Ships at a Distance: The Stamp of Immortality: The Mortal Moment Part Two

Flying Kites in Tintagel

I'm back and officially online for the next ten days! This is because I just arrived in London which is absolutely fantastic and exciting. Our hostel is situated next to an Opera Garden so each evening we hear the sopranos and baritones singing as we write. It is quite excellent. Each day we'll so see a new site and we were even able to book tickets to the musical WICKED. I can't wait! So the past little while, when I've been gone from the online world has been tons of fun. I've been exploring the legends of King Arthur in Tintagel and singing with locals in the Wellington Hotel pub of Boscastle. I was even crazy enough to play some music on my guitar. It was pretty neat because they were so welcoming and even gave me a sandwich because I played.

Cheryl was one singer who was kind of sassy and coy. She was absolutely delightful. She would act along to the ballad lyrics and make jokes to involve us as young adults. She was Scottish and before I left she came up to me, cupped my face in her soft, weathered hands and lightly kissed my cheek. Jack was the B and B owner and he was there playing his Mandolin-Banjo. He is a painter and the walls of his home are lined with beautiful oil paintings of the harbor. Also, he loves rock so as we sat looking through all of his collected items, statues, and photos there was classic rock in the background. His granddaughter's name is Genevieve and she was running around calling after the little dog Ollie who didn't like to stay put. It is honestly one of my favorite things to watch the everyday lives of people. I find it delightful and fascinating. I was even inspired to write a song about Genevieve so we'll see where that goes.

The twisted trees in Stourhead Garden

Soon after I climbed to the top of Salisbury Cathedral and was able to see the immense architecture which holds everything up, all weighing down on literally four feet of foundation. Incredible...pictures coming soon. :)

Apollo's Temple (the Pride and Prejudice rejection scene)

Then we removed our group to the Isle of Wight where we visited Queen Victoria's summer castle, Osbourne where she led her quiet family life away from the pressure of public life. It was really fun to see some more recent architecture, coming from the Victorian Era, but it was kind of mindblowing to realize that Osbourne's recent architecture was closer in age to our own Nation than the bulk of England's buildings. I also got to swim in the ocean for the first time at the Isle of Wight when a bunch of us went night swimming. It was rather cold but a total blast.

Oh oh! And we were able to visit Stourhead which is where a few scenes were filmed from the newest Pride and Prejudice movie. It was a beautiful expanse of gardens and there was a very romantic feeling to the area. Everything was in bloom and the sun was shining. The grotto and other rock structures were super cool and the Romanesque statues were so lovely. On that note I don't think I've ever seen so many naked statues before, but alas. Anyway, it's been a wonderful time flying kites as the sun sets on the ocean, feeling like Anne of Green Gables while sitting in the blowing grasses on the cliffy shore, running around looking for wifi, and meeting local people like Cheryl, Jack or Genevieve. I even got some time to write and finish my essay. So here is the second part to my essay The Mortal Moment: Trekking the Pilgrimage of Existence. This is the last part title The Stamp of Immortality. Enjoy!

The Stamp of Immortality

North Germanic Sea

I remember this concept re-invoking my attention after a short conversation I’d had whilst walking a stormy beach. To my companion I had expressed that the ocean and the waves never grew old, their awe-inspiring effect always stunning as I looked out upon them. But she had heard something quite different.

It has always interested me how people can perceive two different experiences or meanings from one original source. Perhaps I will look into that later.

Anyway, though I had merely expressed awe at the stunning effect of the ocean my friend had heard only two words, “never ages.” At that moment our conversation took quite a different turn as we began to analyze the endurance of nature, its means of existence, and what I will later define as the stamp of immortality.

Tintagel

Perhaps nature’s most stunning quality is it’s agelessness. No matter the time that passes, the lives the play out, or the generations that pass, nature never seems to yield. As an ever-constant companion this omnipresent existence has paralleled itself in our minds to God, resulting in the prevalent idea that nature is a consistent connection to the divine. This connection whether founded on the shared qualities of consistency, beauty, power, or endurance has served as a balm to those who have sought its repose.

The Jurassic Coast

But what is it that people find when escaping to the isolation of the wilderness? The capacity to endure and the agelessness of dormant energy buzzing through the life-blood of every plant is certainly to be found when entering the woods or walking along a beach. If one is religious, feeling a closeness to God is made vivid upon entering the hills. But these findings, though important as they symbolize the endurance of nature, simply answer the “what”? Perhaps more important is answering the “how.” How is it done? How is endurance, like slow plodding, achieved in such intricate beauty and sheer magnitude?

The “how” is what we titled as Nature’s means of existence. We began by dividing its contents into two categories. A plant expert or even just flower gardener, might call the categories the annual and the seasonal. I, as a writer, have learned to recognize the elements of landscape as the pillars and cycles. To be categorized as a pillar an element of nature must serve as a foundation immovable. Those the effects of time may erode or deface the efforts of such pillars their sheer attempts to remain attain them the timelessness upon which the fresh beauty of nature is built. Among this category stands the rocks, the cliffs, even the pebbles of the beach. Mountains, valleys, the oceans and the sky. For a time even the castles of medieval men may serve as a monument to the pillars. The waves which keep time by their which coordinate with the pull of the moon, or the sun which rises and sets along our horizons all become the pillars of immortal nature.

Fountain Abbey's Ruins

Perhaps an easier to recognize those which the requirements are to simply remember the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire. It reminds me of meditation. Almost a year before I came to England I was taught to meditate by the elements. My fiance served as the storyteller, weaving smooth lines of prose that embodied the elemental imagination behind my closed eyes. Each breath was modified depending on which element we were emulating. Water was smooth and relaxed, earth steady and firm, fire was energized and powerful, and air was light and ethereal. Each was fulfilling in and of itself but when juxtaposed in contrast to each other became foundational, or the pillars, by which internal peace was achieved. This to me was when I first discovered the “how,” the means by which nature exists.

The South Cliffs of the Tintagel ruins

In the seconds category, that which cycles, one will find the plants that bloom and leaves that fall off of the trees, the rains and snows which fall only to dry or melt, and even the animals which are born, live, and die, soon returning to the land. The cycles, like the pillars, are fundamental to Nature’s means of existence but instead of adding the timeless effect of endurance they add the agelessness of constant rejuvenation. This rejuvenation or as I first heard in The Lion King’s “The Circle of Life” is what grants peace when simply submitting to the way of things. All are born, each has the opportunity to live, and all must die. The new will rise up, the old will pass away. Upon the aged footprints of one are the tried and tested footpaths of the other built. When coming to such peace in life, and indeed death, we too like Nature discover the way to exist meaningfully.

Though the how is perhaps most important for implementation, and the what for comprehension, it is when the two come together that self discovery is found. Self discovery may be considered the “why” of nature. But with no other reason than self discovery being a less-than-evocative title I decided that “The Stamp of Immortality” was a better explanation for the possible reason behind an individual’s turn towards nature.

It seems to be a trend that many individual’s turn to nature for isolation, inspiration, or repose. Even I seem to fit the mold, having laden myself with thousands of dollars worth of debt and flown thousands of miles, leaving behind my loved ones to find something more hardly knowing what it was I was searching for. But what is it that we all have in common, why the exodus, why the need for a pilgrimage to nature? W.G. Sebald made famous by his writings which detail lonely wanderings, isolated melancholy, and forlorn musing once said, “Like our bodies and like our desires, the machines we have devised are possessed of a heart which is slowly reduced to embers.” Ophelia, while singing of flowers and mourning their wilting leaves says, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts...There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died. They say he made a good end."

And even my friend and I, amidst small talk, found significance in the two words, “never ages.” Lying in common with each is the hope of life, the inevitability of death, and the stamp of immortality.

For Sebald nature may have served as the means by which to express his “enstrangement...with their (memory) mounting weight.” In The Rings of Saturn his English wanderings became the path of his repose, his own means of existence, his way to endure the bleakness, the grayness of life. Perhaps unlike many, Sebald wasn’t seeking personal immortality in reaction to a fear of death or a love of life, but rather reconciling himself to the immortal struggle of lonely minds. Such isolation and reconciliation with grief may be found in nature.

It surprises me how similar Shakespeare’s Ophelia is to an author like Sebald. Such words describing enstrangement, loss, struggle, and isolation previously used for Sebald, all make an accurate characterization for Ophelia’s turn to nature as well. But their remains one fundamental difference. Unlike W.G. Sebald, Ophelia not only finds in nature expression for inexpressible sorrow but also relief and escape from burden through death. In the play it is a matter of little dispute as to whether or not Ophelia’s death is suicide. Because she did not attempt to save herself, maybe due to her insanity, she was accounted responsible for her own death. Yet, while looking at her peaceful body I wondered if she was rendered unaware of her own distress through her perfect acceptance of the course of life and the way of death. Can this be immortality? Can accepting our eventual end implant our beings into the fabric of nature as our bodies will when embracing the dirt? Is this immortality?

A Pride and Prejudice moment!

When coming face to face with the dead Ophelia I experienced my own moment of mortality. My hands seemed to grow cold prematurely as I stared at her face and I found myself frightened. But now I am not afraid. The dispelling of my fear occurred after my own turn towards nature. By engaging in the tradition of humanity I tapped into the exodus to nature and the pilgrimage of existence. For me mortality and nature seem to unite while standing before the sublime. To stand on the edge of a precipice and recognize the possibility, this is the sublime. To stand in awe at the pillars and cycles, to be stunned by the endurance of nature, and to glimpse the stamp of immortality, this is the sublime. While in England I have found such places while climbing the steep slopes of Tintagel or hiking on the craggy cliff edge of the Jurassic Coast. In these moments I stand in peace not wondering whether I will ever live up to the legacy I hope to leave. In these moments I stand in relief, feeling satisfaction in the life I currently lead. In these moments I stand in amazement wondering how I might unite myself to the earth created by the hand of my God. In these moments I begin to write. And the trek continues as I search for the words of what it means to live and how to live. As I search for the words of how to die and what it means to remain as a voice upon the wind calling lonely souls to nature, I enter the pilgrimage of existence and perhaps for a moment suspend or rather embrace my own mortal moment.