The Right to Speak

With a wood-carved sea horse, approximately twenty-one inches in height, balanced on my left palm, I now speak to you.

“These kind of councils don't happen very often, and I don't have the kind of wealth, beauty or intelligence (nor anyone that would swear to it falsely or even say that I own these modestly) that would overrule this ancient custom, though in years to come I foresee it being abandoned. The young don't appreciate time-honoured rituals. Or laws, come to that; lawless mob.

Yes, the young amongst you, I see your shocked faces, but it's true. You don't respect your elders, their opinions, nor the laws of our land. You show some reverence here, but personally I think you're biding your time; plotting behind our backs.

I know we're a lot of crusty old-timers, in age or thought or both, but tradition – the continuance of it- has so far won out. And all of us here, on the board, cast our vote or abstained, so why complaint? We all had a hand in the outcome.

Yes, yes, you'll get the chance to challenge me, or agree with me, when I've finished.

You, over there. Yes, you, young man – put your arm down. This isn't a classroom; I'm not a teacher. Wait your turn if you have a speaking slot; if not, you'll have to apply for one, at the back there, or convince someone else to give theirs up for you.

Please, if you're new – promoted from within or from outside – read the handbook. There are rules. As you will know if you've chosen to accept the invitation to join us there are procedures, so don't be a fool and don't read them.

You'll never get anywhere here, or in life, if you come in too hard. You must win allies. Dissent is no good on the benches if you have no influence in the inner sanctum.

I should know – I was young once. With fire in my belly.

Again with the faces. What? Does that surprise you? A woman who speaks like a man, pragmatically, with less emotion. You can, you know, when you look back.

But it's not of this I wish to now speak. I had my day to rage and try to effect change. Though I never, so I thought, made protest for protest's sake. The power to speak, then, would have been wasted, when women were given fewer opportunities to do so. For if you want a slot you have to make your case. Make your argument, your points for or against, convincing, or the issue you wish to raise a pressing or a compelling one. Then those that attend will want to listen, will want to attend to your words as well as the tone and rhythm of them.

Women are luckier in their endeavours to manipulate, with words, since their voices can be soothing and melodic, and stirring. Men, I think, struggle more. They talk of action, action in real terms, whereas women talk of it less yet inspire it.

But pick your battles. Carefully. Wisely. Only engage in those you believe in, not those you don't have the heart for. Nor those you know instinctively aren't worth the fight and will bring only pain and bloodshed, no reward.

The weighing up is the most important part. Don't, if you're young, be too reactionary, and don't, if you're past the flush of youth, just debate and stall.

Hear these words, even if they're coming to you from afar. From long ago, so forward are you in the future. They will, I think, still stand. Perhaps, knock some lost, some forgotten sense into you.

Where order's established, there's more common sense and far less pantomime.

But what right have I to speak my mind? Just this wood-carved sea horse I'm holding, as you see before you, which as you know represents our origins, for we hail from sea people, brought to shore as the legend goes by Neptune's horses.

That is all.

I went through the usual channels, as I've always done, to address you today, just to say Eleutherostomia is a right I support and hope we continue to observe, according to our traditions.”

Picture credit: The Return of Neptune, 1753, John Singleton Copley (Source: WikiArt).

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

Piggy and Ralph

July 2018. A fresher and cloudier day than those gone before but there are signs that it will soon burn off. And the temperature is rising.

I'm in a park with three companions: two, two legged and one, four, though this morning he's a little unsteady. One of his back legs keeps slipping, but otherwise he seems happy enough with his tennis ball clamped in his jaws. Dropping it, then chasing after it on his extension lead; dropping it and then forgetting it as he's found another smell that's more enticing, so that his master has to retrieve the ball and place it in his trouser pocket for safe keeping, or at least until George wants it again. He tells you by woofing and looking imploringly at you, though he does the same when he wants biscuits.

I've never been to this park before. It's more than a park, really, with pathways under trees and a large green space, with benches, and a fenced-in picnic-play area for families. There's a small café, too, with indoor and outdoor seating. And across the road, from the entrance, there's a lavender field, which very recently has broken into bloom.

We take a paved path, under trees, George leading his master, with myself and another, in conversation, behind, when from the left hand side, two schoolboys burst, cutting across us and the track. Chasing each other, weaving in and out of bushes and trees, in glorious flight with smiles plastered on their faces. Both have on white shirts and grey shorts; only one has a striped school tie fastened round his head. “It's Piggy and Ralph” my companion said.

We all laughed because it was true. In an instant, of it being said, that's who they became. There, right before my eyes was Ralph chasing Piggy; and then, a moment later, Piggy lumbering behind, trying to catch energetic Ralph up.

We saw them them a few times, always the same, one following after the other. Except when they tried to get into their navy blue school mini-bus, but, on finding it locked and unattended, raced off again into the greenery.

After that, they disappeared. Just as abruptly as when they had first come into view. There was no sign of them on the open common; just little dogs frolicking and telling each other off with high pitched barks.

No other schoolboys showed up. No unruly tribe in a state of undress, or one with a painted mask to set himself apart from the one with the tie. No gaggle of them either with a teacher or an authoritative figure. Strange, that. I thought so at the time, but didn't remark on it.

It wasn't, to my knowledge, World Book Day. So it was just two boys being boys, which, weird as it might be to say it, was good to see.

But to have two book characters suddenly materialise was, well, interesting, as well as thought-provoking, particularly since it wasn't all that long ago I read Lord of Flies.

Was this going to happen from now on?

Had I been on the Downs when horses were being exercised, I wouldn't have been at all surprised if knights of King Arthur had arrived, as that had occurred lately. The scene transmogrified before my eyes, but that, I realised, was my imagination - it didn't then develop into a live re-enactment. No, this occurrence was certainly not that. I wasn't immersed in anything but the walk, and the scene, itself, didn't transform, magically, just for me i.e. I wasn't the only one to see them.

No, this was an overlap of realities as the park with its stone paths and parched grass remained exactly as it was. Piggy and Ralph chose to make themselves manifest for some reason, perhaps desiring a change from their island territory to this rather more inhabitable, and gentrified, park. Perhaps their bus had broken down...in an updated version of the tale, and the others were scattered somewhere... although the bus looked to me in fine condition: no obvious dents to its body or scratches to its paintwork.

I would think of that possibility though, wouldn't I? Anyhow, my modern reworking was further flawed when I saw the bus leave...with nobody on board...

Picture credit: Piggy and Ralph, Lord of the Flies, 1963 film.

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

Callisto

I was once a nymph. Then a bear, before almost being cut down by a javelin, and then turned into a constellation, which I've been for many years now.

I once roamed forests, now my place is fixed in the skies, where if spied from the northern hemisphere I never disappear below the horizon. I never get to plunge in the ocean's baths. Instead, from my ox-drawn wagon, I watch the Hunter, my old companion, bathing with her virgin nymphs, and giving chase to and shooting wild beasts.

Although I only shine at night I'm here all the time, wheeling in this wagon.

It's my penance, I suppose, though it has kept me safe from Artemis' and Hera's further vengeance. I should have known better than to be seduced by Father Zeus, even disguised, which then disgraced me, in his daughter's eyes; she, who has taken a vow of chastity and only accepts virginal attendants.

But Zeus! How could I have been so blind! He does this all the time: beguiles, in disguise, daughters of gods and mortal wives of king-like men to lie with them. These Olympian gods, they all act the same! Dazzle you with their gifts and good looks, and whisper their sweet nothings into persuadable ears.

Had I been an ordinary woman or a queen, wedded or betrothed, my eventual condition might have been overlooked, welcomed even. A child of Zeus' planted in me would have, in all likelihood, been accepted as his own by my husband, so great is Zeus in men's hearts.

But no, I had to conceal this pregnancy. And then bear him, discreetly, under a tree, and walk away. Though my secret, at the time of his birth, had already been revealed. By my sisters, who had noticed, over some months, my figure changing.

And then Artemis was angry with me. At me! Just because I'd laid with somebody, not because I was, very obviously, then, with child. It didn't matter that my seducer was Zeus, nor that I'd been tricked since he'd taken on the likeness of another. She's all about purity, the goddess of the hunt, and in her eyes I had sinned; I was a fallen nymph.

So, I was ousted. Left to fend for myself in the forest. On berries and grubs. And river water. No manna from the gods. Though my belly continued to swell to bursting point.

Zeus, it seemed, had also abandoned me, and would not be roused. Perhaps his gaze had been turned in another direction...or he was trying to pacify Hera, because I know this much she was told. And it wouldn't have been by almighty Zeus. No, she would have found out by some other way. Either from a winged messenger, or from Artemis herself. Those two plotted, I'm sure.

But Zeus, as always, saved the day. Stepped in at the last moment to foil that pair. After years of being persecuted as a bear.

The baby was a boy. A son, a son of Zeus, Cronus' son, and my mark of shame. I don't know what happened to him, though I've heard it tell since (you hear everything up here) that he was the man that was going to shoot me with a javelin before Zeus intervened: flung me far, far away from Hera's long-held wrath.

I've heard my son was also flung, at the very point he would have thrown his lethal javelin. Selene, the radiant goddess of the moon, when she rose one night, told me that (though she shouldn't have) he was turned into a minor star.

We don't shine alongside one another. I'm not sure I'd recognise him even if we did, not as the son I bore, all those years ago. Mother and son, as we are, were, then, never destined to cross paths. To know, maybe even grow to love, each other. And I've never longed for that meeting.

I wonder if Zeus, for all his wisdom, was right. I'm pleased he saved the boy from anything else Hera might have planned. But me? Would it not have been better if I'd been shot, then forgot, rather than live out this deathless sentence?

These four spoked wheels spinning, spinning, spinning through the nights. And rolling on, more slowly, though the days.

Picture credit: Callisto on Jupiter's chariot, ceiling decoration from 'Sala di Galatea', Baldassare Peruzzi (source: myartprints.co.uk).

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

According to Legend

My mother forgot, in her long labour and subsequent tiredness, to perform a crucial rite, and so it fell to my nan, her mother; and she, though resourceful in the circumstances – I lay in a bassinet, checked on by nurses, in a special baby unit – only managed to touch the tiniest spot of tender flesh with blessèd water, dropped from a phial. The lightest of fingers brushed my forehead, and then the sign, the sign of the cross , was made, in plain sight of starched-uniformed nurses and white-coated doctors.

The medical profession once believed, really believed (I don't know what they believe now) they were also gods (and goddesses), and behaved as such, so, maybe, this ritual, carried out on unconsecrated hospital grounds was fitting; particularly since they had delivered me, safely though prematurely, into the world.

My mother, numbed with exhaustion and already thinking what new hell have I entered into? whilst I, an angry, shocked red and screaming bundle with a mass of dark hair, was whisked away. My hands curled into fists, my mouth open in wail: take me back, right now! to that pale, depleted woman, with people fussing round her.

An exaggeration but then I don't remember and so I'm using my imagination here.

And so Nan came. With her holy water. It might have seemed imperative to carry out this duty to her first-born grandchild. If it's true. But would it matter if it wasn't? It's the story I've been told (okay, okay some of it), but I have no reason to doubt their word, that of my nan or those told to my mother and later passed on to me.

I was never going to be baptised, officially, by a man (it would likely have been a man then) in vestments, since my parents did not adhere to that, nor any religiosity or superstition, but Nan might have felt, due to my early, drawn-out birth and her catholic faith, it was required, and therefore couldn't wait.

I have wondered since, however, what good, if any, it's done me. Has it kept me safe? Or in her haste, has it been the undoing of me?

The sign of cross meaningless, just a placebo effect (blasphemy! blasphemy!) because the water's the thing. In which to gain immortality, or immunity, you need to be dipped into, head to toe, or perhaps, if you're a baby, bathed in. Thereby, any places untouched are vulnerable to injuries and ailments.

Just as Achilles' mother, the sea-goddess Thetis, discovered, to her cost, too, because with it came the loss of her godlike son, swift Achilles. The legend goes that in his infancy, she'd plunged him in the River Styx and neglected the heel, by which she held him by, and it was there that later the fatal arrow of Paris found its mark, in vengeance for his brother, Hector, which then led, in part, to the dark swirling down to shroud his eyes. For the Fates and Apollo had a hand too. As did Zeus, the King of Gods, who'd nodded his assent and allowed his downfall to be planned.

Due to learning this I've wondered: could this explain why, from the back of the skull down, I suffer complaints or wounds? The holy water only caressing the spot where later a lock of hair would rest, and so migraines when they come grip the sides and back of the head, never across the forehead.

And growing up, I had all the common childhood illnesses, in quick succession, as well as annual bouts of tonsillitis and wheezy coughs. At night, too, I endured calves that burned and were taut with pain. I've suffered sprains, a damaged right toe, a left ankle that gives way and knees that crack. As well as eczema and a non-malignant lump. I have a weak ear and my eyes, a while ago, lost their natural ability to see distance, which is an irony I laugh at for my star sign is that of the Archer. I should have been a goat.

But I have been hit on that spot, the very spot where I assume the water dropped, with a workman's tool: a hammer wielded by my then Herculean three year old cousin. I was seven and all I got was a nasty bump. So perhaps, that place is invulnerable after all.

Picture credit: Thetis dippping Achilles into the River Styx (design for antique cameo brooch). 

All posts published this year were penned during the last.