The Volcanalia 2018

It’s already been a month since my last update posting. Summer in Britain appears to have ended; the temperature has dropped significantly, but it was super lovely while the heat wave lasted. It all seemed to be unprecedented, though they say that 1976 was similar.

My sad news is the passing of our dear love Rosalie Ross Sennett (6 May 1926 – presumably the week of 1 August 2018). When I could get no response on her phone at the assisted living facility in Rocklin, California to which she had been transferred from her fabulous home at San Francisco’s Boston Ship Plaza last February/March, I wrote her son Jeff. His wife Sheila let me know. This is what I posted on Facebook:

“I do not have Rosy's full dates but have just learned that she passed last week. Full of zest, no nonsense, curiosity and generosity, our dear, dear Rosy outlasted by far those through whom we knew her. Over the many, many years we have been so deeply privileged to have known her and known her as a much loved friend, she became a light of inspiration and joy. Her politics were solidly what we wished, her social activism was more than commendable, her love of plants and art and people all made her the special and endearing person that a host of us appreciated as a complete treasure. In our hearts, we kiss her now goodbye.”

When we last spoke, Rosy was happy to have Keta, her shiba inu, with her and sounded just as spunky and engaged as ever. Over the years, we have had many good and fun times together.

True enough, this aging process has its challenges. After sitting for five hours on our folding chairs that we took to Piccadilly Circus to watch the London Pride on the 7th of July, Richard was unable to walk afterwards. His right leg has been swollen and painful ever since, and he cannot bend his knee. I am probably more used to physical ailments and restrictions, but for him it has been unprecedented and sobering. After x-rays, we have learned that he has “minor  degenerative change, with chondrocalcinosis noted.” Our NHS doctor says this is age-related and is something that will come and go. So far, however, it has not gone.

Over all, we have been less busy – concentrating on the finishing preparations to my “Pagan Mysticism” manuscript which has since been sent on to the publisher. And there have been countless endorsements and references for various people along with the usual correspondences which remain endless. We have had our neighbour Peter over for dinner to celebrate his 88th birthday, and Gin has joined us for a 5:2 meal and will join us for another the day after tomorrow. We have been twice to Tate Britain for the “All Too Human” exhibit featuring Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon among their contemporaries in Britain – the first time with Helen and Wendy; the second with Elisabeth and Monica – and both times having lunch in the magnificent Rex Whistler restaurant. I enjoyed the paintings even more the second time. And after the first occasion, Richard and I went on the same day to the Calvert 22 Foundation for two talks on Daghestani and Georgian living paganism – perhaps the last survivals in Europe.

Other meals have included a dinner with Patrick and Sue at Fish in a Tie, a lunch (finally) at Woody’s yoga centre café in Peckham, a delightful lunch outside in ROSL’s garden next to Green Park, and lunch with Eamonn and James at Hatfield House and Garden – a magnificent Jacobean house belonging to the Seventh Marquess of Salisbury. In Hatfield, it rained, alas, and heavily that very day, and I also managed to gash my head on a circular iron staircase. Fortunately James is an MD.

In addition, we have been to the Saatchi Gallery for “The Jealous Needs You Project 2018” and Berenice Sydney’s “Dancing with Colours.” We met Tom and Doc at the Club for coffee. At the Jermyn Street Theatre, Richard and I enjoyed Elizabeth Mansfield as Edith Piaf in Hymn to Love – accompanied by Patrick Bridgman. This was both sad and most moving. At the Great Court Restaurant in the British Museum, Richard and I had a fine celebratory lunch, and I was most touched in the museum itself by Case 32 in Room 69: the Gods of Olympos. We have managed also to hear Ken Rees on esoteric spirituality at Nova Stellar. And finally, at the Gielgud Theatre, there was Imperium – Part I Conspirator in the afternoon and Part II Dictator in the evening, with dinner in between at the Balans Society on Old Compton Street. The drama is based on Robert Harris’ Cicero novels with Richard McCabe as Cicero, Joseph Kloska as Tiro and Siobhan Redmond as Terentia. The parallels between the end of the Republic in Rome and the seemingly end of democracy today could not have been more poignant and unsettling. It revealed the ruthless ambition that motivates political gambling along with its ethical disgrace. In all, however, it was excellent theatre.

Reading-wise, I finished Robert Graves’ Count Belarius which I enjoyed immensely. I have also read Anna Politkovskaya’s Putin’s Russia. This last was less about Putin himself but more on the corruption in the Russian Federation in both the judiciary and military along with the capitulation of the Russian people, but she does by the end make one question Putin himself as a moral leader, and I am now more hesitant concerning him. Politkovskaya was herself assassinated in 2006. I am now reading David Pears’ Wittgenstein (1971).

We did try to see the lunar eclipse and the planet Mars from Battersea Bridge, but after all this heat and sunny days, that evening it clouded over completely. The irony. Otherwise, and including the Lughnasad ritual at Conway Hall, we have been celebrating the July and August festivals in shamanic fashion: the Neptunalia, the August Kalends and Ides, the Portunalia, the Vinalia Rustica, the Consulia and yesterday the Volcanalia. For these last, we went to Kensington Gardens and began at the Albert Memorial. At first, the weather did not appear to be promising, but suddenly the sun was shining, and the day became agreeably lovely. Eventually, we went for eggs benedict and lapsang souchong tea at the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, Hyde Park Corner. Finally at home, we feasted successively on Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe, Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, Arnold’s Fifth Symphony and Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major. It became an unio mystica á deux.