Bringing Back The Numen
Work, in a small industrial concern - heavy manual work with days spent
indoors where the only light is from a multitude of bright fluorescent
tubes and where the constant din of machine noise is layered with that
raucous cacophony mis-named "music" which loudly blares, often
distorted, from speakers and whose origin is some urban "radio station"
where some inane person inanely and manically chatters between the
ending of one piece of mis-named "music" and the beginning of another.
The tedium of long hours relieved only by a short morning break and
one half unpaid hour for lunch when I sit, hedged-in by walls, in the
small back yard on an old box upon broken concrete surrounded by broken
glass, old, smashed bricks, patches of oil, and the detritus of Homo
Hubris. Some sky - but not much - is visible over and above the roof
and walls and vents, and nothing natural lives or even exists here: no
tree, no bush, no flowers, not any weeds. No sound of birds - only
noise, from the unceasing machines; from the lorries and vans which
arrive and depart nearby, disgorging and receiving their goods.
No peace; certainly no Numen of Nature.
There is only the incessant unnatural rhythm of industrial life, of
factory toil - a card to be stamped by a clock: in, out, even for
lunch. And, at days end, I - tired as the others - slope off and out
into the nearby street where no one, passing, says "hello!" or
greets me as almost always they did in those small villages of England
where I have mostly lived. No, no greeting here; not even any
eye-contact, held. For this is urban life where humans are shunted to
shuffle encased in their worries, their inner worlds, and where traffic
gluts streets. Nowhere here the calm, measured, quiet of that life,
rural, where Time is what it is - instead, there is abstraction,
measuring out
our lives as the clear water from a leaking tank seeps out, to the
dirty
hubris-made ground, drop by drop by drop; drip drip dripping away,
clean water to dirty ground... So I am once again adrift; not lost but
far, far from home and measuring out my days until, sufficient money
saved, I can return to the source of belonging: there, where such
dreams in such quiet places as may bring the Numen back to me.
Yet here, in this place of work, people rush to compete as if such
swift toil was a badge of pride; thus do they scamper, to complete
abstractly-imposed tasks, for profits, and ego, must be made, saved.
Thus do we workers toil - so many slaves, en-slaved, needing but
not-needing the pittance to live such a life as lives among the urban
clutter, smallness, meanness and sprawl. But I, I have seen the sky and
hold here
in my being such visions as bring the Earth to earth - dust to dust,
and life to Life: one world, one planet, one dimension, among so many.
Nowhere for so many in day or night that sigh when we close our eyes to
feel the oboe d'amore of one slow movement of one piece by JS Bach,
bringing thus such quiet tears of empathy as connect us, one human
life,
to other human lives beyond the-words the-abstractions - and thus take
us out, out, out into the being, the Numen, of Nature. There is then in
such a moment that sacred precious meaning which urban living, and
traffic, has, these days, defiled.
No beauty, here, no song to the sanctity of Life - except, perhaps,
fleetingly glimpsed in her eyes, face, as she, the young blonde-haired
Polish worker, smiles. Four, five times - more - this week we have
looked into each other's eyes as she, I, smiled,
touched-but-not-touched, in wordless greeting. Then, such humanity
over, we return to our tasks - I, to lift, move, heavy laden objects;
she, to her machine. But she is there, in the background, as she works
with her sister - quietly, stoically, both toiling as they toil: hard,
grafting, as if inured to such a way of life. So they keep their own
company - with few words between them; few for others, for they have
"little english" and at lunch sit together beside the machine that
steals their day, gazing ahead while they eat their meagre food perhaps
enwrapped in dreams which are their dreams, bringing perchance some
glimmer of hope among the stark noisey brightly-lit bleakness.
This life is grim, grim grim, only saved by such an intimation. No
insects, even, outside, as I sit here, scribbling - only a few
ants, as I gasp-in lungfulls of the cleaner outside air; only a few
ants, dithering, backwards, forwards, over the detritus, as if lost.
Toiling, grafting, working - untouched, it seems, by that knowing of
Life which a knowing of death may bring.
Such are we here, slaves of modern life - sure, such toil could bring
me the security of some settled home; warmth enough, from fire, to ease
the the pains that seep now into olding flesh and bones; food enough to
keep me well; walls and roof enough to keep clothes dry from rain and
turn a chilling wind, away; perhaps another
companion-bestfriend-wife... But such a price, to pay: too high a
price, it seems, for
freedom,
Numen, lost.
No time, here - then - to watch the Sun rise on a clear day; no time
here - then - to catch the growing Dawn Chorus as it grows, week
by week from early to late and later Spring. Nowhere to wander watching
clouds form and shade to move as they are moved. No stream to watch as
sunlight filters and fractures and water ripples, singing a wordless
song. No sounds of an English Summer - flies, darting aimless and
aimed; bees, seeking; birds, warning, calling, sparring; no wind
breezing as it breezes among tree, hedge, reed, grass and Autumn's late
leaf-litter... No natural Time to stand dreaming or sitting as the day
passes in moments of memory. No natural Time, of Nature - only that
unsettling abstract time of clocking-in-clocks, measuring out the
seconds to our death. No, no natural Time, here: only the unnatural
unnecessary stupidity, born of Homo Hubris, which adds one hour to
herald so-called "Summer time" - for even when I, toiling hard during
years on
Farms, planted, in Spring, or harvested in Autumn -
weather-permitting - such "government time" made no difference: work
began Sunrise, to finish, weather-permitting, as the Sun began to set,
for thus we followed there in that, our almost vanished world, a
different Time to the time of the scuttling denizen of some rootless
traffic-fume-filled city.
Yes, freedom is hard, while savings dry and boots are worn as one
walks, alone, with that walking that measures out the now almost
forgotten pace of true human life and the human way of living, bringing
back as such slow rhythm and quietness does that connexion to presence
the Numen without and within. Yes, freedom is hard while too much toil
for another, in the wrong place, lasts.
DW Myatt
March 2007 CE