ring out wild bells

"and found the shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave." Maud.


The old year falls,
oh! same as before,
the unremarkable
insensate
capacity to dull,
to appal.
Only memory resists
its sibilant,
come-hither hymn,
or rate the call
to forget.
Hold on, as
explosive night
unfolds,
Hold on,
the sly burlesque,
bright as ice,
brings false hope,
and certain
unregret.

You know when it's hot here because a heavy stillness descends on everything like an atomised syrup. All is quiet except the occasional protest of a magpie('oh lord, it's boiling!') and the humming of the refrigerator. When it gets very hot, somewhere in the order of 40 degrees and over, even time seems to lag, as if the clocks are loath to push their frail hands through the clammy air.

It is always best to try to sit with the heat. This old cottage begins baking about mid-morning and without air-conditioning, there is little left to do but get used to it. I took an early swim as did many others, and now it seems everyone has retreated indoors, some, I guess, to the vast climate-controlled cathedrals of the modern era, down in Sydney.

Ken Slessor's masterful Country Towns best captures for me the feeling of a typical hot Australian summer's day. Sure, it's set in rural Australia but Hazelbrook is a kind of hybrid, neither country town nor suburb, lost in the nameless middle. The following are verses 3 and 4 from that poem.

'Verandas baked with musky sleep,
Mulberry faces dozing deep,
And dogs that lick the sunlight up
Like paste of gold – or, roused in vain
By far, mysterious buggy-wheels,
Lower their ears, and drowse again….

Country towns with your schooner bees,
And locusts burnt in the pepper-trees,
Drown me with syrups, arch your boughs,
Find me a bench, and let me snore,
Till, charged with ale and unconcern,
I'll think it's noon at half-past four!'

I mentioned a few posts ago the hori-kotatsu, a sunken pit in the living room of some Japanese houses. I realise I may have confused some folks with the description, the concept being so unusual as to perplex a Westerner. They are less prevalent in modern houses, but essentially serve the purpose of being both a heater for the cold Japanese winters as well as a place to eat, watch TV, study or read the newspaper. In winter we had lessons in the kotatsu and it was extremely popular.

To get in, you slide in under the small table top and dangle your legs into the empty space, at the base of which is an electric heater. There are cushions around each side and often as not, a doona that slides under the small table and which catches the heat as it rises. At the end of summer, the whole thing packs away, the table top becoming a part of the floor again. Such a great idea!

Here is our hori-kotatsu, ready for use in about 2004. Every morning I would come down from the upstairs bedroom, switch on the heater, make a cup of tea, grab the Yomuiri Shinbun, and plonk down into the kotatsu. Now that's a memory you could bottle!

Something that was once widely known but has become less commonly espoused nowadays deserves to be axiomatic. Life is difficult. It is a struggle. I may not be a life or death struggle, as once it was, but it is difficult, none the less. It is only occasionally tranquil, it sometimes goes well for periods of time, there can be happiness and all manner of pleasures to be had. But they are transitory, all being subject to change, decay and an end. There is no way around it or through it. It just is.

I have a pile of books beside my bed and a kindle holding many more besides. I am a bit of a butterfly, flitting from novel to bio to tract to verse. I love non-fiction especially. Last night I was reading from a Christian devotional, a series of daily readings clustered around a bi-monthly theme. The theme of this book is strong at the broken places, a quotation derived from Hemingway. It has great appeal to me, for being strong at the broken places is a natural corollary to the idea of life being difficult.

It is not hard to know how to be when things are going well, unless you are a confirmed and hardened pessimist. But it is less easy to know how to be when things are going badly or there is great uncertainty. Building in an expectation of resilience and an acceptance that some things cannot change can only build better people, ones who may be less inclined to rush to alcohol or drugs or frenetic distraction.

'And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.'

from, "On Pain", K. Gibran.

And so, another Christmas. Adults may not like it, but it is a day for children. Sure, there is a delicious, if over-indulged, dinner with family or friends. Even the lonely can find a nook somewhere at a church hall or community kitchen. It is a festival that can be pleasantly spent, the worries of the past year and those yet to come quietly shelved for at least one day.

But the magic belongs to the children. You can argue that Christmas has become one massive spending-spree, an almost thoughtless rush to the checkout counter. You might be right, though only up to a point. Somewhere in the tinsel and wrappings, the saccharine carols events, the frenetic stocking of refrigerators and hiding of gifts, the well-meant seasonal cliches, somewhere, there is a spark that never fails to light the fuse for the small and innocent. For them, every moment stretches like a fragile eternity, every well-worn symbol is a marker, newly minted.

Jesus, for whom this day rightly exists, was bang on when he said that the Kingdom of Heaven was a place for those who became like children. That children continue to dominate the celebration is fitting. We can excuse the hastily torn off wrapping and soon-forgotten presents - they are a legacy of our own folly.

But for adults, there is still the day and the company of others. It cannot be replicated on any other day, for Christmas Day is quite unique. It is not forever though.

In, The House of Hospitalities, Thomas Hardy laments the falling away of Christmas gatherings thus:

'And the worm has bored the viol
That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
That struck night’s noon.'

His friends and family have gone or passed away and things are not the same as before.

'Yet at midnight if here walking,
When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
Who smile on me.'

There is always memory, with its capacity to bring a momentary joy.

Merry Christmas.

And while dwelling, as I do, upon the brevity of all things, the fleeting and transitory nature of our lives - our thoughts, feelings, possessions, friends and loves - here is a much collected poem by Percy Shelley. We cannot keep a hold of what we want or desire and if we try, it passes like sand through our fingers.

'The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou—and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.'

Towards the end of 2003, I fell sick with pneumonia. I had thought that I had contracted a 72 hour virus, but the days passed and my temperature kept spiking. Alone in the house in Sanda and stuck in bed, a friend insisted that I see her doctor. I did and verdict was pneumonia. The doctor wanted me to go to hospital immediately (such was the poor state of my body) but I convinced her that I was able to come daily to her surgery for a tenteki, or intravenous drip, of antibiotics. Fortunately we were on a three week school break and it worked out well.

So it was that I found myself eventually strong enough to come downstairs and watch TV from the comfort of the hori-kotatsu, a sunken heated pit in the living room. The day after Christmas I was watching CNN or the BBC when the news of the earthquake off Sumatra broke, followed by the string of powerful tsunami that brought devastation to communities in Indonesia, Thailand and India.

So often we forget the vast power of the Earth, assuming a stability, an immutability, that really does not exist. We are subject to the laws of the universe and our lives are necessarily contingent upon the changes and random chances that comes with life on an energetic living planet. Yesterday the volcano Arak Krakatau appears to have caused another tsunami with significant loss of life in Sumatra and Java. This is the same volcano that exploded so violently and famously in 1883, its newest iteration an outgrowth from the old caldera.

If humans manage to survive their own colossal folly, and I hope we do, then there will always be the natural threats, which, having always been with us, have helped shape our past and will likely shape our destiny.

As a result of the astronomical search for a "Planet X" - a large planet which might exist on the periphery of the solar system - astronomers have discovered another world. Orbiting the sun every 1000 years or so and being about three and a half times the distance out that Pluto is, Farout (for such is its temporary name) is a dwarf planet, about 500 kms in diameter. Farout is a lonely icy world, for though there are doubtless many objects a long way out in a variety of orbits and yet to be observed, space is big and the distance between bodies can be huge.

Planet X (or 9) is what the hunt is all about really, for astronomers want an explanation for the unusual orbits of bodies like asteroids and comets in that neck of the woods. In the meantime, little wonders like Farout may turn up, adding to the growing tally of dwarf planets. Pluto need never feel totally alone, in fact, it is rather more, the leader of the pack.

Farout is far out.



Now for the scale.

It's funny how a week without an internet connection can lead to chaos and frustration. I like to think of myself as being capable of doing without the internet, and I could, but the way things are set up today, it is very difficult.

We have all of us run down our mobile data resources in an effort just to check email accounts, pay bills and do the most cursory check of news services. To become truly free of the web and all its subtle arts would mean getting paper bills, insisting on paper communications and being prepared to visit the local library often, amongst other things. With an effort, some of this might be achieved, although providers of various services might baulk.

But the knock on the door 30 minutes ago ushered a new modem into our lives, one which zinged into life with very little effort, except for a massively long password. I dutifully updated all the devices in the house. Modernity had been restored.

Part of me keeps wondering how I might return to the electronic cave that predated the World Wide Web, the smart phone, the everything-now-please.

But the genie is out of the bottle - only calamity will put it back in. And no-one hopes for that, do they?

We had a massive electrical storm last night. The thunder was louder than anything (thunderish) I can remember in over a decade and vast sheets of lightning illuminated an otherwise gloomy sky. One consequence for this household was a fried modem, sunny-side up. Another consequence was one angry teen, cut off from his digital drip-feed, rudely detached from the holy screens of pixilated gibberish.

"But what am I to do all weekend?" was his plaintive rejoinder.

What indeed? I tried to recall a similar kind of incident from my youth, something that equated with that long, dark stare into a hellish space. But really, there was nothing. Blackouts were fun, never mind that a whole four channels of joy were on the blink. Washed-out football weekends were a little sad, but there was always plenty to be occupied with. Even boredom wasn't that bad.

I don't want to draw any conclusions - all this is merely anecdotal - nor am I up for being labelled an old fuddy-duddy. As I write this another storm is passing through, the thunder like a deep growl from a place unknown. Somewhere up, I suppose.

"My mind has thunderstorms,
That brood for heavy hours:
Until they rain me words,
My thoughts are drooping flowers
And sulking, silent birds.

Yet come, dark thunderstorms,
And brood your heavy hours;
For when you rain me words,
My thoughts are dancing flowers
And joyful singing birds."

W.H.Davies

Back when I was in high school and a little later when I started university, NASA launched a series of exploratory probes. The ones I remember best were the last of the Pioneer missions (10 and 11) and the Voyagers 1 and 2. All were slated for some form of outer planetary exploration which they went on to successfully complete. Beyond these assignments was an eventual encounter with deep space, journeys forever into our galaxy.

As of a few weeks ago, both of the Voyagers had passed beyond the heliosheath (the Sun's protective bubble or furthest boundary of the solar wind) and were now in interstellar space. The Pioneers I mentioned will one day achieve the same feat, all four craft then being outside the influence of their home star.

I often ponder what will be left when humans are gone, what artefacts of our presence will remain for distant and alien explorers to discover. The most obvious ones are those that we have sent from the Earth, creations upon which some form of rough immortality has been conferred. Of course, the chances of stumbling upon an artificial space probe must be very tiny indeed, as are the chances of intelligent life, elsewhere.

Still, getting out of the solar system at all is a remarkable achievement. I think its a time for deep reflection upon human potential - we may or may not make it a lot further - but these are shining moments.

A NASA graphic on the relative status of Voyager's 1 and 2.



A NASA gif showing the remarkable moment when the solar rubicon was passed by Voyager 2.

Ann's daughter JJ was granted a temporary visa yesterday, giving her the opportunity to come to Australia to link in with her mother's push for permanent residency. It is a complicated and fraught process and understandably, most people opt to use an immigration specialist. Not I, of course!

In saving money there is another price to pay. The gathering and certifying of documents and the seemingly innumerable hoops that one has to jump through make completing an application a very stressful one. Even when submitted, there is the nagging doubt about its completeness and accuracy and mistakes are easily made. To be honest, we have only made a few and even then, it is the interpretation of documents and the requests within them - that is, their lack of clarity - that has usually prompted these errors. That's where a specialist is very useful.

I have enjoyed getting on top of a difficult task and showing Ann that I am competent. But if you are considering doing your own visa application, think long and hard about about getting help. It may be worth the expense.

Never mind the moon today, the wind is blowing a gale, squally and angry. I got into the water at Lawson Pool this morning with all a perfect calm, but three laps in, mighty gusts began to lift the poolside umbrellas, hurling kick boards from their various resting places, upending loaded bags from seats. And the water surface became a shipwreck of leaves, bark and unsuspecting lady-beetles.

On the way back I saw two wedding cars heading up the Mountains, elegant Bentleys with celebratory bunting and an excited cargo. I wondered how their nuptials might go today, with the wind blasting like a madman - all the hairstyles messed, the veils flapping distractedly like washing on the line, the guests rubbing their eyes for grit as they move almost side-ways from church to reception. It is not a day for stillness.

Then I thought about Larkin's Wedding Wind, and reproduce these opening lines for you. It is as good a poem as any written.

'The wind blew all my wedding-day,
And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind;
And a stable door was banging, again and again,
That he must go and shut it, leaving me
Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain,
Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick,
Yet seeing nothing.'

It ends very happily though, with the bride wondering,

'Can it be borne, this bodying-forth by wind
Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread
Carrying beads?'

I hope all weddings today are blessed by a wedding wind.

samidare ya/aru yo hisoka ni/matsu no tsuki

All the rains of June:
and one evening, secretly,
through the pines, the moon.

Oshima Ryota.