Chapter 6
The only real conflict in nature
is within ourselves.
J. Krishnamurti
Moving with the Changes
Back in Cornwall, we occupied ourselves with experimenting with
ceramics as we had invested in pottery equipment, two electric wheels, a
kick-wheel and two kilns and began producing stone-ware pottery, mixing our own
glazes, using iron, copper and titanium oxides to create tenmoku and celadon
ware to our own designs. I was friendly with other potters in the locality and
met Bernard Leach, the famous potter living in St Ives. One of the potters we
knew, Mike Dodd, constructed a large 20 foot Korean type kiln in Godolphin
woods which surrounded the manor house and were carpeted with bluebells in the spring.
This kiln took a week to pack and two days to fire but the results were
invariably spectacular and often unexpected. It was always an exciting and
rather apprehensive time when the kiln was opened and the results of our
labours came into view.
I grew very fond of the Cornish pasties produced by a bakery in
Praze-an-Beeble, a few miles away, in a bakery called Bourdaux's. They were
very large and succulent and the best I had tasted. Pasties had originated
years ago for the tin miners who needed
a meal while working deep down in the mines, and these pasties were made in
such a way that the main course would be followed by desert, meat, carrots,
onions and potatoes being followed by strawberry jam, apple or other sweet
ingredients. After eating the pasty the superstitious miners would leave a few
crumbs of pastry for the “knockers”, the little people who were reputed to live
down in the mine. The ruined Cornish engine houses still stand sentinel today
and are an iconic feature of the landscape and a reminder of a past age.
Along with my work as an amateur potter I was engaged in labouring
in the fields. I had inherited an old grey Ferguson tractor fuelled by TVO
(tractor vaporising oil). I bought a plough and a wooden trailer to accompany
the mower which was also parked on the farm. I set to work hauling
trailer-loads of horse manure from a neighbouring farm and ploughing the land
in order to plant potatoes and other vegetables. 1973 was designated a Tree
Planting year (“plant a tree in '73”) and I applied for my allocation of trees
of various species and duly planted them around the farm. I found a source of
pampas grass and planted clumps along the boundary next to the road.
Work was also commenced on converting the barn, knocking down the
cow stalls and erecting a new upper floor and a staircase. I then knocked a
hole through the wall to link the upper floor of the barn to the house which
soon received a new slate roof. I purchased a second-hand oil-fired Aga cooker
which became the heart of the house and provided an assurance that the place
would be warm and cosy during the wet and blustery Cornish winter.
Nowhere is perfect, however, and the big disadvantage was that the
stream was not maintained by the S.W. Water Authority, and it became choked
with weed on its way down to the Hayle estuary, causing it to flood regularly
during the autumn and winter. It flooded the yard and penetrated the ground
floor of the property, causing disruption to our generally uneventful household
routine.
The End of an Era
After ten years or so my marriage to “the Nottingham girl from
down south” was in trouble and I went to Glastonbury and stayed with a friend
named Rollo Maughfling and his wife Solange in their cosy dwelling located a
few miles from the Tor and named Dove Cottage. He was the secretary for the
Society for the Preservation of the Glastonbury Zodiac. In 1927 a woman named
Katharine Emma Maltwood, an artist, had been in a plane and looking down she
made out the landscape laid out with the creatures of the zodiac. The only
difference was that Aquarius was represented as a whale. In the centre of the
zodiac was a dove. I was told that there were similar zodiacs at Lampeter in
Wales and at Kingston-upon-Thames but the latter had been so built up that it
was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape. Later Rollo
Maughfling was to become the Archdruid and he regularly took part in the summer
solstice celebrations at Stonehenge.
Glastonbury was known as the Isle of Avalon and the Tor reared up
impressively from the surrounding lowland plain which in former years was prone
to flooding from the Bristol Channel. At one time it consisted of a number of
low-lying islands. Other notable sites in Glastonbury include chalice well in
the grounds of the house belonging to Geoffrey Ashe, the indefatigable
researcher of the legends of King Arthur, and the ancient ruined abbey. I
climbed the steep hill up the Tor and recalled the words of William Blake: “And
did those feet in Ancient Time, walk upon England's mountain green”, except
that this land was not known as England then. The legend is that Jesus came to
Avalon with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, and it is known that trade
flourished in those times with Phoenician traders engaging with the Cornish tin
trade. To this day the Glastonbury thorn stands on the hill where Joseph planted
his staff in the earth of Roman Britain.
Glastonbury Tor,
Trembling with the
power of Om,
Consciousness itself.
Haiku
Glastonbury is the home of the annual Rock festival and I visited
Worthy Farm and met Michael Eavis, the owner and organiser, but these were
early days. On the farm was a maze which was featured in the BBC Blue Peter
series. The maze or labyrinth is a symbolic representation of the spiritual
journey to the still centre within, and examples which come to mind are the
Hampton Court maze and the labyrinth at the heart of the Greek legend of
Heracles and the Minotaur. This ancient and esoteric symbol is associated with
the spiral, and at Glastonbury I met Christopher, who was engaged in
investigating this intriguing natural form. It is found so often throughout
nature, in plant stamens, in the shells of snails and sea creatures, and in DNA
itself as a double helix spiral formation. The spiritual journey is beset with
obstacles and dead ends, as the maze implies, which Christian discovered in
Bunyan's “Pilgrim's Progress” and it is very much a matter of
perseverance and dedication to press on regardless in the face of adversity.
My three
months at Glastonbury, staying with Rollo and Solange, were a time of
reflection and re-evaluation. My marriage was over and I was feeling vulnerable
yet I resigned myself to the situation in which I found myself. I obtained a
job teaching in a local school and cycled to work every day in the chilly
mornings, when the mist lay low over the fens. The rawness of the end of a
relationship was mitigated by an encounter with a French woman, Claudie, on the
night of Hallowe'en, under a full moon, and for a brief time the clouds lifted
from my soul. I often cycled over to the farmhouse where she was staying and
the relationship lasted until the New Year, but then it came to an end as there
were good reasons why the affair could not last. The most significant event and
one which was to influence the course of my life was my introduction to Kim
Taylor whom I met at the Dove Centre. At the time he and his wife Eya were
living in a beautiful house of character in Dulverton on the edge of Exmoor.
They invited me to stay with them for a weekend and we entered into deep
philosophical discussions on our walks in the neighbouring woods.
My
return to Cornwall was traumatic, not least because I had bought a cheap,
ancient motor scooter, a Vespa, and attempted the journey on a rainy day in the
face of a headwind with the engine labouring and spluttering and eventually
giving up the ghost. I was forced to abandon it and was eventually picked up by
a friend and neighbour who had moved to Cornwall from Bristol, rented a flat in
Clowance House, Praze, and who later took up glass-blowing in his cottage near
Godolphin Cross.
Upon my
return I found my wife and children living with another man in my Cornish
farmhouse. It was a difficult period living in close proximity yet I continued
with my work on the farm. Eventually they left in a Volkswagen camper in a very
dubious intention to purchase ivory bangles and other adornments in
Dar-Es-Salaam and sell them for a profit in Holland. This enterprise did not
meet with the success they had hoped for and they returned to rent a house in
St Agnes on the north coast. I continued to live in my Queen Anne period
farmhouse, met my sons regularly, took up supply teaching in local schools and
learned to accept the changes in my life.
Despite
my turbulent state of mind following the family break-up I benefitted greatly
from my voluntary exile in the Vale of Avalon. I met new people, made new
friends and learned more about the esoteric history of the area. In particular,
my meeting with Kim Taylor at the Dove Centre was a pivotal moment which gave
me the impetus to find a way to an awakening to truth. It often happens that
when other people influence our lives they can make a radical difference to us.
However, “there is no way to truth....truth is the way”. Seeking is a part of the illusion and finding
truth within oneself is freedom from that illusion, the tearing aside of the
veil which obscures.
After
leaving Dove Cottage and before leaving Somerset I stayed in a cottage with a
friend named Penelope and wrote the following poem:
Winter's
Evening (Eastern Promise) 1976
A game
of Scrabble, by candle-light.
Penny
sitting deep in thought,
searching
the mind's vocabulary
for the
word that fits;
aromatic
smells emanating
from the
curried kitchen
of the
cosy cottage nestling
in the
heart of Avalon;
a scent
of incense, a curl of smoke –
writhing
and turning
on its
way to heaven;
on the
mantle-shelf
the
ticking of a clock which
Penny
set for 7:00;
flickering
of the fire,
rattling
of the door,
the
barking of a dog left alone
in the
windy dark.
But
night draws on,
bringing
to a peaceful end
the hint
of eastern promise,
and a
Scrabble game ..............
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