Fresh air

The barrenness of these pages lately means doesn’t mean I’ve not been thinking of offering something to my reader. On the contrary. Though afflicted by a species of writer’s block, I’m not bereft of thoughts and inspirations, and each day scribble them: in Word, on voice recorder, in the black notebook, and failing those, they may still be inscribed on the Akashic Records. Or perhaps they are borrowed from the Akashic Records as from a lending library. They come fast, they sparkle, they astonish with their beauty; and cannot be captured.

We are at the mercy of our bodies. A neurologist might tell me it’s a mild abnormality to have these brainstorms of excited creativity, where experience is exquisite but nothing is left in terms of action to show for it. Brain doctors at least from the time of William James have been ascribing the varieties of religious experience to medical conditions. Hildegard of Bingen’s graphic art has been seen as evidence of migraine. Shostakovich got his tunes from a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain. When he turned his head a little, the music would play: he was just the arranger, not the original composer. Does this diminish anything, to have these explanations? Not at all. Does it mean that I might like Timothy Leary take LSD for my Eucharist? No, he might have used Acid as his holy wafer and wine but I prefer to be intoxicated on life, specifically fresh air. I could not have asked for better when I drank from the spring (that we called the Wishing Well) as a child. For the essence of religion is to be universal, open to all, at least as I conceive it in its ideal purity. There’s a contrary element that tries to make it exclusive, as we can easily observe: sometimes by a racial or local selectivity, sometimes simply by the filter of belief. Leaving aside the forms of fundamentalism, which seem to obsess Americans (I’m not denying they have good reason), I think for example of Rastafarianism. From a distance I am very fond of it: comes from Jamaica, same as my beloved; dreadlocks are pretty, though I couldn’t grow ’em myself, being a white man with thinning grey hair; involves the smoking of ganja, which I can’t be bothered with, especially the illegality; is full of “reasoning” which means hanging out instructing one another on the wonder of it all. But then there is one huge central belief, which strikes me as laughable: that the late Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, a most un-Rastafarian type of personage (apart from one of his titles, which was Ras Tafari) was actually God Incarnate. Is, I should say, because he never died. Credo quia impossibile, indeed.

Yesterday, I walked out for half an hour, on a mission to buy an oilstone to sharpen my chisel to make a mortise and hinge-recesses to fit a door. The fresh air hit my senses and brain and spirit in such a manner as in the first few seconds to vouchsafe a stunning revelation, enough to change a life: my own or the entire planet’s. But sometimes the most immense thoughts, I find, are the most easily forgotten. Anyhow, I went into Isaac Lord, once voted the best tool shop in England, and came out with a new chisel as well, for the old one was only good for opening tins of paint. As soon as I got home, I hastened to write my thought. I hadn’t forgotten it, but it seemed of equal value to another theme I had developed on my brief outing: the relative beauty of young women of different races, about which I have well-formed views. Yes, it’s a fascinating topic. Even now, it draws me like a magnet, and I could expatiate on the confluence of spiritual and physical charms amongst the [fill in your favourite race]. Enough.

Let me try. Stepping out, sniffing the sharp pure elixir of fresh air, viewing the clarity of day, whose light illuminated every brick—and yes, every young woman’s face and body—I wondered how it was that certain kinds of abstraction are given such high value that they are labelled Truth. Certainly a long complex educational process is required to batter a child’s brain so that he grows up to be a scientist. Some of course grow to it naturally, but not enough to satisfy the policy-makers. “More scientists!” they cry, like a co-ordinator of ritual sacrifice from the top of an Aztec sacrifice-pyramid. Give the child an electronic game: he will prefer to look at illuminated screens than at the miracle of daylight.

Science explains things. It produces the most effective witch-doctors. The radio tells me about spinal cord injuries. Child falls off bike, is paralysed for life. You could take a child to Lourdes, bathe it in the holy waters, but it won’t walk again, because scientists know that God can’t sew that spinal cord back together. Only scientists can, except that they can’t yet: not till I donate to some charity (they imply) so they can do the research which may take a long time because it is difficult even for a scientist but at least the child will have Hope and that is more than religion can offer.

So this has crystallized my own sense of purpose. In this world the truth most worshipped is the truth which gives most power: over material things like science or over man’s mind like religion, including the atheist kinds. But in my world, what I most worship is the fleeting wisdom of fresh air, the infinite miracle of daylight, the appreciation of being still alive.