Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Quiet

  • Gerard Manley Hopkins – Heaven Haven

    Gerard Manley Hopkins – Heaven Haven

    I HAVE desired to go
    Where springs not fail,
    To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
    And a few lilies blow.

    And I have asked to be
    Where no storms come,
    Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
    And out of the swing of the sea.

    I wonder how many of us feel like this? I am not alone, surely?

    The sub-title is “A Nun Takes the Veil” and although, even in these gender neutral days, I would be hard pushed to do that, I have often envied the quiet of a monastic garden. Peace and plenty, a place where the water does not dry up. Stillness and calm, safety from the storms of the sea. Beauty: a field where a few lilies bloom.

    Yes, I would like all of that. A place with no hailstorms. A haven where the terrifying green swell of a rough sea holds no sway.

    One would guess that is what the poet yearned for as well, diagnosed as he has been, albeit posthumously and speculatively, with bi-polar disorder. Tragically, he never achieved heaven on earth, but then perhaps as a Jesuit priest, he did not expect to. Christians have ever been “jam tomorrow” people who, apparently, find contentment (or at least fulfillment?) in being as miserable as hell on earth since they are so certain that better is to come after their deaths.

    How damaging are such views, not so far removed from those of the Jihadist. How much more satisfying to make a heaven on earth and to achieve happiness in the here and now, rather than gamble on an uncertain and improbable future.

    I have reached a deeply satisfactory understanding, very recently, of the part that poetry can play in soothing the mind. It seems to have its part to play in making a better place of the here and now. It leads me on a dream, a pleasant and beautiful mind wander. Reading Heaven-Haven fills me with warmth; it puts me in such a place as Hopkins describes, where water does not fail and where lilies bloom.

    We live only partly in “reality” if at all. In a very real sense “reality” is what we make it. Think comforting and beautiful thoughts and in some sense those thoughts become your reality. Perhaps I am thinking of the extraordinary Dietrich Bonhoeffer who argued that Christians should act in the world rather than retreat from it, and who maintained calm and equanimity throughout his terrible treatment and eventual death at the hands of the Nazis.

    I strongly disagree with the necessity of sharing “in the sufferings of God at the hands of a godless world” but Bonhoeffer’s stoicism was remarkable.

    I am, alas, an escapist. I seek Heaven-Haven in the here and now and a poem like this somehow points the way, in a tantalizing and not quite properly defined fashion. In some sense I am deeply affected and moved by religious thought.

    And yet I do not believe we have to surrender ourselves to an unproven deity. I do not believe we have to resign ourselves to hell on earth,

    I do believe that this life, this here, this now could become what man has sought over the eons. I do believe, very strongly, that we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It will take a combination of philosophy and science. It is in our hands to solve pain and hunger and to replace it with joy and plenty, not for the few but for the many.

    Gerard Manly Hopkins soothes my often troubled mind. I want that field where lilies bloom and somehow, reading this poem, I can almost touch it.

    Image: Tate Gallery

    Music:Heaven Haven by Alexander Campkin, sung by the Fulham Camerata,

  • Father and Son

    Father and Son

    There comes a time in your life when, if you are lucky enough to have a son, you recognize he has become a man. And of course to you, a very special one.

    It isn’t easy being a father, and it is no easier being a son during those long and often difficult years of childhood. Altercations and quarrels are a right of passage and the father is as often at fault as the son. The pressures of providing and paying the bills take a toll on the father, and the endless drudgery of preparation for that task on the son.

    And then suddenly he is 25 and on very special days you may be lucky enough to get him on his own for a while so that you can do “stuff” together.

    “Stuff” is often enough a long walk and lunch out. It was all a bit more exotic when he was a youth and in those days it was likely enough a day in the mountains, walking or skiing, with lunch in some remote hut.

    But all seasons have their gentle pleasures, autumn and winter among them. And nowadays it’s a quiet walk along a wintry beach, listening to the gulls and watching the waves.

    And yesterday was a glorious five mile plod along golden sands, at low tide, between Dickensian Broadstairs and plebeian Margate. Chalk cliffs laced with fine layers of flint, coves and bays and arches of chalk. Smugglers caves and deep chasms up which farmers used to cart seaweed on donkeys to spread on their fields.

    And Margate – who could resist it? The cold has banished the seaside postcards, candy floss and knotted handkerchiefs on reddened scalps. The wind howls and the waves crash against the harbour walls. Antony Gormleys’s stark statue stands tall on the rocks in front of the turner Gallery.

    Who is he, that metal man? A latter day Canute perhaps? Or simply Everyman, you and I facing the vicissitudes of a seemingly barren universe. The cold North Sea and biting wind he faces are certainly that: austere in the extreme. At least in December.

    And lunch in a seafront cafe, what of that? More gentle banter and a day well spent. There are some days in my life that have stood out so far above the common run of things I have never forgotten them. I suspect that yesterday will be one of them.

  • Solace for Deep Weariness

    Solace for Deep Weariness

    Deep weariness is a feature of my life. There must be so much out there to explore, to enjoy but sometimes I prevent myself from even looking.  It all seems such an uphill effort.

    I used to think the trick was to be constantly seeking the new, the unexplored and to avoid old pastures which have become too dull, too boringly familiar.  But, as the phrase goes, “the grass is always greener”.

    Exercise certainly helps these unconstructive moods and I almost invariably feel better afterwards.  Yet there remains a persistent and tedious melancholy at my core.

    The danger in an existence such as mine is to be forever chasing the end of the rainbow. Different countries, different jobs have in the past always proved alluring but inevitably fail to achieve their object. Such change always seemed to hold out the answer, the way; it did not.

    I have reached a stage where deep, deep quiet is usually the best solution.  I remain high in my ivory tower looking out at the ants and the bees in the “real” world. They buzz, they scamper, they build their anthills and their honeycombs and presumably find satisfaction in their endeavors ( a recent New Scientists suggests that indeed bees may have consciousness, qualia).

    The solution is probably to buzz like a bee and to build like an ant. Metaphorically speaking anyway.

    The commune has always held an (ignorant) appeal for me. Pottering around in a monastic garden hoeing weeds, weaving baskets, making Buckfast Wine for the Glasgow winos. Ignorant because (a) I have never tried it and (b) I don’t like being in contact with others very much, if I can possibly avoid it.

    But a garden of one’s own may well be something different.  Il faut cultiver notre jardin.  Or engaging in handcrafted woodwork in a quiet shed, or leather book binding.  Surrounded by nothing but the noise of birdsong or perhaps the gentle susurration of the waves.

    I’m sure there is peace to be had and I have often found snatches of it. The big trick is to make it last.  Just looking at the pictures on this page gives me a sense of what might be achieved; they give me a sense of quiet joy.