Tolstoy's Desk

The desk upon which Tolstoy wrote "Anna Karenina"

I imagine the day when Tolstoy might have sat down at this writing desk, in this room, taking refuge from the burgeoning family life in Moscow – that is, the many teenage daughters and his capable, practical wife Sonia who aptly managed the minutia of . . . well, everything.  Perhaps an argument had just ensued about which gown a young daughter ought to wear to an upcoming Moscow ball – after all, the family wintered in Moscow so the daughters could attend such balls and receive a good Moscow education and be part of "good society."

Tolstoy would have much preferred to stay year round at his working country estate, Yasnaya Polyana, just a few hours' coach ride south of Moscow, to toil alongside his many serfs on the soil of his Motherland. Tolstoy, born into wealth, had always held onto his ideal to be part of the common people, the "true" Russians, he called them -- their folklore, their wholesome peasant food, their simple pleasures.  Sonia was irritated by this ideal of his – after all, she had a household to run, daughters to marry, work to be edited and published and given credit where credit was due.  They were always at odds with each other in this way, Sonia and Leo – his high ideals and the romance of life among the working class, her practicality in what was needed to run a household.  Always the arguments . . .

The Tolstoy family photos

I imagine it was in this state of mind that Tolstoy retreated one cold Moscow morning to his desk in the small room at the back of the house.  I imagine he sat for a few moments in meditative solitude as the din of family life subsided from his conscious mind -- the echoes, the fury, the inescapable world of practical matters still audible through thick walls meant to barricade him from this world . . . this world . . . of Moscow society and teenage daughters and ever-practical wives . . . oh, this world.

So, I imagine . . . that Tolstoy eventually sat slightly forward at the tidy desk which Sonia had only that morning cleaned and prepared and made ready for writing.  He would have picked up his pen, dipped it in a full ink well, shuffled a bit of paper to his view (for he was very nearsighted and in fact had sawed off the legs of his chair so he could be closer to the desk), and so write these famous words:  All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

That is how he began the saga of Anna Karenina, the great novel about families -- the Oblonskys, the Karenins and the Vronskys -- each unhappy, but . . . in different ways.  Buried within the novel is the story of Levin and Kitty, representing Tolstoy’s own vision of marital happiness – Kitty, a devoted wife in all things agrarian and otherwise; and Levin, a husband who works the fields alongside his happy serfs.  They represent mutual respect and love and equality for all. 



Sonia's desk: for household business and editing

Of course, I don't really know Tolstoy's state of mind when he approached his desk in Moscow to write Anna Karenina.  Honestly, I don't think he was moved by inspiration nearly as much as careful planning.  I do know that he and Sonia fought their entire lives about his ideals and her realism -- she, always determined to keep him on track; and he, always headstrong to go off track -- until eventually he did so in his old age by boarding a train after a heated argument and thus contracting the illness and delirium that ultimately killed him.  Sonia carried on the fight for practicality even after his death -- now with publishers who would deem to use the proceeds from his novels for the "common good" rather than for Tolstoy's own family.  These were pre-revolutionary times, and the publishers believed that the great writer Leonid Tolstoy belonged to the people -- not to his family.

And yet Sonia had managed the household(s), given birth to 13 children, and edited and re-edited and written out by hand every novel her famous husband wrote.  Some even venture to say that it was Sonia's good reason and judgment (and talent for writing) that made its way into the characters we respect so highly in his novels.  She had always been in charge of the details, the minutia, after all.   

I think of all these conflicts and points of view when I look at Tolstoy's desk where he had written, among others, his famous novel about the unhappiest of wives, Anna Karenina – that is, in Russian nomenclature, "Anna, the wife of Karenin."

Fourth and Walnut

Thomas Merton Square

I had only 15 minutes on the parking meter at Fourth Street in downtown Louisville, KY, just enough time to hastily walk up to Thomas Merton Square at the infamous corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets (now called Muhammad Ali Boulevard, however) where I could possibly bask in the energy that might still be present there –

This is the place where Trappist monk Thomas Merton – author, poet, contemplative, and spokesman for interfaith relations in the 1950s and 60s – experienced his sudden epiphany (or satori or mystical revelation) which he describes in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness . . . And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

This is where it happened . . .

It occurs to me that this may be the only historical marker in America that is meant to herald something so intangible and un-provable as inner revelation. Most markers commemorate a Civil War battle or a political figure or the birthplace of someone famous. This commemorates the inner awakening of a sequestered monk on a street corner in 1958, one that would launch the remaining decade of his life in which he would travel the world and write primarily about social justice and the commonality of all faiths. We are all one, he said over and over until his tragic death in Thailand in 1968.

I expected much from the experience, and as it turns out I had just enough time to run up to the corner, hastily cross the street, snap a few pictures, then re-hastily cross the street from whence I came and return to the relative quiet of my car. The corner was so noisy, so full of the confusion of cars and people and street musicians and construction – or destruction – I don’t know which – for there was a lopped off cement head the size of a small boulder propped on the sidewalk where Merton must have stood and discovered oneness and love for all humanity. The head may have belonged to a gargoyle and may have fallen from the building above, who knows – for there was no body to claim it. I had to step over and around the thing to get my picture of the bronze sign clarifying the reason for naming this corner after the Trappist monk who wrote so many of the books I read in my youth and which had influenced me in so many untraceable, intangible ways . . . who knows . . . but perhaps I should have snapped a picture of the lopped off head staring up at me, for that was more reflective of my own state of mind at this time and place where I had hoped to bask in the revelatory moment of another man’s destiny.

A sample of Merton's few belongings

Only a mile or two from Thomas Merton Square is Bellarmine University where Merton’s few worldly belongings are collected – and I had only an hour there because the visitor parking space near the library warned me I could take no more. Once inside, my mood was quieted as the friendly, calm curator explained that since Merton had no family and had taken a vow of poverty at the monastery, his personal belongings were minimal – but what he did have was there in the library, all of it – his books, original manuscripts, letters and journals; his blue chambray work shirt and white cowl and farm boots and eyeglasses, that sort of thing; and the object that spoke loudest to me: his old Royal typewriter. I approached it with respect and awe – Thomas Merton’s typewriter, in plain view, not encased, and not off limits.

My pilgrimage was made worthwhile

I placed my own fingertips on the keys of Thomas Merton’s typewriter just in the places where he had done so and had thus composed the many books that meant so much to me as a teenager in the 1970s when I was stubbornly learning to bake bread and write and hone some kind of world view.  I used to save my babysitting money to send off by mail order for each book, one at a time as I could afford them, I told the curator. On the hood of the typewriter was taped a handwritten “guide” to what the number and symbol keys really meant – for apparently those keys were mixed up and didn’t correspond to what they said they were, the curator explained. “Rub your hand over it,” he implored me – “That is what Merton did when he placed it there,” and he made a sweeping motion across the typewriter with his own hand to demonstrate what he meant.  Some spirit rushed through me in that second when I did so – and then it was gone – but revelatory, satori-like, in my own private kind of way.

Miracle in Slow Motion

It started out as the practical task of cleaning the book shelves, something I do only once every several years or so – that is, taking books off the shelves, shooing out whatever dust balls are behind them, extraditing books I have outgrown, and reminiscing about others.  I won’t list the laborious titles I discarded, but many of them were a penciled and highlighted “self-help” variety of book, things that had absorbed me at the time before I absorbed them – or didn’t – and so let them collect dust.  Some of those books weighed heavily on me now; I no longer wanted them in my peripheral vision.  I ended up with two grocery bags full of books to discard in one way or another.

The way . . . dust particles pass through glass doors

As I chose my piles: which to discard, which to keep, which to peruse again and think about and later decide, I reminisced about the hopes and plans they gave me at the time.  But mostly I contemplated the mystery of dust balls – how they accumulate, why all those random particles comingle behind books on a shelf . . . and, more improbably, how dust particles must sometimes pass through glass doors before gathering into groups behind books on a shelf.

I thought . . . a single particle of dust must fall from who-knows-where and then hover at the shelf near the top of any given book. Then, by some volition either internal or external, it must traverse the top of the book, horizontally of course, before releasing itself to descend to the narrow bit of shelf space in back of the books which are lined upon it.

“Now this improbability must happen thousands and thousands of times over before a dust ball can be formed,” I said to a person in casual conversation about what I had done that day.  Only then did I begin to understand in myself the miracle and meaning I gave to it.  I was only talking about cleaning dust behind books on a shelf when I spoke to this person, mind you – and only later did I realize the significance of my contemplative task.

This improbability must happen thousands and thousands of times over . . . I thought this to myself the remainder of the day and the day after that too . . . traversing improbable odds before gathering and coalescing to form a dust ball behind a strip of books on a shelf . . . What a miracle!  It was a contemplation of dust balls and the gathering of random particles – not really a task of cleaning out books and dusting shelves.  Dusting behind things is a thankless job no one will ever notice when it’s done anyway.  Those others will not arrive home and announce, “The dust particles that I never saw are now gone.”  It is a vision and science known only to those privileged few who partake of such hidden work.

The lessons they hold . . .

To get rid of the books one no longer needs because the promises or lessons they hold have been absorbed into one’s life – or were never meant to be absorbed at all – that too is a miracle traversed over time.  It was a miracle in slow motion – the way all those books’ meanings and lessons and insights became part of me – one small change at a time, brought about from the inside or outside or an interaction of both – gathering and coalescing, like dust particles traversing the tops of books and landing upon a narrow strip of space behind them – hidden, dark, insignificant, unseen by most – until we excavate and look behind the apparent, until we see what has gathered over the course of time.  That‘s how miracles happen, I suppose – a painstaking accumulation of causes and effects, the way dust particles gather behind books on a shelf. 

Iconography, Day 7: Correction

One of the few choices given us came at the end of the last day – the choice to make Mary’s eyes gaze downward to her infant – or to make them gaze slightly outward to the world in front of her.

I intended to make Mary’s eyes gaze only at her infant – through means of placement of those white moon slivers near each iris.  I intended to place them at the top of the iris so she could appear looking downward.

But once I was home, and a day had passed, and I gazed at it thoughtfully – that’s when I strangely realized that I’d done it just the opposite of what I’d intended!  It was a mystifying experience because I had been so conscious of wanting to make it this way – gazing down at her infant.

I experienced a few moments of disappointment at my error – almost wondering if I’d picked up the wrong icon. This was one of the few choices given to me and I had messed up – until I realized that I preferred it this way, the way I had erred.

After all, a woman, albeit devoted to her infant, should also gaze outward to the world.  I much prefer it this way.  What if I should have made it the way I intended – eyes only for her infant – what disappointment I might have experienced in the days and years henceforth as my own life struggles to look forward.

A mother – or woman, or human – should keep her eye upon the world as well as her infant.  Even in the Tenderness Icon, she is part of the world.  I’m glad of this ‘mistake’ – not a mistake at all, but a correction made – or given – in spite of me.

Iconography, Day 6: Acceptance

There is a spectacle that happens when an iconography workshop is coming to a close and everyone stands back to look at their own icon or to walk around the room to look at others’ icons.  No one says, “Wow, I did a great job," or “Yours is better than mine.” Instead, the two phrases heard over and over again are: “Wow, how did this happen!” and “Wow, they all look so different!”

Iconography is not about taking control and creating something that is not there. It’s about letting go and seeing what is there. Even though we all write the same icon and follow the same steps, somehow each icon is very different.

“Every icon is a surprise,” our instructor (who has been writing icons for 23 years) said. There is no iconographer who can say they would not have done something differently if given the chance – but that is looking backward.  We accept what is, and by doing so we accept where we are in our individual spiritual journey.

If we struggled with one particular stage of the process, then that struggle helps us identify particular problems in our own spiritual journey. For example, trouble with drawing straight and trouble free lines could indicate a struggle with creating order in one’s life.  Conversely, if the lines are too harsh, perhaps it’s time to loosen up a bit in daily life.

From the first day I felt intrigued by the infant’s hand that clasped at its mother’s headdress. I felt intrigued because, as I said at the time, “that’s what babies really do.”  But I also know that ‘the pull’ doesn’t end with infancy.

Our instructor had a different take on that tiny hand: she said that the Divine is always trying to engage us, always drawing us into the realm, always tugging at us . . .

Many Iconographers of old did not sign their work, and those few who did, have done so on the backside of the panel.  We use a phrase, written in Greek letters, which means through the hands of . . .

When we inscribe through the hands of . . ., we are not saying, “I did this icon.”  We are saying, “I accept this icon.”

Iconography, Day 5: "Ozivki"

I don’t think a person can possibly extract as much intimacy with an image they’ve stared at daily as from one they’ve spent a week in creating through their own hand by brush, eye, intent, and contemplation . . . that is the magic of iconography.

I’ve intimately witnessed this image emerge from a blank board.  At one point, deep in contemplation about the curve of a fingernail, I thought of the old tradition given to women to wash the deceased’s body – to handle and cleanse, to understand and know, and to dress and groom the body of one no longer able to speak.  These women must have learned more about that life when it was gone than they had ever known about it in waking – an intimacy beyond words.  I thought of this while washing and brushing my image – witnessing its ‘life.’

When all this was done and the image was as complete as I thought I could make it, that’s when our instructor told us about ozivki – the Russian word for “life giving lines.”  Ozivki are those two or three wispy streaks of nearly translucent white paint that emit from the outer and inner corners of each eye, the corners of the mouth, the tip of the nose, the tips of the ears, the top of the head, and even the fingernails – an internal light so brilliant and alive that it can hardly be contained and must somehow find its way out.  Ozivki can be observed on virtually all icon figures if looked at closely enough.  It’s a Divine light that emits spontaneously from the inside and cannot be boarded up.

This was the tiniest stroke of paint that wasn’t even difficult to do – and my image seemed to take on a life of its own – “just the thing it needed,” I said to myself.  My image was suddenly alive!

As I made those sacred lines I thought about the Pinocchio story in which a puppet made of wood and string and cloth is suddenly given the spark of life to become “real.”   A real little boy, he is called henceforth.  What is it that makes life? It’s a spark, something beyond us.

Iconography, Day 4: Silence

The mouths of icon figures are intentionally made small in proportion to the rest of the face. That is because icons are silent. Their wisdom is beyond words. The icon speaks to us through light.  Therefore, the eyes are proportionately large – because it is universally accepted that the eyes are windows to the soul.  Icons are frequently referred to as “windows” – as in, the gateway to a world beyond our human understanding.

The blank gesso board represents inner silence, emptiness, and potential. It is white and empty, and yet it paradoxically contains all colors. On this emptiness we place pigments made of natural earth elements.  Natural pigments have crystals which give off light.  Prismatic facets catch light, just as the soul gathers experience and reflects facets of itself into the world.  Synthetic pigments cannot do this.  With the application of color, we 'open' the light within the gesso board.

Tempera painting is the earliest type of painting known to man. The wall paintings of ancient Egypt and Babylon are tempera, as are many of the paintings of Raphael, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others. The pigments are collected from nature: earth, plants, minerals, and even insects.  These pigments are mixed with the contents of an egg yolk sac, the symbol for life and creation.  Our pigments for the class had already been gathered and neatly processed into powders for our convenience, though a fellow student brought many cartons of eggs from her backyard chickens for the mixing of our paints.  

Writing lines around the eyes and lips and other facial features is about establishing order. Once order is established and color is applied, then light can 'pour' into the icon.

The practice of “praying with icons” is not a matter of standing or kneeling before it and speaking a rehearsed set of words. The practice involves attendance – that is, attendance – simply being before the icon and allowing it to speak to us. The icon is there to quiet and calm the mind, to bring stillness into everyday life.  Often in stillness, words come . . .

When I was in Russia five years ago, I saw more icons than I could appreciate or comprehend.  Many which I saw, I'm sure, were written by the famous Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev from the 14th century.  Unfortunately I had no understanding of iconography or of Andrei Rublev at the time, and so I most likely passed right by those treasures without knowing -- but I will always remember the overwhelming stillness of those vast rooms.

Iconography, Day 3: Darkness to Light

Icons move from emptiness to fullness, always building from dark to light, and never descending from light to dark. We are separating darkness from light. This represents consciousness, understanding, self knowledge, and inner light becoming manifest.

Icons always look forward in hope. Likewise, if we make a mistake, instead of spending time trying to correct it (which is going backwards), we must trust in the ability to transfigure it. In other words, there’s always another chance “to make things right.”

The purpose of the icon is to reveal what is already there, not to create a beautiful painting. I think of the quote by Michaelangelo who insists, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” He worked on the premise of revelation, not invention.

There are two illnesses among iconographers, according to our instructor. The first is perfectionism: getting absorbed in correcting small details, trying to be better than we are. This is an illness of the ego. The aim here is to suspend the ego, to be exactly what we are.

The second illness is that of disorderliness: a complete absence of structure, unconscious movement, reactivity, the refusal to follow rules. Icon writing is a symbolic art, so every movement is laden with meaning. One must be aware and conscious of every movement of the hand and brush.

Perfectionism is apparent among most of us in attendance – a line gone wrong quickly evokes the muffled or clear sounds of disappointment and self-reproach. Emotions come to the surface as several people suddenly remember and recount the reprimands they had received as young children in art class. Our group of 15 includes two retired neurosurgeons. I found it interesting that both these men accepted apparent errors with quietude and often smiles.

None of us can ever be perfect. It is hubris to even think that our work will be perfect no matter how long we practice. Writing the icon is about accepting exactly who are, right now, and moving from there.

Although iconography is about following the rules and aligning the ego with a greater truth, the paradox (one of many) is that following the law perfectly does not produce perfection!  Laws and rules cannot heal human life, our instructor reminds us repeatedly. Only light and grace can heal.

Iconography, Day 2: Containment

Chaos will never be overcome. That is a truth. We strive continuously to bring order and understanding to chaos – but it will never be overcome.

That is why the halo goes beyond the border of the recessed center of the gesso board – to remind us that, although universal truths are well-ordered and dependable, disorder and chaos will always be in the wings. That does not mean that chaos will prevail – unless we allow it to – it means that chaos will always be there. Iconography is about bringing order out of chaos.

In the Tenderness Icon, Mary inclines her head to the child and the child presses his face against the cheek of his mother. My favorite part of this icon is the way the tiny hand clasps the headdress of his mother. Someone asked me why, and I said, “Because that’s what babies really do.”

There was a discussion about the way the mother looks somewhat sorrowful, as though she knows what is going to happen to her child. I also note that the child looks compassionately at his mother, as though he knows what his mother must face. When I think of young men who have died in wars – millions of them over numerous centuries – my first thought goes to the mothers of those men. They are the ones who brought them to life and must carry the pain of death.

Everything in iconography is representative of something, and that’s why the rules can’t be changed or invented. The blue undergarment represents humanity. The red/purple outer garment represents the divine. The clay ‘first wash’ represents the earth from which we have emerged, and gold represents the transformation to which we aspire.

Books have been written about the position of the hands and fingers in iconography. I know there is a deep meaning in my attraction to the tiny hand grasping at the veil.

Iconography, Day 1: Emptiness

There is an axiom about the blank page being the most intimidating of all pages – and so this applies to the blank canvas as well, warns our instructor in the first hour of the first day of a weeklong iconography workshop.  The blank ‘page’ in this case is the gesso board, a panel of poplar wood covered by linen cloth and made smooth by a mixture of rabbit glue, ground marble, and talc – a tradition in Russian iconography (called the Prosopon Method) that dates to about 1,000 years ago.  On this gesso board, with no art background or inclination whatsoever, I will follow the ‘rules’ handed down by monks and holies of ancient times to “capture light” which will mysteriously reveal itself as ‘image.’

I am writing an icon – not ‘drawing’ or ‘painting’ it – because in the Greek language from which the original icon was manifested nearly 2,000 years ago, there is no word for painting or drawing.  One writes an icon.  And, to be even more specific, one does not actually write the icon, rather it is believed the writing comes through the hands . . .

There is much contemplation of one’s own life in the writing of icons. Once reserved as the lifetime work of monks in monasteries, the tradition of iconography is now available to the unsanctified as well. I sit in front of the blank gesso board, white and blank and empty, and I contemplate that the thing she has just said is not true for me – about the blank page being intimidating.  I’m not intimidated by a blank page.  I am, however, nearly paralyzed with intimidation by a page that has been coaxed and cleaned and edited and gone over a thousand times (by me), and made ready to be handed over to another set of eyes – anyone – the critic outside of me. I am not afraid of emptiness or blankness, or of my own efforts to fill a page and make it whole. I am afraid, however, of my finest work not being good enough. It’s easier for me to do my finest work and then hide it in a closet . . .

But iconography is not about the ego or individuality or forced creativity. It is about aligning oneself with truths that have been known for thousands of years. Iconography is not about the writer – it is about the listener, the one who can listen and let inspiration speak through.

The so-called “Tenderness Icon” is one of four maternal icons depicting aspects of parenthood. It was first written by the Apostle Luke in the first century A.D.  Luke, a physician, writer, artist and apostle, is said to have written hundreds of icons in his lifetime.  The tradition begins with the Apostle Luke, moves to Greece, arrives in Russia . . .

Trusting in the mystical communication between eye and hand, and having only a compass, pencil, knife, and ruler as our tools, we etch the image of the Mother and Child onto the blank gesso board to symbolize that the truths of this icon have already been marked into our lives.  We are born 'downloaded' with universal truths.  Aligning ourselves, capturing light, and revealing those truths – that is what iconography is about.

The Blue Blob

In a dark time, the eye begins to see. -- Theodore Roethke


"A Study of Boats," 1933, Winston Churchill

One reaches a point of just plain tiredness – as it hit me so profoundly not long ago when I was reading a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, written in his later years, in which he drones about the tiredness of pulling off one’s shoes and stockings at night and putting them on again in the morning . . . as I read those lines, they hit me just so – because, just then, I was profoundly tired of washing my face in the evening and putting on my bit of makeup in the morning – just tired of the routine, the things I could do in my sleep or in blindness – the fixing of toast and tea, the way a table is dusted, the way I walk through the house, the way the clean clothes are folded or made to hang, and even the way the hangers are always tangled and require a certain degree of tug to loosen them from each other – and how one always falls to the floor and must needs be picked up . . . an overwhelming familiarity . . . tired.

"The world is eaten up by boredom . . . It is like dust. You go about and never notice . . . But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be forever on the go. And so people are always ‘on the go.’"  (The Diary of a Country Priest – Georges Bernanos)

But I’m tired of being forever ‘on the go.’  This is what the young do, and this is what I have always done.  A younger Everyman/Everywoman might seek novelty or new environs – or even new tables to dust and new clothes to fold – anything to enliven the tired mind.  But when we are tired of all that, maybe we seek new ways to see the familiar – or we stop seeing anything at all.

I recall a thin, out of print book I had picked up many years ago when I was content to be always ‘on the go.’  It is titled Painting as a Pastime, by Winston Churchill; it's a sort of memoir about a time between two world wars when he had been ousted from public life and was required to face his inner bleakness.

He suggests a person (public man, he says) acquire two or three hobbies that use other parts of the brain. “It is only when new cells are called into activity, when new stars become the lords of the ascendant, that relief, repose, refreshment are afforded.”  And so this public figure took up oil painting in his late forties.  A daunting and almost paralyzing task at first, he humorously describes placing a bean-sized blob of blue paint on a snowy white canvas with the intention of painting the sky in front of him – then sitting for a very good while – then rousing up a thing he calls Audacity to make the paint be smeared and stroked.  “The spell had been broken . . . I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.”

I suppose Churchill had come upon a new way of seeing things.  “I found myself instinctively as I walked noting the tint and character of a leaf, the dreamy, purple shades of mountains, the exquisite lacery of winter branches, the dim, pale silhouettes of far horizons . . . Now I often amuse myself when I am looking at a wall or a flat surface of any kind by trying to distinguish all the different colours and tints which can be discerned upon it . . . You would be astonished the first time you tried this to see how many and what beautiful colours there are even in the most commonplace objects, and the more carefully and frequently you look the more variations do you perceive.”

He didn’t forget or forego the statesman that he was meant to be; and he certainly could not have foreseen the part that he would play as Prime Minister during WWII.  He took a breather in life, exercised other parts of the brain, and perhaps saw parts of himself he didn’t know existed.  He came back with a vengeance at the beginning of WWII, even perceiving that the world had not “seen” the lessons of WWI and were so destined to repeat them.

Churchill wrote this little book at age 74, a time when he could look back and see with clarity the landscape of his own life – all the shades and hues, the darks and lights – and how they fit together and what they meant for the entire picture.



Churchill In Heaven

 “When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject. But then I shall require a still gayer palette than I get here below. I expect orange and vermilion will be the darkest, dullest colours upon it, and beyond them there will be a whole range of wonderful new colours which will delight the celestial eye.”

Stormier, Wilder, and More Weird



This alcoved bust of Poe lures me


Whenever the cobwebs get tangled in my brain, I go to the Poe Museum to set them straight.  Each time I find something new and beguiling to pique my interest and hone my understanding of this native Richmond author. Less and less do I think of him as the world thinks of him – in terms of “the macabre” or the paranormal – and more and more do I think of him as a very normal person who saw reality a little too clearly – and much too loudly (i.e. beating hearts).

I had read that an earlier version of Poe’s famous poem, “To Helen,” was discovered by happenstance only weeks ago when the local curator was going through boxes of manuscripts to create a new exhibit. It was found in a journal belonging to Poe’s cousin in Baltimore, and kept in storage for nearly a century. It is handwritten by Poe, signed, and dated.  Only . . . it is different . . . that’s what the curator must have thought when he read and re-read the finely penciled scrawl.  The thing has yet to be “authenticated” by those who spend much time and earn sums of money doing so, but common sense dictated it be put on display at the museum – posthaste.  Nearby is a lock of his hair – only it is hair taken from his notably long eyebrows at the time of his death.  That was a hard thing to look at, mostly in wonder at the thought processes of the person who snatched it from the dead body and glued it to an envelope flap.

The 'mind' of this script . . .

I find handwriting to be as personal as a lock of hair, almost transporting in the intimacy it brings with its creator. I spent much time standing in wonder at the miniscule, curlicued, and faded markings done in fine pencil (his favorite medium), wondering at the state of mind as Poe wrapped a curved line under certain words or put spirals in the capital letters of his initials.  A good many of his letters are an entreaty for money – giving us no doubt as to how normal and human he really was. One letter to his stepmother’s Uncle Valentine outlines “the bitter struggle with poverty and the thousand evils which attend it . . . “ A few pages later, having expostulated on the singular kindnesses which he remembered the uncle had shown him in boyhood (very flattering), the amount and reason for his solicitation is finally announced – $200 to start up a new literary journal to be called “The Stylus.”  Uncle Valentine refuses the money – and “The Stylus” was never begun.  Poe was to die within the year.

The young street artist, James Carling

Next, I saw a small sign pointing to a back building near the gardener’s tool shed which read, “Stormier, Wilder, and More Weird.” Trekking inside, around a corner, and through a narrow doorway (this is a self guided tour, and I am almost always the only person there), I saw a room encircled by original sketches meant to illustrate “The Raven.” What makes them so unusual is that they had never been published in the lifetime of the struggling Liverpool “artist” who did them.  His name was James Carling, also called “The Little Chalker,” a young street urchin who had lived on his own since age five and earned his pittance on the streets of Liverpool through recitations of poetry and a bag of chalk for his art. He was arrested at age seven for drawing on the streets, and put in a type of jail/school for seven years. Upon his release he traveled to the United States where he resumed his street art and also came upon the poetry of Poe.  That’s when he set out to illustrate “The Raven” in 43 frames.  His work was rejected by publishers and hailed as being too provoking; after all, it was nothing like the celebrated Poe illustrator of the day, Gustave Dore.  But Carling believed that Dore had failed Poe:

Stormier . . .


“Our ideas are as wide as poles . . . mine are stormier, wilder, and more weird; they are horrible; I have reproduced mentality and phantasm. Not one of the ideas were ever drawn before. I feel that Poe would have said that I have been faithful to his idea of the ‘Raven,’ for I have followed his meaning so close as to be merged into his individuality.”

Carling died at age 29 and was buried in a pauper’s grave, as penniless as Poe – and virtually unknown.  The drawings remained in storage for generations until the Poe Museum purchased them from a Carling relative. Because of the fragility of the materials, they have been on display only once before now – and that was in the early 1970s.  They will remain on display throughout 2012 in honor of the 90th anniversary of the museum.

I spent much time in this small room, alone, taking in the essence of James Carling’s work and thinking about the storminess of the mind that created them – and what Poe might have thought about all this.  I concluded: Poe would have much preferred this hand (and mind) to illustrate his famous ‘Raven.’

Always there are new and odd happenings such as these at the Poe Museum – always little fanfare given to them – always solitude to observe them privately – and always they are capable of renewing my wonder.

Easter Mystery

There is something mystical or at least unusual about this photo taken the evening before Easter.  Does anyone else see it?  Double click on picture to enlarge . . . 

Daydream Believer

My teenage heartthrob Davy Jones died of a heart attack last week at age 66. I sat upright from the newspaper, suddenly remembering the life size poster of Davy Jones that I had taped to the backside of my bedroom door at age 12 or so . . . his dark brown hair, straight and shiny and longish, with bangs nearly to his eye lashes – his clear skin, bright impish eyes and mouth – oh, that mouth . . . did I not kiss that paper mouth till the lips might have sagged or collapsed from the slobbery pressure of my own lips . . . Davy Jo-o-o-o-nes . . . I would swoon.  That’s what young girls do – or did back in the 60s, anyway.

I had him positioned at a height two or three inches above my own. Davy Jones, a former jockey, was in real life only 5’3 or so. I might have already been taller than that at age 12, and so his paper feet floated several inches above my floor in order to accommodate the fantasy. He was wearing a deep maroon Nehru shirt with some glitzy trim on the edges, and the background of the poster was red – very impassioned.  I loved Davy Jones, the Monkee. I would use my paltry allowance money, walk to the only drugstore in our little town, and buy whatever new ‘45’ was on the market – “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday” . . .

I would rush through dinner on the nights that his TV show aired, run to the El-Khouri’s house (there were five girls in that large family) so we could watch the latest episode together. We each had our favorite Monkee, and strangely I had little competition for Davy. We’d talk for awhile after the show, maybe listen to some of the music I had brought with me, then I’d reflectively walk home in the dark night, humming to myself, “I’m a Believer . . . “ or whatever song I couldn't get out of my mind.  I’d be incited with new passions by the way he had moved on the screen – or grinned – or twinkled an eye at me – or even frowned at stupid Peter or Mickey.  He was the Monkee who really understood about daydreams and believing and all that real life stuff.  I was haunted by the desire to grow up and get out of that small town and become . . . well, a writer. What did Davy Jones have to do with a daydreamy teenage girl wanting to be a writer?

I wrote the first short stories of my youth in that bedroom, and I would pause all the while to glance over at his impish face looking back at me with the expression that never changed. There was something steadfast and promising and . . . believable in his expression.  Somehow, in my memory, Davy Jones is entwined with my first efforts to write.

As I continued reading the newspaper article last week, I learned that the Monkees wrote none of the songs which made them famous – humble Neil Diamond wrote many of them – and they were not allowed to play their own instruments. In fact, Davy was the only Monkee who could actually carry a tune well enough to sing! They were cast as actors first of all – actors acting as musicians. I never knew any of that in my youth.  That paper poster taped to my bedroom door with Davy's feet floating three inches above the floor was pretty close to real life, I guess.  But strangely, I’m not disappointed at all.

Charles Dickens in Virginia

There is great fanfare in England this month, and not only in England but in 50 countries worldwide, regarding Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday which happens to be today, February 7.  According to an article in Smithsonian magazine, “London is . . . buzzing with museum exhibitions and commemorations . . . festivals, guided walks, a reading of “A Christmas Carol” by great-great-grandson Mark Dickens . . . “ – and so on.

I begin my search for Dickens in Virginia . . .

In memory of his birthdate, and because he is one of my favorite authors of Christmases past, I planned to participate and honor him in some local way by visiting a place in Cumberland, Virginia where he once stayed with old family friends from England, the Thorntons, in 1842.

Only a day or two after his visit ended, the Thornton’s 13-month-old son, Charles Irving Thornton (possibly named after Charles Dickens and Washington Irving) died of unknown cause. Dickens was in Ohio by then, but was summoned by the child’s doctor to write an epitaph for the young boy. As it turns out, this would be one of only two epitaphs which Dickens would write in his lifetime.  The other was for his sister-in-law who died at age 17.  That site in London is one of the many stops on the tour for his bicentennial celebration.  I just hope those Englanders or other Dickens fans never come to Virginia to view the only-other epitaph he wrote.  As an American, I would be terribly embarrassed by what they might find . . . or most probably, not find.

The site is located in the throes of what is now called Cumberland State Forest, a great place for fishing and hunting and camping.  I’d already learned that the site was hard to find, though it was made an official Virginia Historic Landmark in 1980. I found someone with an official uniform who directed me to the site while turning and positioning his body in the manner of “as the bird flies.” I was to drive about six country miles down a single lane dirt road, look for a small sign for Oak Hill Lake, take that turn and drive another two or three miles.  “When you see two old barns, park your car, walk across the field in front of you, you’ll see a grove of trees, and it’s somewhere in that grove of trees," he said.  "But there’s no sign for it, so good luck finding it.” As I turned to walk away, he added, “It’s a good thing you’re here in February or you’d never find it . . . “  Then he mentioned ticks.

Somewhere in this grove of trees, he said.

I did everything he said . . . though the grove of trees was really the beginning of a seemingly endless forest.  I realized I was wandering on the old "Thornton homestead" where Charles Dickens had once wandered, land that has been systematically acquired over the last century along with neighboring homesteads for natural preservation by the State.  Slightly into the forest I looked up to see pine trees that had fallen onto other pine trees and were resting precariously at 45 degree angles above my head – everywhere I went.  I was careful not to walk too loudly lest I stir the surroundings and one of those dangling pine trees fall on my head.  I spent an hour walking, searching, softly talking to the woods . . . help me, Charles Dickens, to find the only evidence of your presence in Virginia . . . 
 

Sphagnum moss, my only clue

I saw a lone duck on the lake nearby. I stopped often and listened to profound silence. There was not a human being in shouting distance. I heard birds of a different variety than I hear at home. I saw a type of mossy growth – sphagnum moss, I think it’s called – which is the same variety I’d noticed on the prettified picture of the grave marker on the state website.   I let myself think that I must be nearby.  But I also knew I was wandering in circles with those ominous diagonal trees above me and the silent duck on the motionless lake and the eerie sounds of dusk approaching.  I’m an inordinately determined person, but this time I had to give up.


The official site I had hoped to find

While the rest of the world honors this author’s birthdate 200 years ago today with fanfare, celebrations, readings, and tours, it appears the State of Virginia silently lets its bit of literary history decay into the ground of Cumberland State Forest. 

This is the grave of a little child whom God in his goodness called to a bright eternity when he was very young. Hard as it is for human affection to reconcile itself to death in any shape and most of all, perhaps at first in this his parents, can even now believe that it will be a consolation to them throughout their lives and when they shall have grown old and grey always to think of him as a child in heaven.

-- Charles Dickens

One Mile in My Shoes

"The labyrinth is a reminder that even in chaos there is a path that leads to harmony."


The classic eleven-circuit labyrinth design

Pilgrims of the Middle Ages who could not make the journey to Jerusalem during their lifetime could reach Jerusalem in spirit by walking a labyrinthine path which came to be called “The Jerusalem Mile.” These labyrinths were built in monasteries and were designed according to hidden symbolisms, sacred geometry, and other mathematical representations.

Few of these original labyrinths remain in the world because they were intentionally destroyed or removed over the last 800 years or so.  The most classic labyrinth, to which people still make pilgrimage, is in the Chartres Cathedral near Paris, France. It dates to the year 1220.

I learned through happenstance – the most fun way to learn things – about an exact replica of the Chartres labyrinth, in pattern and dimension and everything else, located at an old monastery in Richmond, Virginia.  The center and final stone of it was laid on June 13, 2008.

Jefferson, Washington, and Lafayette may have walked here

"Richmond Hill," which used to be called Monte Maria of Church Hill, is the highest point in Richmond. It is home to a monastery that was built in 1866 out of two already existing pre-Civil War mansions. They say that Thomas Jefferson stayed in one of the two houses, and that George Washington and Lafayette attended dances there in pre-revolutionary times. When the Civil War ended and the mansions were left nearly destroyed, a group of young nuns were sent there with the directive from their Bishop to pray for the protection and rebuilding of this city which had once been the capital of the Confederacy. Those brave nuns and several generations of acolytes who followed them lived there until 1987 when the monastery was officially closed because the aging nuns were no longer able to care for it. Almost auctioned off for condominiums, it was saved by a group of diverse people who insisted that someone still needed to pray for Richmond. And so it was renovated and reopened by an eclectic group of religious leaders and other concerned people as a place to benefit those from all backgrounds who seek spiritual renewal.  

I can’t begin to understand much less explain the significance of the labyrinth which somehow speaks symbolically to our collective subconscious at a level where language is no longer the mode of communication. The most universally known labyrinth existed 3,500 years ago on the Greek island of Crete – home of the mythical Minotaur. But even before that, simple labyrinths were carved onto stone surfaces throughout the world.


Simply put, the rosette pattern in the center symbolizes enlightenment – and the path to getting there is circuitous and chaotic. The symmetry and complex geometric design, the symbolism, the eleven circuits divided into four quadrants, the perplexing puzzle of it all – that is an intellectual pursuit. For this, the Guestmaster at Richmond Hill recommended a book, Exploring the Labyrinth: A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth by Melissa Gayle West.  But the experience is in walking it.  The labyrinth is made to be traveled.

Even a small-scale model can be traveled, either visually or with the fingertip. Kinesthetic sensations will be aroused using the finger to trace over a sketch of the classic labyrinth – bringing the rhythm of it to life in our psyches and offering spiritual direction.

There's no wrong way to begin the walk . . . 

I stood in the center of the rosette pattern of the labyrinth on Richmond Hill, a spot which boasts a 270 degree view of the City of Richmond, trying to figure out my strategy for completing this puzzle walk. There is no right or wrong way to walk the labyrinth. There’s no particular starting point or ending point. You can’t get lost. It’s a thing to be done intuitively. I traced with my eye where each strategy of footstep might lead me. I wasn’t sure how to begin. If I had been in charge, I would have started at the center and systematically walked in concentric manner along each yellow brick, carefully winding myself to the outer edges, always knowing where I was going, until I could say that I had walked the Jerusalem Mile in its entirety. But the pathways just aren't set up that way.

And so, tired of my own thinking, I picked at random a brick in back of me on which to start my journey. This is a real mess.  That was my first impulsive thought as I saw my footsteps going to places I didn’t want to go . . . but then a twist made me go somewhere else . . . and a turn made me wind back . . . and another loop put me in the center . . . and so on and so forth. Not a single step went according to my plan. 

. . . and one should stop often to reflect and meditate

That’s life, I thought, and I sort of gave in and stopped along the way to take pictures of where my feet were planted and of how the sun shown either brightly on them or not at all – and also how the perspective changed as the breeze rustled tree branches above me, causing the sun to come and go – and how clouds did the same thing. I captured many of these pictures – not sure why I did so.  It’s the not knowin’ that makes it interestin’ . . . that’s what Eeyore says to Winnie the Pooh in unpredictable times, and I thought of this phrase as I walked the labyrinth. I occasionally looked up from my pathway to the cityscape beyond me, suddenly realizing in my heart that a war had once ravaged this city. I never comprehended such a thing before, and I thought that was a strange insight to receive. 



The City today as seen from Richmond Hill

When I finished walking the mile, still not sure what I had done or even accomplished, I sat on one of the stone benches along the spiny rim of this old monastery that seems to hang on a cliff overlooking Richmond’s Shockoe Valley and “Hell’s Half Acre” where slaves had long ago been auctioned like cattle. Perhaps those young nuns sat on these same high benches, I thought – for I could feel their presence and the chaos they must have endured when looking out over the post-war desolation and thinking of the directive they had been given – to pray for the rebuilding of Richmond – not knowing how it could ever be accomplished – and the James River that flowed unconcernedly through it all – then, as now.