First Half of July 2011

I am coming to recognise how, in the Roman festival calendar, the month of July functions as a kind of post-solstice ritual palimpsest echo of the preceding month of June. I will write more on this in the calendar section connected to my Lararium in my Domus website. But the month itself is the heady peak of summer with, here in the Midi, all the glory, ease and enjoyment of long, warm-to-hot and abundant days. For the flaminical Numanists among us, we begin with a concluding nine-day dies nefasti of vegan orientation, once again alcohol-free, caffeine-free, white flour-free and white sugar-free. Surprisingly it is not the burden one might otherwise think, and we feel remarkably well during it. Even Joanne and Jim’s Fourth of July dinner had enough delicious foods that we could eat – as is usually the case, and this was easier as it was a buffet. While there, I met a lovely neighbour of theirs, Anne, and also, finally, Georgeanne Brennan who authored the most enjoyable book, A Pig in Provence.

After seeing The Beginners in Aix in place of Midnight in Paris that we had gone to see but was cancelled, we picked up Elisabeth Arweck at the Marseilles airport. That night we had yet again a lovely meal at Les Gourmets. Things being too full – especially with the Cherry Hill Seminary class, I got the dates confused and missed going to David’s birthday celebration at Cresson the following evening. The next day we collected Sylvie Shaw from the train station in Les Arcs. The following day, Vivianne Crowley arrived by auto. They were a great group and never demanding but easy. We did the circling of the lake excursion which is always enjoyable, and the day after that we were all off to Aix for the International Society for the Study of Religion conference. Our first night there, we had dinner at Amphityron which turned out to be adequate but nothing special. The next day, however, following the opening plenary, a reception was held at the splendid Pavillon Vendôme-Dobler Aix-en-Provence, an eighteenth century mansion situated in the French garden Atlantis. The hors d’oeuvres were splendid and plentiful, and we knew enough to take along our own supply of Lagavulin. It was all most enjoyable to see old colleagues including Jim Spickard, Jim Beckford, Jim Richardson, Eileen Barker, Gary Bouma and his lovely wife Patricia and the gorgeous Lori Beaman as well as Bill Mirola and his partner Jim. And all this was accompanied by a chamber group who performed works by Chopin, Liszt and Martinu among others. Richard and I stayed to the end of the concert, and I knew at the time that that would be the real highlight of the four-day conference on ‘Religion and Economy in a Global World’.

Walking back to Le Moulin, our Residence-Hotel, in our inebriated state through the exquisite and festive streets of Aix, in which every nook and cranny seem to contain a restaurant with tables placed outside in all available places, was pure enchantment. A sobering note occurred once we were back in our room and Elisabeth phoned to tell me that Peter Clarke, my supervisor for my Ph.D., had died earlier that day. He was to be at the conference in fact and was listed in the programme but had phoned Elisabeth before she left Oxford to say that he was too ill to come. Peter’s passing underscores yet again the transient nature of everything. He had championed me from almost the beginning, was always engaging and will be missed.

But the conference went on, and there were numerous sessions of interest: Jim Richardson and Susan Palmer on ‘France’s Control of NRMs’, my favourite on ‘Affiliation to Afro-American Religions’ (with Roberto Motta, Erwan Dianteill and Elena Zapponi), and one on the anthropology of traces (with Macarena Gómez-Barris, Nurit Stadler and Valentino Napolitano) that covered mystical tourism in Cusco, pilgrimage at the tomb of Mary in Jerusalem, and the vitalism of narrative history and place. And on the first day, for lunch, Adam Klin Oron, Rachel Werczberger, Jim Richardson, Jean-François Mayer, Richard and I met at the excellent Riederer for a meeting on the anti-cult efforts of the Israeli government.

Through all this, as Wendy phrased it, my CHS class “exploded.” The trigger was that I had asked for something that was not in the syllabus (read contract), and students were objecting to being asked for ‘five’ references (also not in the syllabus). As Wendy explained, “The students these days know their rights.” It was saddening and a bit of a far cry from the enthusiasm I had been reading. At least three have withdrawn which in itself was not surprising; there have always been several who have dropped out of the class in the past. However, my student who had been at the lowest of the pole has since produced an excellent work in marked contrast to what she had done previously. And several others are still on board. Teaching is always a learning experience. (At Richard’s suggestion, “Canned laughter, please.”)

And as thrilling as Aix had been and enjoyable the conference, it was lovely to get back home when it was over. We had had a nice dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, La Cantina, the final night with Elisabeth, Sylvie, Vivianne and Susan Palmer on the Place des Tanneurs. It was all for me like a gigantic party – Saturday night, most comfortable outside dinning, and the city was magically alive.

Our first day back, it rained. This was the 4th of July. I worked most of the day attempting to catch up on email, CHS and numerous other things pending. We raced off to Fox Amphoux for the dinner at Joanne and Jim’s but could not find it. I tried to phone and then learned that my cell phone had no more credit. I thought it was to be automatic. We were on some back road near Adele and Pascal’s; they were also going to the dinner. A car came by that I was able to flag down to ask. It turned out to be Florent, our electrician, and he led us to where we wanted to be and which we would have never found otherwise.

The next day, the weather was again beautiful, and for the Poplifugia we went to the lake and spent the day. Even as an artificially created body of water – the largest lake within France, it is utterly beautiful, vibrantly blue and surrounded by stunning mountains. There were some people but not too many. It still seems to be one of those best-kept secrets. We swam, slept, picnicked before first exploring the nearby town and lakefront of St. Croix and then returning to our hometown for citron pressée.

Guy came again and cut our grounds – rendering the property in perfect condition for the upcoming Fête de Bastille. Apart from CHS, I have been engaged with a pantheism versus panentheism debate in the Pagan Group on Facebook. Some of my own comments can be found at http://michaelyork.co.uk/Domus/My-Comments/My-comments.html. A week ago, Richard and I walked into town at the end of the afternoon and arrived just as a wedding party was leaving the church. When the wedding couple themselves came out, everyone applauded and cheered. It was a sweet and moving moment, and the bride was beautiful.

On the day before the 14th of July, we woke to rain. Eventually we had some dramatic thunder and lightning. We took Richard’s paintings to Moissac-Bellevue in the morning and hung them in the Vieux Mairie. We returned at 18:00 for the vernissage and had whisky, our first alcohol since the nefastus. Then we dashed back to set things up for the fireworks party. By this point in the day and for the evening, the day was once again beautiful; even more than beautiful, it was stunning. I had inadvertently put the wrong time on Pierre and Catherine’s invitation, and they came early, saw no one (we cannot imagine where we were) and left. The rest arrived closer to 21:00, and the feux d’artifice were beautiful – mostly white. Tellus et les Étoiles was at her enchanted best, there was enough champagne and ice cream, and we were probably 32 in all. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves; Richard and I did as well.

On the Day of Independence itself, there was a telephonic board meeting for Goddess Ink. There were seven of us. Afterwards, Richard and I went into town for the first of the Festival Jazz de Verdun. The group was l’Association de Girard. We were all seated in the town square with peripheral noises from children playing and other sounds from the always lively town. The music was good, quite good at times, though it never once varied from the beat and tempo that were established right from the start. All in all, however, it was perfect, local, relaxed and magically intimate.

The following day was the Ides of July. During the course of the day, we heard an unknown piece of music from the radio on France-Musique that I could only describe as a gossamer filigree of luminosities through which a mournful and plaintiff violin worked its way through. I also became aware of ‘electronic vortexes’ as they pass physically by – invisible but detectable by the temporary distortion and loss of the broadcast station. What are these presences that are not to be seen or known apart from their electronic revelation? I found myself marvelling over the very discovery of electronics itself which allows both electronically transmitted music ubiquitously for our times and the worldwide communication system that has so changed our lives. Whilst this last could be used for sinister purposes and against which we must always be on guard, I feel that it is here when we pray to our gods whoever they be to help us to resist any ‘outside’ forces of destruction and evil intent. We ended the day with a range of single malts that I came to realise in the summer constitutes a transcendental experience over the more usual immanent one. Believing that paganism is the most logical religious expression for people as they are – their wishes, emotional needs and their love for paranormal enchantment, I am conceiving a global grass-roots pagan network, an alliance of pagi, that hopefully might in time come to enmesh the entire corpo-military complex and make it subservient at least to the organic will of the people. But back to the here-and-now, it was a long, easy tempo’d day of exquisite joy in which we were able to centre yet again on the unique beauty of where we are and how blessed and fortunate we are to be here and with all that we have.

These July days are certainly heady and blissful. We are gorging on courgettes (zucchini), lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, celery, beets and chard. We’ve only been getting a few strawberries, but those we do have are superb. And the maize continues to ripen, and by next month we’ll be able to serve corn-on-the-cob dinners. We have had a few ears already, and they were delicious. Meanwhile our weeping mulberry tree is almost literally raining berries. The reine claude (green gage) are close to becoming edible. We’ve had a few already. The days are relaxed, full with our various projects, and all is gorgeously sublime.

In closing, I would like to say a bit more about Peter Clarke. During an early conversation with someone in a corridor of King’s College, I used the word ‘slippery’. David Parry overheard me and turned to say, “You must be talking about Peter Clarke.” I remember a most attractive student from Uganda telling me at one point, “If you were young, female and black, you would have no difficulty getting Peter’s attention.” But once I began to submit work, he engaged with me and became my champion. Friends had told me before I started with my doctoral studies not to worry about creating the most original work but to do what ‘they say’, get the degree and then ‘you can write what you want to write.’ So I tended to follow Peter’s advice even when I did not necessarily agree with it, and though right from the start of my viva, Bryan Wilson and Paul Heelas told me that they had already approved my dissertation and were going to put it forward for submission, they wanted first to discuss of few points – one of which was the order of the chapters which had baffled them. I could not say, “This was Peter’s suggestion.” But afterward, Peter explained to my examiners that this was a pioneering work and that there was no established order for its presentation. He could argue convincingly, and they were persuaded by him. Over all, Peter became more than a colleague but a friend. He thought he had me generally figured out and was subsequently amusingly and laughingly astonished when my daughter was born. Peter Clarke was a solid and tireless sociologist, and he taught me a methodology and vocabulary I would never have acquired on my own. I was and am glad that he was my supervisor.