October-November 2021

October-November 2021

Conferences and online meetings included David Parry’s Nephilim Anthropology Conference at the Royal Asiatic Society. It took an hour of walking before we were able to locate the venue even though we had been almost right next to it at the start. My hobbling thanks to the hip was exhausting, but we were still not late. I did get in a brief sleep at one point in the Council Room, and my paper was the last. The Soterias were on Jean Raspail in October and on e.m. Forster’s The Machine Stops in November. During the last, I realised that my laptop camera was no longer working. For the October moot, just as I was connecting, the internet ceased for the entire building if not also beyond. So I missed not only the moot completely

but also my scheduled interview video with Cometan. The phone was down too. Only four hours later did it come back on. The November moot was Laurent James’ “The Third Rome.” It was intensely and unorthodoxly Christian and scarcely pagan at all. The ‘new Christianity’ is to be centred

on Moscow. Beforehand, I had a session with Scott, and at his suggestion I purchased a web cam from Peter Jones. This last I was also able to use three days later for the Pagan Ethics panel which was the only part of the American Academy of Religion I attended. I had difficulty accessing and only thanks to Vivianne Crowley’s phone call to me at the last minute was I able to do so. But I was unable to share my Powerpoint and had to proceed

without it. I was able almost miraculously to get my laptop camera replaced in one day by Apple in Covent Garden and then could participate more comfortably with the Sophia Centre Postgraduate Conference (the VIIth) for which I gave some concluding words. For this, I concentrated on Patrick Curry’s rejection of Cultural Astronomy that he argues is based on a

meaningless cosmos. My counter-argument is that his position is a religious/spiritual one and that, following Northrop Frye, both passionate involvement and detached observation are necessary for humanity but are impossible to have simultaneously. For the blóts, I had in my mind the wrong time for October’s and only joined it an hour late. For November’s I attended

but had to leave early during Michael Walker’s ecology talk for a Zoom with Chloe.

For medical matters, not until after September did I finally see my surgeon again. Richard cracked a tooth and is now midway through getting a new cap. I’ve had three physiotherapy sessions with Anthony Padgett at the Sloane Square Clinic. With the last, he said I did not

need to see him again. Further, after three x-rays at the Chelsea Westminster Hospital, Dr. Rahman said that all is fine. It is now a question of continuing to rebuild the muscle of the hip area. At the hospital, I have also had two physiotherapy sessions with Amy Banning with one further appointment for when we get back from Amsterdam in the new year. Perhaps the best news was from the Marsden Hospital informing me that my testosterone tested normal, and the PSA is at 0.53. I have one more appointment scheduled for the surgeon at CWH for the day before we leave. The day before that, Richard completes his dental work. And I had some

work done at the Sloane Clinic that turned out to be surprisingly expensive. I am still tired but now at least walking without a stick, and when people see me entering a bus, they still jump up if they are in a handicapped seat. Old age has some advantages.

Culinary moments included a music and snacks reception at the Sloane Club on the 7th of October, lunch actually in the Whitelands House garden on the 9th, a quick dinner withDarby and Stephen at Vardo on the 13th, dinner on the 16th with Gin, Rix, Sylvester and Ninka at the Cadogan Hotel (from where Oscar Wilde had been arrested), lunch with Stead at the Sloane Club on the 20th, dinner with visiting Jacqueline and Hans at Colbert on the 23rd, coffees with Darby and Stephen on the 2nd of November at Vardo, lunch with Gillie on the 4th at the Sloane Club (learning a week later that she only has the symptoms but does not have cancer), a wonderful five days with Liz Green in Cornwall from the 8th to the 11th, an enormous and delicious dinner at Eileen & Peter Barker’s along with Marat and Galena on

18th, the Lee Westcott’s Menu dinner on the 20th at the Sloane Place Hotel after the earlier lighting of the xmas lights for Chelsea at our end of the King’s Road along with fireworks which alone made both of us teary, a lunch two days later in Hample on the coast with Claire, Clio and Malcolm after taking the train to Eastleigh, a dinner the next day with Patrick and Sue at the Ivy Chelsea Garden more or less in celebration of Richard’s online citizenship ceremony that afternoon (Richard is now finally British!), and the Thanksgiving dinner on the 25th at the Sloane Club. We have so very much for which to be grateful.

Entertainment moments have included Alan Ayckbourn’s hysterically funny Relatively Speaking at the Jermyn Street Theatre on the 5th of October. Christopher Bonwell is darling, and Rachel Fielding was the best. On the 8th, we were thoroughly engaged with No Time To Die at the Curzon Cinema in Victoria. The opening show of the Congo artist Eddy Kamuanga

Ilunga was at the October Gallery on the 12th. A last-minute notice from Paula Murihy about her performance that night, the 13th, in Handel’s Samson oratorio at the St. George’s Church in Hanover Square where it had been originally performed. This was surprisingly lovely, and Paula’s voice is exquisite. I think Paula had the largest part. She had arranged complementary tickets for us, and the three of us had G&Ts afterward. For the concert, we had to dash from Darby and Stephen who had Cadogan Hall tickets. We went to that venue the following evening for a delightful a capella concert (8 singers: the Cardinall’s Musick ‘Mystics’) of Byrd, Part, Taverner, etc. And we found our seats on the balcony side to be interesting.

Earlier that same day, we enjoyed the StART show at Saatchi very much. On the 19th, we were again at be the Cadogan Hall for Ravel, Vaughan Williams and Fauré’s Requiem. It was the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Hilary Davan Wetton conducting. The Vaughan Williams Toward the Unknown Region based on a visionary poem by Walt Whitman was splendid. In fact, the whole concert was splendid. Sylvester came with his electrician Vali on the 28th and installed new plugs as well as a direct outlet for the washing machine. Sylvester insisted that I pay nothing. I had some whisky for both of them. They finished late, and Richard and I then took the #11 to the Tate Modern for the Chila Kumari Singh Burman but the traffic was horrendous, and we were too late.

On the first of November, we saw Dune down the street at the Everyman. Visually it is stunning but otherwise confusing and difficult to follow. Some gripping moments. Two days later, the Hogarth exhibition at the Tate Britain was both awesome and politically correctness challenging - akin to the possibly permanent closing of the Rex Whistler Restaurant because of objections to the mural. We lunched in the Members Room. And that evening it was the Student Show at Saatchi. Long line to get in but the displays were fascinating. We each had two glasses of bubbly and then a Laphroaig at home. Three days later, at St. Peter’s on Eaton Square we enjoyed Eamonn’s Nonsuch Singers concert. One further event this month has been the House of Gucci again at the Everyman. As a fan of Lady Gaga, I found her mesmerising, and I appreciated not only her astonishing screen presence but all the acting in the film. The movie was both intense and captivating and remained haunting for the nextseveral days. Two days after this on the first of December, we went again to the October Gallery, this time for both Jordan Ann Craig’s “Wildest Dreams” exhibition and the most

attractive Jordan herself.

I did finally get to do the video interview for Cometan a week later. I’ve had a Zoom with Marie-Laure. The next day, the 25th, we met Jacqueline and Hans again this time to visit the War Museum but found that it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we went instead to the Surprise for coffee and drinks. Four days after this I had a Zoom with Theitic. Among the real highlights, however, has been Richard’s naturalisation. His Certificate arrived in six days. We proceeded the next day to begin the process of

applying for his British passport. We got his passport photos, and then back home, I had completed almost all of his passport application until it said that his US passport had to be included with what was to be sent to them. Since we are about to go to Amsterdam on the 8th of December for a month, I was forced to abort the whole process.

The other highlight was an email from Chloe who, after concluding her relationship with Matt, is in Mexico for a retreat that has included ayahuasca ceremony. She writes, “How are you doing? I am having the most incredible time here. And I feel as I progress through my own self-discovery, I feel you here with me and in me. I feel very connected to you as I journey deep into myself and find myself. I would love to catch up with you. Either via zoom

or WhatsApp video.” Almost needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed our Zoom on the 28th of December.

Much of the past two months has involved the proofreading and running heads check for Matter Matters. Exhausting but now at least completed. I have since read John Gray’s review in The New York Review (“The Mind’s Body Problem”) of Melanie Challenger’s How to Be Animal: A New History of What It Means to Be Human. In contrast to both Aristotle and the Stoics who stressed rationality or self-awareness as being what makes us distinct from other species, animist cultures deny this radical distinction that renders the human as special and ‘above’. We too are still animals. While scientific transhumanists endeavour to augment the human body toward increasing states of perfection, transcendence of the biological, non-aging and even immortality, religious transhumanists wish to emancipate the mind and/or

spirit from the body altogether. This is what I tend to refer to as gnosticism in contrast to telluric paganism in which the flesh and physical are celebrated for what they are when they are. For both Spinoza and Nietzsche, the body is not something we possess; it is precisely what we are. Our aching, bleeding, decaying and dying are part of what our bodily selves entail. Challenger and Gray claim that the human horror of mortality and death is what has given rise to traditional religion and dualistic belief. In contrast, paganism largely represents the spirituality that accepts our physical natures along with our propensity for both fantasy and quest for the ethereal and/or rational. It may not always be an easy venture – especially as one approaches the end of the line, but while incarnation lasts, the seeds of joy

hopefully remain to be found and nurtured.

Meanwhile, and more immediately, the prospective Amsterdam venture, despite Delta and Omicron and who knows what else, is expected to include Nancy, Drew, Marie- Laure, Meg, Pavel, Teresa and possibly Barbara and Patrick at various moments all under the one roof of ‘The House’. The most humble gratitude remains for our being blessed with such friends andloved ones and our enchanted and perpetually smiling relationship with each other. Happy yule and the best of wishes for 2022!