high rise Hong Kong, march 1990

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kitchenbeware!

I'm just at the stage where my handy campsite Tefal frying pan and a glass lid from one of the saucepans is not quite enough for my burgeoning cooking efforts. Debenham's department store advertises a sale. So I go there first. Couldn't find the kitchenware department. Why not? They don't have one. It's nicely euphemismed under the heading 'Home'. It's a beautiful display. Le Creuset and other names I recognise - as one does! And lovely labels indicated 10% off the marked prices. Trouble was, I couldn't see price tags on any of the items that took my fancy. I suppose the old adage still works. If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it. Under the counter I found stacks of cardboard boxes - and there was the answer to my question. (Shop assistants? Come now! It's 2011 and we're in the middle of a financial crisis. You just want jam on it!) A beautiful 24cm covered sauté : £84 - and for the discount you must look at our big big labels which tell you how much to knock off. (Ehem! Pardon the vulgarity.)

I follow the trail downhill, as it were. When I reached £44 I felt this was not quite what I wanted for my humble estaminet. (We drink red wine as we chop the onions.) So I cross the road. BoSwells, ahoy!

Much better here. Not so obviously North Oxford - but very good value. Assistance? Of course. How may I help you, Sir? I'm now in comfortable bourgeois country. At £33 there's a magnificent shiny stainless steel frying pan with a heavy glass lid. Nuff said. Take it to the checkout.

Then a kitchen timer. Something where I can press the button when I put on the spuds. And another button as I start to fry the chicken breast - or whatever it is I found in the freezer last night. When the alarm(s) ring(s), check for consistency. If it's OK, turn off the flame. Serve with a topping up of the red in the glass.

Buy. buy, blackbird!

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Aomba : ceremonial music, 28 december 1971

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autumn equinox

this is the time of the autumn equinox

the sun stands poised over the half way of its apparent journey from its closeness to us at the summer solstice to its faraway pause and turning for our winter solstice

in this new quarter of our year, each succeeding nightfall is fractionally earlier than its predecessor ; each dawn fractionally later

darkness grows as daylight willingly diminishes

the velvet embrace of midnight dominates – midnight – the witching hour – thirteen weeks for the practising increase of our craft, the strengthening of our potent desires

francis cameron, oxford, 22 october 2011

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once I had a fisheye

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my damascus moment

Yesterday afternoon, while making a hospital visit, I had a quite unexpected experience.

An Anglican priest, sitting at the bedside, asked me about my religious affiliation. When I affirmed Pagan he responded with that rare courtesy of the well informed. His next question, though, implied I had moved into Paganism from something else and that this had been a gradual process (and that's an interesting point of view in itself). I was happy to share with him my Damascus moment, the sudden intensity of epiphany (I hope that's the right word).

I had been through a sequence of experiences which had purged me from the very powerful beliefs imposed upon me 'from my youth up'. Into this my 'desert and solitary place' came a messenger. I was home.

I was once more with the Old Religion where we walk hand in hand with the old gods who are there from long before.

The Great Goddess and her consort .. ..

francis cameron, oxford, 6 september 2011

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bobbio pyxis, (2 november 1977)

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the bobbio pxyis

This is an attractive round (lidless) box of profusely carved ivory depicting Orpheus surrounded by animals.

When I was shown this artefact in 1977, it was put to me that it was part of the communion set used by the Irish missionary Columbanus when he established his monastery in the place now known as Bobbio. Even at the time I did not quite accept this association. Why would the image of a pagan god be present on a Christian altar during the Mass? (I see there's now an alternative explanation : that this was a gift from St Gregory to St Columbanus when the latter visited Rome to pray at the tomb of the saints.)

Later on my study tour I came across other instances of pagan symbols in what appeared to be Christian contexts. I assumed then it was part of the process whereby some temples and other elements of paganism were abrogated into early Christian worship.

Now I'm not so sure. Based on my continuing study of the 4th century, I find there's another possible explanation.

When, in the 390s, it was ordained that Trinitarian Christianity was now the only permitted religion (and all others, including other forms of Christianity, were castigated as 'witchcraft and the work of the Devil') those who had been celebrating the Orphic mysteries might have continued to do so in secret but, in public, declared their symbols to be Christian. In other words, pagans continued their observances under an outward show of Christianity to avoid prosecution.

It's also possible that in the earlier years of Christianity, some Christian elements were absorbed into pagan practices as part of the synthesis with the general Hellenistic culture of the time and place. I find hints of this even in the Gospels.

I'd be glad to engage with others on the same trail.

francis cameron, oxford, 2 september 2011

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Berlin 1 october 1990 francis + peter crowe

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