The Fates

This has always fascinated me – the seeming “randomness” of our life span. Some people live to a ripe old age, while others barely survive birth and some don’t even get that far, much to the grief of the expectant mother. 

 

What started it all? Every effect has a cause. But what? And why? That we can never know – which is why I’m attracted to the Ancient Greek idea of the Fates. Those mysterious "forces" which the Greeks portrayed as three women. Each of the three Fates had a different task, revealed by her name: Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured its allotted length, and Atropos cut the thread with her shears. 

 

But what determines our “allotted length” of life? I suspect that Hubris and Nemesis play a part but then, maybe so does the Eastern idea of Karma. Karma – the concept that we carry forward our deeds, good or bad, into our next manifestation of life. 

 

To me that is only fair.  We reap what we sow. 

 

Two “quatrains” from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam emphasise our impotence:-

 

49

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

 

50

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,

But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;

And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field,

He knows about it all – He knows – HE knows!

 

 

As a reminder – Hubris, to the ancient Greeks, is when a human, with over weening arrogance and pride, tries to alter the course of events and by so doing encroaches on the realm of the Gods. Something not  to be recommended!

 

Hubris always invited the arrival of Nemesis – the female Goddess of retribution – implacable in her task of tracking every wrong back to its doer and dispensing justice commensurate with the wrong committed. Nemesis was generally portrayed holding the Scales of Justice on one hand and a sword or dagger in the other.  

 

But all this brings me back to where I started, that, to me, fascinating and totally unknowable concept of Life (with a capital L) and what determines its span or length of time? 

 

And I have absolutely no idea! 

Time is always there.

This is something that is with us always. Time! But what is it? It slows the closer we get to the speed of light. Apparently space travellers age less during the "time" they are travelling at hundreds of thousands of kilometres per hour than when they are back on earth.

 

But its my perception of time that interests me, punctuated as it has been, by major events – deaths, births, accidents, travel – all quite normal for anyone who lives long enough. It’s the "switch" that intrigues me. One moment I can be listening to world news and in the next some word, thought, scent, photograph or sound will send me back, right back, even to my childhood.

 

I know, full well, that the passage of time dulls memories – that’s just life I suppose. Strangely though some are still very sharp and vivid. I can still remember my first day at "kindy" – in Durban, at St Thomas Church hall and Mrs Dibbs the teacher.

 

Then of course and more importantly in my current situation, on my own, in a house that I shared with Magucha there are many memories. She is never far away. I will admit, in the more than five years that have passed since I held her hand and watched her die I can still, in an instant, seemingly switch from that to an incident in our life together in (then) Rhodesia. Then in a split second later I can be back here, now, listening to music.

 

So time, it seems, is a "flexible" measure of life. It slows down or speeds up according to our mood and circumstances. It most definitely speeds up, or seems to, as one grows older – the days, weeks, months and years roll by with apparently increasing velocity.

 

There are, however, some things that time will never touch. Memories. Not necessarily little individual memories but broad brush remembrances – Magucha’s kindness, her generosity of spirit, her inherent sense of justice, her mischievous sense of humour but above all her astonishing courage. And then her eyes. They are what attracted me when I first saw her – their liveliness, their warmth and intensity. 

 

These will always have a place in my heart.  

 

I’ve looked long and hard for a poem that even comes close to expressing what I feel about time.  This one by Paul Dunbar, the first African American to achieve recognition in the literary world, comes close:-

 

Forever

Paul Laurence Dunbar - 1872-1906

 

I had not known before

    Forever was so long a word.

The slow stroke of the clock of time

    I had not heard.

 

‘Tis hard to learn so late;

    It seems no sad heart really learns,

But hopes and trusts and doubts and fears,

    And bleeds and burns.

 

The night is not all dark,

    Nor is the day all it seems,

But each may bring me this relief--

    My dreams and dreams.

 

I had not known before

    That Never was so sad a word,

So wrap me in forgetfulness--

     I have not heard.

 

A good poem I think!

I think you'll enjoy this poem by Brazilian, Mario de Andrade (Sao Paulo 1893-1945), poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist.

I’m not sure if de Andrade wrote the original in English or if in Portuguese, who translated it.

And I certainly know that I have many more years behind me than are ahead!! So I can relate to this poem. Not quite sure about the title though.  

                                                            …///…

MY SOUL HAS A HAT

I counted my years
& realized that I have
Less time to live by,
Than I have lived so far.

I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first he ate them with pleasure
But when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings
where the statutes, rules, procedures & internal regulations are discussed,
knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience
To stand absurd people who,
despite their chronological age,
have not grown up.

My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my spirit is in a hurry.
I do not have much candy
In the package anymore.

I want to live next to humans,
very realistic people who know
How to laugh at their mistakes,
Who are not inflated by their own triumphs
& who take responsibility for their actions.
In this way, human dignity is defended
and we live in truth and honesty.

It is the essentials that make life useful.
I want to surround myself with people
who know how to touch the hearts of those whom hard strokes of life
have learned to grow with sweet touches of the soul.

Yes, I'm in a hurry.
I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts.

I am sure they will be exquisite,
much more than those eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.

We have two lives
& the second begins when you realize you only have one.

                                                                        Mario de Andrade

The kindly years.

The years – time – sometimes deals kindly with us humans. I certainly feel privileged to have lived my seventy-eight years with the love bestowed on me, for my good health (thus far!) and the emotional strength I have garnered over the years. For that I am truly grateful. 

There are negatives of course. Life never progresses at a steady pace on a smooth, straight path from one end the other. On the positive side one meets many wonderful fellow wayfarers on one’s journey through life. Some, one learns to love, and they become very close, even as a wife (as in my case) or one’s children; others become good friends, others again, are acquaintances. But one learns from them all.

On the negative side is the inescapable fact that people die. And of course a whole raft of customs, religious “rules and regulations”, have developed around the process of dying and the aftermath. But is death truly the end?

As always in moments of intense emotion I seek solace in poetry. Poets more often than not seem to be better attuned to the emotional aspect of the human condition. 

This from John Masefield:

The Word

My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,

And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,

May we be rich in loves refined gold,

     May love’s gold coin be current with us still.

May love be sweeter for the vanished days,

     And your most perfect beauty still as dear

As when your troubled singer stood at gaze

     In the dear March of a most sacred year.

May what we are be all we might have been,

     And that potential, perfect, O my friend,

And may there still be many sheafs to glean

     In our love’s acre, comrade, till the end.

And may we find when ended is the page

Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.

                        

Maybe it will be as Kahlil Gibran wrote in “The Prophet”:

“A little while, a moment to rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me”.

Or, to quote John Masefield again, from  “A Creed”:

“I held that when a person dies

     His soul returns again to earth;

Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise

     Another mother gives him birth.

With sturdier limbs and brighter brain

The old soul takes the roads again.”

So what will it be? Is Magucha’s soul, after “a moment to rest upon the wind” ready to be “arrayed in some new flesh-disguise” and so grace the world with her love, her indomitable spirit, her courage and feistiness and so be a loyal comrade to someone else?

It pleases me to believe that, one day, this will be so. 

Love in poetry and song

It is not often that I am at a loss for words. But now, today, three years after Magucha died, there is a numbness, a weariness - I am finding it difficult to find the words to express the inexpressible. I mean three years, in the great scheme of things, is but a blink in time. Not to me though.

My belief: It cannot be that courage, friendship, intuition, empathy are all the result of chance or chemistry alone. This just doesn’t make any sense to me!

My belief: I cannot hold to the theory that love is just the result of hormonal juices, or synaptic chemical transfer.

That love – and I don’t just mean the “boy meets girl” initial attraction. I mean that love, that friendship, that companionship, that unquestioning acceptance of the “other”. This is rare and worth holding onto with everything at one’s disposal.

  

I like to believe that we had this – Magucha and I.

As always in times of high emotion I turn to the poets. Their understanding of the frailness of the human condition; their unique use of words have a restorative power that I find brings me peace. 

The 19^thCentury American poet, Henry Longfellow, I can relate to – he married twice. Each time his wife died – one in very tragic circumstances. But he was a great poet and apparently a very kind and gentle man.

Amongst many he wrote the poem, “A Shadow” – the last lines of which are:-

“Be comforted; the world is very old,

And generations pass, as they have passed,

A troop of shadows moving with the sun;

Thousands of times has the old tale been told;

The world belongs to those who come the last,

They will find hope and strength as we have done.”

So be it.

Another day has passed.

Some things, like memories, are not easy to write about. I know that memory is a wonderful thing yet it can be quite frightening in its scope. My memories seem to be activated at random, as I presume happens to others. All of a sudden a memory is there without seemingly being called. While others have to be dragged from wherever they reside. 

While the time spent without Magucha has not been easy, time can be kind. It dulls the pain. Sort of. But the ache remains, as do the memories. They always will. 

But the curious in me wants to know so many things. One thing has bothered me, even though I think I have worked it out – why we/I grieve. Grief hurts in many ways but it’s all about me! It’s about my hurt; my loss; my feelings. 

I should be glad that Magucha no longer suffers; I should be glad that she is no longer burdened by the trappings and necessities of life, as we live it. I am - but it is not easy!

That her love; that her emotional strength; that her mischievous sense of humour; that her deep and sensitive knowledge of the needs of others; that all this has just disappeared into "nothing" is beyond my understanding. 

Of course it is a given that I have absolutely no idea what has "happened" to her. I have the strong conviction though, that when we die we still “exist”, obviously without the bodily form we used when “alive”. The essence that was/is us continues. That essence, that “Life”, has returned to wherever it came from.

All I know is that (in the words of the song) “Loving her was easier than anything I’ll ever do again”.

First Lines

There are some wonderful first lines in books. Two of the best that I recall are, “The Frenchman beside me had been dead since dawn.” – from, “Martin Conisby’s Vengence” by Jeffrey Farnol. Then there is the one I like best which is from “The Arches of the Years” by Halliday Sutherland. The book opens with, “Wanted – a detective to arrest the flight of time.” Wow! It is always an advantage to open a book with a good ‘punch line’, people remember it long after the contents are forgotten. In fact in this instance I don’t believe I ever read the book, I just remember the title and the opening sentence.

But why arrest the flight of time? That would mean to have things and events stay as they were and not to move on, not to grow, not to develop. That would lead to a very poor life outcome indeed. To keep things as they are at present would mean to deny the dynamic that is Life. Life is always present and must always be expressed. That is why there are so many life forms on the planet – all expressing Life. And every life form has its purpose, its reason for existence, all growing in different ways, in different environments. All are threaded together in an amazingly complex web or pattern that we, mere mortals, cannot hope to fully comprehend. Yet without any deep knowledge of Life and its complexity, we are quite prepared to kill Life forms and destroy habitats that support those selfsame Life forms.

All Life forms are interrelated and have a symbiotic relationship in that the sum is greater than the individual parts. We are all, all of us, guilty of the same lack of real concern, of the same propensity to consume – regardless of the ‘cost’; of the same desire to keep things as they were (i.e. we all want job security, don’t we?). No one people are any better than any other. Take for instance the Japanese. They have an ancient culture, they have a wonderful history of poetry, of art, a highly developed appreciation of beauty – their gardens, their bonsai trees, their calligraphy, and yet they slaughter whales and dolphins because of ‘tradition’! The British go fox hunting, because of ‘tradition’. We as children are often ‘expected’ to enter the same form of employment as our parents. We often vote for a particular political party because of the family ‘tradition’ – we have always voted that way!!

Many, many patterns of behaviour are followed in families and communities because that is the way ‘we’ have always behaved. There is little or no thought as to the ‘why’ and whether there are any advantages to be gained by trying to keep things as they were. I mean the Amish in America – refusing to allow TV into their communities and still using horse and buggies – trying to keep things as they always were - are fighting a losing battle. It is quaint and cute in a way (actually I suppose horses and buggies aren’t such a bad idea with today’s high fuel prices), but very limiting. To wish for the ‘old times’ because they have some romantic appeal is to believe in something unreal – wishful thinking. It may be comforting to try to maintain what was. No one really likes the unknown, which is what Life throws up at us on a daily basis. We like to be in our comfort zone, the unknown can be very scary, very confronting. Yet we have to live and life is dynamic and always changing.

What was, is history, and can never be brought back. This present moment is the only ‘time’ that we can actually experience anything and live ‘in’. We cannot live in the past – it has gone. We cannot live in the future – it has not yet arrived. We have no other option than to live NOW and now is always changing, it is always becoming the past (or the future). We cannot ‘arrest the flight of time’.