brook catches the light to the right and to the left. We then arrange ourselves sitting on its bank, drinking in succession from the goblet as it floats down the stream. No music is provided, but with drinking and with song our hearts are gay and at ease. It is a clear spring day with mild, caressing breeze. The vast universe, throbbing with life, lies before us, entertaining the eye and pleasing the spirit and all the senses. It is perfect.

I often thought that the people of the past lived and felt exactly as we of today. Whenever I read their writings I felt this way and was seized with its pathos. It is a cool comfort to say that life and death are different phases of the same thing and that a long span of life or a short one does not matter. Alas! The people of the future will look on us as we look on those who have gone before us. Hence I have recorded here those present and what they said. Ages may pass and times change, but the human sentiments will be the same. I know that future readers who set their eyes on these words will be affected the same way.

Wang Shi Chih was a renowned Chinese calligraphist. The above thoughts he inscribed on a stele which became famous. So many people took rubbings of it that it became badly worn. He inscribed it anew, but could not catch the spontaneity of the original which is still the one preferred by scholars.

We are treated to a little cameo of a delightful, civilised picnic in China 1,700 years ago. His last two sentences are so true (and poignant). But I am sure he would never have foreseen that "future readers" would enjoy his thoughts via the Worldwide Web!

I am indebted to Lin Yutang for this translation (and thank you, Duchess, for the book I took it from!)