Chapter
2
The mystery of life is not a
problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced
Soren Kirkegaard
The Beat Generation
It was the period of Mods and Rockers and the Beat generation, and
I was one of the first in town to wear stove-pipe trousers with no turn-ups. I
was reading the books of Jack Kerouac and of the exploits of larger-than-life
characters based on Kerouac and his Beat companions, books such as “On the
Road”, “The Dharma Bums” and “Big Sur”. Kerouac's philosophy was inspired by
his experiences of awakening to a new consciousness, as the following piece of
writing illustrates:
“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet,
concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North
Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so
don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just
don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence
of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever.
Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3
seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will
remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud
innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened
thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born,
we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a
personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a
mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream
already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I
know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any
expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will
ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is
the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakener-hood, empty and awake,
will never crumble away because it was never born.”
I was always aware of my own golden eternity as being the
well-spring of my life, the life where the self is only an idea conjured up by
thought. The space into which we are born has no beginning and no end and it is
useless to question its existence because there is no reason for its existence
and no necessity for one. There is no good and bad, better or worse – these are
relative concepts, and without our presence everything is equal, without inherent
purpose or meaning. Yet we always struggle to make sense of a world which is
mysterious, irrational and inexplicable. The mind falsely divides reality into
subject and object, self and others, existence and non-existence, birth and
death. This apparent reality, which is all that we are aware of ordinarily,
stems from ignorance or illusion. For me, these ideas were nothing to do with
philosophy, an intellectual pursuit, but more to do with everyday life and
reality, the way things are, and not as we imagine them to be. The influences
which interested me and touched me fundamentally were more a recognition of
what I already felt in my innermost being.
I learned to play the guitar and became interested in folk music.
I joined my friends in town and we passed the time putting pennies in the juke
box, listening to music and sitting on the harbour wall watching the pretty
girls accompanied by their parents who arrived at the seaside for their annual
holiday. The skill lay in attempting to separate them from their doting
parents. These meetings and romantic encounters led to my being invited to
places as far afield as Dorset, Kent and Derbyshire to be entertained as the
current boyfriend. I vividly remember sitting in a cinema in Belper but I
forget the name of the film and in any case my interests lay elsewhere, and I
am fairly sure that I wasn't really concentrating on it. I also remember
playing croquet on a lawn in Branksome Park in Poole in later years and being
taken out with my girlfriend to an Indian restaurant by a fearsome Welsh banker
father.
College Days
In 1957 a new television set arrived at our house which put paid
to a lot of extra studying for my A-level examinations. Finally, after taking
my A-level examinations, I left the Grammar school, which by now had
transferred to Churston Ferrers, and went to Trinity College Carmarthen in West
Wales to do my teacher training. While I was there I learned the Welsh language
and taught it on teaching practice. I became friendly with Welsh-speaking students
and took part in the current campaign to save the language from further
decline. A great advocate of preserving the language was Norah Isaac who taught
Welsh at the college. The principal at that time was Canon Halliwell. At the
time, a book by Islwyn Ffowc Elis had
been published named “Wythnos Yn Ghymru Fydd” - a week in future Wales –
warning of the dire effect of allowing Wales to become a mere region of the
English state. I had avoided being called up to do National Service in the army
by just three months, and this to me was a relief as I did not have to do what
I did not want to do. Even in those early days my instincts were opposed to
military service and I had no quarrel with anyone. A friend, Peter Greenham,
who later became a potter, had not been so lucky and told me that he had spent
most of his time in Cyprus painting fire buckets red.
Some of my friends at college in Carmarthen were translating
English pop songs into Welsh and with my limited knowledge of the language I
managed to translate the song “Sea of Love”. I also joined them in the campaign to get
Hywel Heilin Roberts to be elected as a candidate for Plaid Cymru in
Carmarthen. On one occasion I travelled around the county in a van to
distribute copies of “Y Ddraig Goch” news magazine in the villages. This
van was used to contain radio transmitting equipment for Plaid Cymru to
broadcast on the television wavelength after 11 o'clock at night, which was
illegal. On the journey back to Carmarthen the van was stopped and a policeman shone
a torch into the van to check whether or not this equipment was on board but on
this occasion the van was not carrying anything apart from newspapers and we
were allowed to continue. I met Gwynfor Evans, the popular and respected
president of Plaid Cymru. His vision was for Wales to be free and independent
and become a sovereign member of the United Nations. Later Plaid Cymru was able
to gather more support until it formed a part of the new Welsh Assembly as the
second largest party in Wales.
I was invited by one of my student friends to spend the holidays
in St David's and met an attractive Welsh girl there. Her name was Lowri and
she was a daughter of the manse. The skies were grey and the winds were cold
but I walked around the area, visiting the cathedral, where I was told that
Oliver Cromwell had stabled his horses at the altar, and the lonely chapels of
the saints who spread Celtic Christianity long before the Catholic bishops
imposed their authority and a more dogmatic and ritualistic interpretation of
these early Christian teachings. In Carmarthen there existed in my student days
an ancient tree stump named “Merlin's Oak” and the legend was that Carmarthen
would be flooded if ever it was removed. As it was a traffic hazard the Council
began to discuss its removal and the river Tywi overflowed its banks.
Carmarthen suffered its worst floods for fifty years.
I eventually obtained my Teaching Certificate, passing my main
subject, History, with distinction. After finishing college I applied for a teaching
post in Wellington, Shropshire along with the friend from college and we shared
a flat together. It was the era of bubble cars, made by Heinkel, Mitsubishi and
Isetta and I bought an example of the latter model in pastel blue. Later I
bought a Volkswagen Beetle, and met an attractive librarian aged 17 at a Folk
and Jazz club meeting. Her father managed a sugar beet factory. I began
visiting her parents' house frequently and met with their approval. This
occurred during the terribly icy cold winter of 1963 when everything froze
solid and snow lay deep on the ground, and during the depths of winter I
remember her parents going away for the weekend while my girlfriend stayed in
the house alone, but not for long as she thoughtfully let me have a key to the
door. Later in the day I took her out in the car, in hazardous conditions, and
we made love in the snow.
During this severe weather I was required to attend a conference
of teachers at Attingham Park organised by Sir George Trevelyan. I drove my car
through the imposing iron gates and as I ventured up the drive to the Hall the
way was blocked by a huge snowdrift. Despite the conditions I ploughed on as
best I could but then was forced to abandon my vehicle in the middle of the
drive and seek refuge in the house where Sir George had lit a blazing fire. It
was three days before I could retrieve the car. In many ways this long cold
winter was an experience of skating on thin ice, literally and metaphorically,
but spring eventually made an appearance and normality returned.
New
Age Messiahs
Sir George Lowthian Trevelyan, 12th Baronet, was an educational
pioneer and a founder of the New Age movement. He was a striking figure, tall
and lanky with long silver hair and a moustache. The late Sixties heralded the
dawning of the Age of Aquarius and a new awareness affecting society in many
ways. After listening to a lecture by Dr Walter Stein (of whom I will mention
in a later chapter), a student of Rudolf Steiner, he turned away from being an
agnostic to spiritual thinker of the New Age and then studied the anthroposophy
of Steiner. He taught history at Gordonstoun School in Scotland, pioneering
radical methods of education.
After the end of the war he became the Warden at Attingham Park
which was a pioneering college of education. In 1971 he retired to found the
Wrekin Trust, an educational charity. Later he became involved with the Soil
Association, the Findhorn Foundation established by Peter and Eileen Caddy, the
Teilhard de Chardin Society and the Essene Network. He conducted meetings and
gave lectures, and wrote numerous books on spiritual themes. He was awarded the
Right Livelihood Award in 1982 and passed away in 1996.
Another inspirational figure at this time was Father Andrew
Glazewski, a Polish former Jesuit priest and physicist who gave a lecture which
I attended. He also wore his hair long and remarked that it picked up the
vibrations which infuse all matter. He investigated inner resonance as he
called it, and the musical sounds produced in nature, different forms of nature
vibrating at their own position in the musical octaves. He spoke about angels
and gave an account of his drive around town looking for a parking space
knowing that his angel was helping him always and caring for his welfare. Sure enough,
he soon found the only space available. At the end of his talk he said, “Now I
am going to give you an experience....” He lowered his head and concentrated
his mind and the audience felt a warm wave of love sweep over the room. “You
felt that, didn't you?” he said.
Soon afterwards I left my teaching job in Wellington as my
librarian girlfriend was accepted for a place at Nottingham University and her
family moved to Norfolk, where her father was appointed as manager of another
sugar beet factory. I moved to a new job at a junior school in Nottingham,
where the headmaster advised new teachers to “start as you mean to go on!” and
played Vivaldi's Four Seasons and other classical pieces at assembly time. I
found lodgings in Hucknall Road with a Belgian lady and soon settled in to my
new situation. I visited my girlfriend at the university but quickly realised
that the relationship with her was over. I took my guitar into the pubs and
played there. I happened to be in the Black Horse pub and there I got to know a
rising star in the world of journalism, Alan Gosling, and we had some
interesting discussions. I recall that he described me as a contemplative.
Nottingham suffered from dense fogs caused by industrial pollution
and on one occasion the school closed early on account of an exceptionally
thick fog. As I drove home I could
barely see the rear lights of the car in front of me. On negotiating the
roundabout I found that cars were going around it in the wrong direction and I
groped my way apprehensively to my lodgings. I was still playing my guitar and
joined the Co-operative Folk Workshop where I sang and played folk music and
there I met my first wife. She was of Irish descent and had red hair and green
eyes. She inspired my first poem. It was said that all the most beautiful girls
came from Nottingham and she was no exception. When I met her I had a strong
feeling that my future life was mapped out before me and that nothing would be
the same again. Meeting her opened up a new phase in my life.
Gaelic Love 1964
Into my
life has stepped the beauty of Erin.
Red her
hair is – sun-burnished
by the
sun of the western sea;
and
green her eyes are, languid lakes of Mayo,
they
haunt me;
sweet
the soft lips as honey from the bee.
The
nectar of her kiss to me is wine.
Into my
life has streamed love.
The
spirit of Ireland moves me
as I see
her,
knowing
in my heart that she's for me,
and I am
ready.
The time
is ripe -
the
radiance of the sun has warmed the earth,
and love
will flourish as the mountain pine.
The
spirit of Ireland has awakened my soul,
calling
me on ............
I cannot
linger.
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