Samhain 2014

It’s been another full to overly full time. But yesterday, Richard and I celebrated the day and evening of the thinnest veil between the worlds. The previous night we had joined up for Sorita d’Este’s Hecate ritual in London’s Conway Hall. On the 31st itself, although I was on the phone for nearly an hour waiting for someone with IRS to connect with me, I gave up finally and headed out before the day was completely over. I think it was the warmest 31st of October on record for London.

We walked down Lower Sloane Street toward Knightsbridge and then into Hyde Park – stopping for cappuccini at the Sepentine and eventually losing ourselves amid the wonders of Mayfair. Yes, this is a homeland of the 1% though the more ostensible presences probably derive from the broader 10%. It is indeed a make-believe world, but there is a part of me that appreciates the decorum and politeness that are the rules of the game. There is a large serving class (increasingly though not exclusively from Eastern Europe) who insure that the venerable institutions to be found in Mayfair and similar London areas function smoothly and pleasantly. And the prices in such places are high in order to pay them, and tipping is de rigueur. All in all, it may be a fantasy world, but it is one with which I can resonate, and I would be all the sadder for it not to exist.

We arrived at The Fumeur in Clairidge’s Hotel with its stylish 30s décor. There was an American woman ahead of us who wanted to move two extra chairs to a table, but the maître d’ with a delightful but formal Italian accent kept repeating to her, “These two gentlemen are sitting at this table.” I had to explain that putting the chairs where she wanted them would block the passageway used by the waiting staff to the next room. So she yielded and said that, “OK, we will take this table and that one over there for the four of us.” But the maître d’ kept repeating his insistent refrain. She then asked me, “Were we not here before you?” I had to agree that she was, but the maître d’ was still not going to budge – forcing me to say to the woman that that was the table we had sat at last time we were in Clairidge’s nearly a year ago and obviously he wanted us there again. So sitting down, I had to conclude, “How can I argue otherwise?”

It was also a celebration as I had two days earlier completed the revisions to my manuscript on pagan ethics after receiving the comments from Reviewer #3. I have been working thusly for all of the previous month on this – our first of two months in London – and including during our brief excursion to Paris to stay with the incomparable Marie Laure, have dinner with Anne at Anahuacalli (only learning when I made the reservations that Tony had died the previous December) and finally – and the reason for the brief visit – to have dinner with Lilianne, Renaud, Joanne, Jim, Renaud’s daughter Odessa as well as Marie Laure and her son Jonathan. It will not be end of it for sure, but with this stage of the manuscript finally finished for the moment, I dashed off to the House of Lords next to the Thames for Lord Laird’s symposium on “Religion: What is the Point?” that included my friend and colleague David Parry speaking as a ‘Quagan’ along with an Anglican priest from Pakistan and a Buddhist nun from Denmark. From there I took a taxi to the Royal Overseas League to have drinks and dinner with Richard and our neighbour Peter.

Because of the manuscript revisions and emendations, I have seen almost no one yet that had been intended – apart from Rix and Sylvester as well as an afternoon at Chelsea’s Physic Garden with Carlo and Jean-Christophe. On the street as they were arriving, they met and brought along Charlie Wright (bitethesun.org).

And while we have been in London, a concluding date for our dear Nicholas Schors (15.3.25 – 16.10.14) has been written. Ilonka informed us. Nick was a most remarkably clever man – and a good man on top of that. But he still lived his own life and in his own way. With an occult bookshop across the street when I first arrived in Amsterdam, he was one of the first people I came to know. He and his wonderful wife Magadalena (Maggie/Mackie) regaled with countless stories of the war years. Both were in their teens and early twenties during the occupation and both spoke German fluently. This and their resourceful intelligence allowed them not only to survive but to flourish. They became extended family to me and to Richard. Doing things his own way even when others would not approve estranged Nick from his son and that was painful for him. I believe there was a failure on his prodigy’s part not to recognise how fortunate he was to have such an irreplaceable care-giver for his father through a most loving step-mother who was suggested by the sister of Nick’s recently deceased wife. “You are obviously very much in love,” she had said to Nick and Ilonka. “I think you should marry, and I want to be a witness.” The directness and depth of connection of that is reminiscent for me of when, upon our first meeting, Richard’s mother Mary-Jane wheeled herself up to me and looked straight into my eyes and said, “It’s so nice to have you as a member of the family.” And in time my family came to include both Nick and Maggie and now Ilonka as well. Nick will be deeply missed, and we remembered him among our Samhain recollections of departed loved one. I think I have reached that stage of life in which more than half the people I have ever known are now on the other side.

We toasted Nick last night and shall again now.