Et in Arcadia Ego
In a dream I had, we are driving the dips and curves of Sunset Boulevard, heading west into the (pun) setting sun -- very Camus' Stranger, except in a car -- and we pass the Bel Air Gate. The guard kiosk is surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire and flanked by machine gun turrets. You ask me if I know what battalion is bivouacked here, and whose house they've commandeered for HQ.
Bletchley Park, known as Station X during the War. Unlike many private properties and stately homes commandeered for military use during the war, Bletchley Park (now a museum) was actually bought outright by the British Military from the owner -- a developer who'd acquired it before the outbreak of war.
"My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time." -- Captain Charles Ryder, Book II, A Twitch Upon the Thread, in Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh (28 October 1903 - 1966, and so practically 1904. Almost. Close enough).
The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Ryder are framed by his visit to the Brideshead estate which has been commandeered by the military for war use. The quartering commandant gives Ryder a tour of the place he has been to before. "Wonderful old place in its way," says the commandant; "pity to knock it about too much... It's a great warren of a place, but we've only requisitioned the ground floor and half a dozen bedrooms. Everything else upstairs is still private property, mostly cram full of furniture; you never saw such stuff, priceless some of it." After an inspection of the interior and noting the damage done by the previous occupying forces, they go out to the front terrace. "Those are the other ranks' latrines and wash-house" [the lieutenant-colonel explains to Ryder] "...We laid the road through the trees joining it up with the main drive; unsightly but very practical; awful lot of transport comes in and out ... Look where one careless devil went smack through the box-hedge and carried away all that balustrade; did it with with a three-ton lorry, too..."
"That fountain is rather a tender spot with our landlady; the young officers used to lark about in it and it was looking a bit the worse for wear, so I wired it in and turned the water off. Looks a bit untidy now; all the drivers throw their cigarette-ends and the remains of the sandwiches there, and you can't get to it to clean it up since I put the wire round it. Florid great thing, isn't it?" [Brideshead, Epilogue].
From The House of Rothschild, Vol. 2, p. 478: "... Other Rotschild properties were also commandeered for war use.... Exbury was taken over by the navy. And Charles's and Rozsika's house at Ashton Wold was used by the Red Cross and the Ordnance Corps. Inevitably, these buildings suffered damage, not all of it through enemy action. In Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, such wartime depredations seem to herald the dissolution of an older, Catholic aristocracy. As she contemplated what remained of the gardens at Ashton, before leaving for war work at Bletchley, Victor Rothschild's sister Miriam felt that her own family too was waning: 'The Holocaust; the war; my parents' deaths; the end of the garden. Nothing seemed to matter any more.''"
A "New Earth" as Eckart Tolle calls it, is coming; the old world with its Ego and Left Brain domination is passing away, transcended by a new paradigm, a higher consciousness. But it isn't going to happen without a fight. It isn't going to be easy or pretty; paradigm shifts seldom are. For some people there will be a sense that, with all the death and destruction, the loss, the damage, the trampling of the garden, the fight will be too much. For some people the time will come when the price to be paid for liberation is too great, and nothing much will matter any more.
In the meantime Saturday April 19th (tomorrow) is the first full moon of spring and the birthday of Hanuman and I will be attending the celebrations at the Vedanta Temple in Hollywood. We begin singing the Hanuman Chalisas at 4 AM. Hope to see you there!
Bletchley Park, known as Station X during the War. Unlike many private properties and stately homes commandeered for military use during the war, Bletchley Park (now a museum) was actually bought outright by the British Military from the owner -- a developer who'd acquired it before the outbreak of war.
"My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time." -- Captain Charles Ryder, Book II, A Twitch Upon the Thread, in Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh (28 October 1903 - 1966, and so practically 1904. Almost. Close enough).
The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Ryder are framed by his visit to the Brideshead estate which has been commandeered by the military for war use. The quartering commandant gives Ryder a tour of the place he has been to before. "Wonderful old place in its way," says the commandant; "pity to knock it about too much... It's a great warren of a place, but we've only requisitioned the ground floor and half a dozen bedrooms. Everything else upstairs is still private property, mostly cram full of furniture; you never saw such stuff, priceless some of it." After an inspection of the interior and noting the damage done by the previous occupying forces, they go out to the front terrace. "Those are the other ranks' latrines and wash-house" [the lieutenant-colonel explains to Ryder] "...We laid the road through the trees joining it up with the main drive; unsightly but very practical; awful lot of transport comes in and out ... Look where one careless devil went smack through the box-hedge and carried away all that balustrade; did it with with a three-ton lorry, too..."
"That fountain is rather a tender spot with our landlady; the young officers used to lark about in it and it was looking a bit the worse for wear, so I wired it in and turned the water off. Looks a bit untidy now; all the drivers throw their cigarette-ends and the remains of the sandwiches there, and you can't get to it to clean it up since I put the wire round it. Florid great thing, isn't it?" [Brideshead, Epilogue].
From The House of Rothschild, Vol. 2, p. 478: "... Other Rotschild properties were also commandeered for war use.... Exbury was taken over by the navy. And Charles's and Rozsika's house at Ashton Wold was used by the Red Cross and the Ordnance Corps. Inevitably, these buildings suffered damage, not all of it through enemy action. In Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, such wartime depredations seem to herald the dissolution of an older, Catholic aristocracy. As she contemplated what remained of the gardens at Ashton, before leaving for war work at Bletchley, Victor Rothschild's sister Miriam felt that her own family too was waning: 'The Holocaust; the war; my parents' deaths; the end of the garden. Nothing seemed to matter any more.''"
A "New Earth" as Eckart Tolle calls it, is coming; the old world with its Ego and Left Brain domination is passing away, transcended by a new paradigm, a higher consciousness. But it isn't going to happen without a fight. It isn't going to be easy or pretty; paradigm shifts seldom are. For some people there will be a sense that, with all the death and destruction, the loss, the damage, the trampling of the garden, the fight will be too much. For some people the time will come when the price to be paid for liberation is too great, and nothing much will matter any more.
In the meantime Saturday April 19th (tomorrow) is the first full moon of spring and the birthday of Hanuman and I will be attending the celebrations at the Vedanta Temple in Hollywood. We begin singing the Hanuman Chalisas at 4 AM. Hope to see you there!
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