Dream. I’m walking around, in Edinburgh, on my own.
I come across two friends, sitting on the terrasse of a cafe. I’m pleased to see them, I sit down with them and convey my pleasure at meeting them unexpectedly. I wait for them to respond but they don’t look at me, they say nothing, it’s as if they don’t even see me. And then they both get up and walk away. I’m so surprised I don’t say anything. They didn’t even say goodbye, that's what I think. I feel very upset that they ignored me.
I then go off walking again and find that I’ve gone into a large precinct which is ‘The Castle’ and its grounds. (Edinburgh does have a castle which is surrounded by land that used to be partly under water, a loch, but the area is not nearly as big as the dream grounds.) I walk around and then when I want to go out again, realise I’m lost and don’t know how to reach the entrance – there are other exits/gates but I don’t recognise any of them.
I approach a woman member of staff and she says she’ll take me back to the entrance. She drives me in a van, it’s a long way, there’s even a big loch, part of the grounds. She asks me if I’m a scientist, am I staying at the grand hotel? I say no, I live nearby, I’m not a scientist and I'm not staying in a fancy hotel. But it's not surprising that she thinks I'm a visitor, since I clearly don't know my way around. This area within the castle walls looks totally unfamiliar. She takes me to a main road. I don’t recognize the road or the layout, does this take me to the West End? I ask. It is almost like the city I know well, but it is not. I’m quite disorientated and lost, these lovely old buildings and streets, they are like Edinburgh in some ways, but bigger, with elements of mediaeval French towns I’ve been in recently. In the end I admit to myself I do not recognize this city and I don’t want to get out of the car if I don’t know where I am. I wake up.
*
C and I go for a walk in woods near Edinburgh. There’s no wind and some of the trees still have colourful leaves. Even more vivid colour from the leaves lying on the paths. Some trees are quite bare. We sit on a bench by the old curling pond, surrounded by graceful trees. Old this, old that, in the sense of former, so many sites like that, around Edinburgh. Or so it seems. Perhaps it’s just the usual kind of history that old places accumulate.
I tell C my dream. ‘Lost and Alone’ clearly is the title. (Or ‘Mistaken Identity’.) After telling it, I think of the myth of Inanna, and tell it to C or at least what I remember of it. Inanna (Sumerian goddess) goes into the underworld to visit her sister, Erishkigel, who rules there. (Sumerian equivalent of Pluto.) Instead of being welcomed, Inanna goes through the ordeal of being stripped of everything, including, finally, her life. Enki, another god, becomes the saviour-type figure who sends his servants to the underworld to fetch her back. The servants go to Erishkigel, who complains of having a really hard time of things. She bemoans and laments her fate. She is the true victim, to be pitied and soothed, to be heard, to be sympathized with. Who has ever listened to her complaints and sufferings before? Having got it all off her chest, she is willing to let Enki’s servants take Inanna’s body back to the upperworld, she has no further interest, she doesn’t care, sure, they can take it back up, it’s just a dead body after all.
So her body is brought back up. Probably Enki, who is after all, the god of wisdom, knew that her return to upper world would bring about a rebirth. Like phoenix reborn from the ashes. Returning to the upperworld means being alive. She had been stripped of everything she possessed. Which was not, as you may think, an unfortunate accident. It was a necessary condition for her rebirth as someone transformed, freed of the dependence, the attachments to the symbols and the trappings of wealth, power and position (and so, identity). And along with the symbols – wealth, power, status (and identity) themselves. Going into the underworld, piece by piece, precious jewel by jewel, silken garment by gem-studded garment, all were removed. All the adornments that declared her importance and status, gone. The trappings of the ego, of self-importance, of specialness, of rank, of the ability to wield power over others, all gone. Nothing left. She was nothing.
So that, I say, is the story my dream makes me think of. Everything being stripped away. My friends turn their
backs and walk away. The place that I used to know well, is no longer
familiar, no longer home; loved friends and loved landscape have become
strangers. And so – well, of course – to be lost and alone – that is, to be stripped of what I value, which gives identity – has to be something to be grateful for.
Has my life become a stranger to me? Have I lost a sense of path, of my life being a path? That’s what life is, is it not? Is life a path?
We sit on the bench, under canopies of trees and think about this. There is a path that circles the old curling pond. There is a bird on a tree branch. I do not move, I don’t want to disturb it. The bird does not move, not a whisker, not a muscle, not a feather, not a blink of its eye. I go forward cautiously. It is a metal bird, flat, two dimensional, but bird size, more or less, a clever imposter, in the dull grey autumnal light.
The pond, smaller now than it was when it was a curling pond, is the home of various species of birds. The former storage house for the curling stones has been converted into a hide, to watch the birds. We walk further on, to the wooded paths. Some very old beech trees, you know they are old because they are so big, wide, tall, expansive, they seem to like growing in pairs. Many elegant, so wide and unfurled, elegant pine trees. One giant redwood.
One path leads to a narrow road with a sheltered mysterious house half hidden behind a hedge. It turns into a path, with signposts. In two directions, there are named destinations. Mauricewood, Belwood Road. The signpost for the third direction, the way we are going, is quite blank. Ah, nowhere. Further along this avenue of glorious beech trees, other paths, other signposts, other named destinations. The direction we have come from, is blank. Where we came from, is nowhere again.
If we got lost here in nowhere, we would not be found, only years later, they might come across our remains. Indeed, says C, word would go out, they were nowhere to be found. And he starts to laugh, quite uncontrollably.
The crisp carpeting of leaves rustle when we step on them.
An old (aged) stone is parked outside an old (former) church. It is imprisoned behind black railings. What can it have done to be so punished?
It’s for protection, says C, for its own good.
It has a rough circle of invisible indentations in it, covered over by moss so you can only feel the hollows if you run your fingers over them. Holy stone says I. Holy moley says C. The church, the notice says, is to be put to a different use, planning permission has been granted. It will be turned into dwellings.
What’s the word for a de-sacralized church? I ask.
Deconsecrated, says C.
What does sui generis mean? asks C. That was also mentioned in the notice.
Only one of its kind, I say. No other like it. A one-off. Just so people don’t think that any old church can be converted into dwellings. Only one that placed a holy moley moss-covered stone behind bars so it is not free to roll away where it listeth.
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