"Everyone is a moon, and has a darker side which he never shows to anybody."
(Mark Twain)
"Man and the Moon", by Tina Palmer
"Moon River"
(Johnny Mercer)
Moon river wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style someday.
You dream-maker, you heart-breaker,
Wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world;
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end,
Waiting round the bend:
My huckleberry friend,
Moon river and me.
"Moon River" Audrey Hepburn ("Breakfast at Tiffany's")
Having finished work very late at the beginning of the week, I wandered off down the High Street in the wee hours, looking for the moon. It seems there are a lot of folk meandering up and down the Lewes Road at 1.30 in the morning, searching for the moon and other things. The moon, perhaps sensibly, was hiding behind a blanket of mist. From my own little street, this larger and brighter than usual moon was barely evident. I live in a low part of Brighton - probably in more ways than one - with steep banks of housing and buildings on either side. A full perigee moon always appears much lower on the horizon: it took three days until the June "supermoon" was on the wane before I could get a photo of it actually over the rooftops in my road. Some stunning photos from across the world have been taken of the supermoon. I've posted some of them here; the last two are from Brighton; the final and by far the least impressive one is from my doorstep. I was determined to capture a bit of the supermoon: coinciding with the summer solstice and the full moon of St John's night, it seemed like a hopeful beacon. When I was little, my Dad of course told me there was a man in the moon who would know if I wasn't sleeping. Years later, I learned that The Man in the Moon is actually a traditional phenomenon as well as being a sentimental childhood essential. I hadn't realised that for centuries across the northern hemisphere, the dark areas of the moon, the seas, in contrast to the lighter highlands have been perceived as human features. Maybe we need the moon to show a friendly face: earth's closest neighbour in space, it's comparatively large for a natural satellite orbiting a planet of this size. The moon is the brightest sight in our heavens after the sun, although in fact it's surface is dark, like coal and with a similar reflectance. Old European tradition tells of a man being banished to the moon for some misdemeanor: Christian folklore depicts him as the man caught gathering sticks for firewood on the sabbath. Another Christian legend depicts him as Cain, doomed to circle the earth in exile, as depicted in Dante's "Inferno". In Norse mythology, the moon was a man in a horse drawn carriage, passing across the sky to escape a great wolf; in the Germanic and Roman cultures, he was also a thief of various descriptions, stealing away over the earth before daybreak. In some eastern cultures, and particularly in Chinese tradition, the inhabitant of the moon was sometimes thought to be a stranded goddess, with only "moon rabbits" for company. Even today, Chinese children are shown how the features of the moon may represent the moon rabbit, rather than a man's face. A prominent feature in our night skies and with a regularity of phases, the moon has gained a comforting familiarity since ancient times. The moon's orbit and gravity draw the ocean tides and the length of our days. Scientists believe the moon was formed shortly after the earth, from the fallout of debris and matter after we collided with something the size of Mars. The moon remains the only other celestial body that man has set foot on. Since the United States' Apollo 17 mission in 1972, only unmanned crafts have visited the moon, some confirming the discovery of lunar water ice - the moon's surface can't support liquid water. The Outer Space Treaty declares the moon to be free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes; a sentiment that perhaps isn't honoured here on earth. The moon has had a huge influence on folklore, language and the arts. Initially pushed into learning to play the piano when I was little, the first piece of "proper" piano music I grew to love was Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune". As a fan of Mark Twain, I love the imagery of the song "Moon River" with even a "huckleberry friend". The song features in one of my favourite films, "Breakfast at Tiffany's", with Audrey Hepburn at her most adorable: half Irish and half Belgian and a bit kooky; what's not to like? I love the innocence of Hepburn's film version of the song, although Andy William's velvety voice was a perfect match to the poem and the melody. (I'd recommend looking up the film if you're not familiar with it, or have forgotten how magical it is). The regular and distinct phases of the moon have made it a convenient and fascinating timepiece throughout history. The waxing and waning of the moon formed the basis of many of the most ancient calendars. The lunar cycle is approximately thirty days long and the English word for "month" and it's cognates in other Germanic languages originate from "the moon"; Germanic cultures relied on lunar calendars before any solar one. The oldest depiction of the moon is thought to be a rock carving at Knowth in Ireland, some five thousand years old.In some ancient cultures, the moon was personified as a deity or supernatural entity. It has a long association with hopefulness and luck but also with emotions, irrationality and even insanity. The word "lunacy" obviously derives from the Latin name for the moon; even Aristotle, who wasn't short on marbles himself, believed the water component of the human brain must be affected by the moon's tidal power. Today, it's understood that the moon's gravity is too slight to affect an individual's brain function. Tales of increased accidents, homicides, suicides and psychiatric admissions at full moon persist but with little or no consistently supportied evidence. Certainly the euphoria and despair ill-met by moonlight on the Lewes Road most nights owe more to the influences and addictions of this world than the orbit of any satellite. The full moon has always been emotive for me because it is simply beautiful, as distant and mysterious as it is predictable and symmetrical. My mother used to have me make a wish on the full moon, always starting "Dear God"; wishes, prayers all headed in the same direction. She also told me to turn coins over in my pocket at the new moon for prosperity. Walking down the main road in the first hours of the new day, I couldn't see the big moon for clouds and houses, but I did find the baby moon of a ten pence piece twinkling on the damp pavement. The moon is a benign companion, to children, drunks, dreamers and doers. It's constancy and luminosity assuage childhood nightmares and adult loneliness. The magic of the night is part romance and part uncertainty and moonlight and moon-shadow will paint pictures that the day cannot sustain. As with everything serenely beautiful, it has an inexorable power, enough to pull the oceans from one shore to another. James Joyce spoke of the moon's "inscrutable tranquility". The same moon that appears to keep pace with me on my walks home at night along the Level will be lingering along with lovers by the Seine or guiding a lost backpacker somewhere unpronounceable. Even when we see the moon wane, it's size and shape remain perfectly the same. Every night, the moon is, generally, where we left it, just like our dreams.
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."
(Buddha)
Starlings across the full moon at Brighton pier...
... and my own less spectacular photo of the this week's supermoon over my street.
"Clair de Lune" ("Moonlight") Claude Debussy
"Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
"Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do."
(Victor Hugo)
American writer and pastor Henry Van Dyke noted:"Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse." A couple of days ago, on Thursday 22nd November, the United States of America and some other parts of the world celebrated Thanksgiving Day. This dayhas been an annual holiday in the United States since 1863, traditionally on the fourth Thursday in November; my friends in Canada give Thanks on the second Monday in October.
Many people trace the origins of the modern Thanksgiving Day to the Pilgrim Fathers' harvest celebrations in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. However, their first true "thanksgiving" was probably in 1623, when they celebrated the downpour that ended a long drought. The earliest Thanksgiving Day celebrations were actually special church services rather than the extended family feasts of today. Later in the 1600s, annual public displays of thanksgiving after harvesting became more common, held on different days across various states: George Washington, the first president of the United States, proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1789. In truth, not everyone sees Thanksgiving Day as a cause for celebration: American Indian Heritage Day is also observed around the same time, and recent years have seen Native Americans and their supporters staging protests in Plymouth on Thanksgiving Day, as part of their National Day of Mourning.
"Oh Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness! "
(Shakespeare's Henry VI)
Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious traditions, but is now generally celebrated in a more secular manner. Prayers of gratitude and special thanksgiving ceremonies have been common to nearly all religions and cultures after harvests and at times of deliverance. The modern celebration still holds aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs earlier than late November when the holiday is celebrated now. The history of Thanksgiving in North America is heavily rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. Reforms in 1536 reduced the vast number of church holidays ("holy days") down to twenty seven a year; some Puritans wanted to completely eliminate all church holidays, even Christmas and Easter. The holidays would be replaced by Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving, in response to natural and national events that the Puritans viewed as acts of providence. Days of Fasting were called on account of drought, flooding and plague. A Day of Thanksgiving was called following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588; and an annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, evolving into Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night.
Photo: Gigi, album
"We give You thanks
for the fruits of the earth in their season
and for the labours of those who harvest them."
(from The Book of Common Prayer)
I've always loved the idea of the Thanksgiving celebrations and wish that something was made of the day in these islands. Much as I look forward to Christmas and fully embrace both the reverence and the sentimentality, I don't like the commercialism that starts way back in October. The tinsel trees were in stock along the High Street this year before the pear tree in my back garden had even thought about turning or shedding her own leaves. Aside from the traditional feasting, the emphasis at Thanksgiving is gathering with family and friends. Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for travel in the States, with people covering long distances by car, train and plane to spend time with loved ones; to be "home". Presence, rather than presents. The traditional feast is a slap-up one, featuring personal favourites of mine such as sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, pecan and pumpkin pies. Regrettably for me, a turkey will usually feature heavily (literally) in the menu. Today's stuffing and mashed potatoes may be a distant call from the harvest baskets of the Pilgrims, but many families still encourage guests to bring fruit and homemade tit-bits along. Even if you don't arrive with a couple of bottles of white or a six-pack of light, everyone can still bring something to the table: themselves.
Thanksgiving is also seen as a natural time to help others: canned food drives and food and night shelters are traditionally inundated with volunteers and donations. Each year, the US President "pardons" a White House turkey, delivering it from the dinner platter to the rest of it's natural life lived out on farmland. How wondrous would it be if every year each nation or culture could fully pardon one grudge, one breach, possibly one perceived natural enmity?
When I was at school, a wonderful, obviously aged but somehow ageless nun called Sister Columba told me what to do if I was too tired to say prayers at the end of the day. She told me it would be just enoughto say Thank You that I am still around to say it. Over the years, my own commuted prayer in times of weariness and often thankfulness has simply been "Thank You for loving me", which seems to me to be what Thanksgiving is all about.
"Hard Times Come Again No More" Paolo Nutini (with The Chieftains)
It's often said that you can choose your friends but not your family. I would go further still: your truest friends become family. By this token, surely a man's nationality has far more to do with a feeling of personal allegiance and belonging than with the stamp on his birth certificate or passport? Since writing about Irishness around St Patrick's Day, I've been considering what is formally implied by nationality, and what the word might evoke for you and me.
My brother-in-law and I are polar opposites politically. I know he likes to wind me up about things I'm passionate about: I suppose I would think something was very wrong if he suddenly started to sing from my hymnbook. Recently we've crossed words on the subject of nationality. My brother-in-law is a Yorkshireman who would possibly make his home county a republic if he could. Years of living and working overseas have done little to dull his Northern accent and I believe he still thinks Britain has an empire. He would prefer his nationality to read as English, rather than British. I've told him that I respond very little to the nationality on my passport: it simply relates to the place of my birth. I have always felt part Irish and part Belgian. The Irish part is not further dissected into northern or southern for me, yet the Belgian side is strongly Walloon (French). Absence has failed to dilute my brother-in-law's sense of belonging; and I can easily empathise with this view, although I'm be looking through the opposite end of the telescope.
I believe I've inherited the strongest ideals, fears and passions of my parents and their ancestors; including people I never knew. That's what I believe runs through my veins. There is no English blood there, yet I don't feel "foreign" or "estranged". Born in south London, I will always have an affection for the region: my childhood memories and significant people and places are still stitched to that backcloth. But in Brighton, I feel I've found a home: beyond the obvious bricks and mortar and roof tiles. In an area where I knew no-one and have no family links or formative memories, I feel I've found a place which will nurture my future. The Brighton I live in is far from glamorous: employment, always seasonal, could now be described as rare. Property prices are high and living costs roughly the same as in the capital, but the average wage in Brighton is currently several thousand pounds a year less than the National Average Wage. Previously grand period houses sit derelict while homelessness becomes more visible in every quarter of the city. It doesn't take much for traditional British seaside-glamour to become rundown and seedy. But I love it here. It doesn't feel as though I've started a new life here as much as just woken up to who am and where. When I visit London I feel like a fish out of water. Here, I feel that I might find just the right size pond for myself.
My passport says I'm British: I feel I'm the blend of my parents' and of my own encounters on my way to Here. I understand what it means to be European; I'm choosing stay with Britain because of familiarity and fondness, and Brighton has become my new hometown. Other places around the world have touched me and maybe more will in the future: I haven't had a chance to revisit Australia for a few years now, but a particular shot of Mrs Macquarie's Point or the streets of Paddington in Sydney can move me to tears. Places can be great loves as much as people. And no matter where you originated from, have emigrated to or gained citizenship of, ideally you should be able to belong to and take pride in that country, county, town or community that moves you. "Belonging" can be as broad or is intrinsically intimate as you need it to be.
Traditionally, nationality has been based on "Jus Soli", right of the soil or territory, or on "Jus Sanguinis", right of blood; or a mixture of both. Jus Soli grants nationality by place of birth; Jus Sanguinis, by virtue of where one or both parents were born. The textbooks will confirm that nationality is the status of belonging to a nation by origin, birth, or naturalisation. I understand naturalisation by experience: my father lived and worked in England for more than fifteen years to attain British nationality by naturalisation. Following World War II, the huge rise in population due to globalisation and the sharp increase in numbers of refugees suddenly created a class of stateless persons. My mother and father referred to them respectfully as "displaced". Naturalisation laws were created because recovering western democracies were simply not equipped or prepared to accommodate massive de-nationalisation, nor the mass expulsion of ethnic minorities from newly created states. My father's situation wasn't quite as dramatic: he held a Belgian passport and found work in Britain interpreting and translating for consuls and embassies; he also taught French and English. He was informed that his professional status and reputation could only benefit from his naturalisation. In fact, my Dad worked constantly while I was growing up and he achieved British nationality only the year before he died, aged fifty nine. His accent was as strong as ever, and his professional reputation was such that Mum was still receiving letters of condolences from overseas students and ambassadors two or three years after he died.
My sister was born in Belgium and spoke nothing but French until she landed in South London at the grand age of seven. Her nationality was given as Belgian, although I assume she was included on our mother's British passport at that age; even though Mum would have argued that she herself was Irish! When my sister was over the age of twenty one, she was offered dual nationality - she promptly chose British sole nationality. My sister seems to have shed her Belgian skin quickly and easily: by the time I was born, she had forgotten her first language completely; by her own admission, she cannot master French to this day. Forever bonded by good, loving parents, we are very different. My sister is quintessentially English, rarely even expanding to call herself British. She doesn't share my interest in Belgian politics or Irish folklore, and I feel the absence of that. Yet her identity is strongly self-determined.
Paradoxically, I may not feel innately British, but my own nationality is qualified by both Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis; I was born in Britain and at that time, one of my parents was defined as British in her passport. In fact, my mother always maintained that she was Irish by birth and I would never refer to her as Northern Irish. When Mum was born, in the north of Ireland, Britain hadn't yet claimed six counties; Ireland hadn't agreed the treaty that effectively created Northern Ireland. I don't wish to get too political here, but I feel this scenario illustrates the complexity of nationality. Incidentally, having already touched on the enigma of Irishness elsewhere on this blog, my Catholic cousins and their Protestant spouses in that region refer to themselves and each other simply as Irish.
Nationality can be defined as being part of a nation: a collective of people sharing a national identity. Recognised forms of belonging can be based on ethnic and cultural similarities and ties; including self-determined ones, if a nation has no state, such as the Scots, the Tamils, the Basques. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 15 states that "Everyone has the right to a nationality - No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality." But what if someone doesn't particularly want to be restricted to one? In some cases, over-riding a state's law, determination of nationality can be governed by Public International Law applying treaties on statelessness and by the European Convention on Nationality. As Swiss-born poet and philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel said: "If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion". His own family were driven from their native France into Switzerland within the expulsion of Huguenot Protestants. It seems that religion and nationality can be uneasy bedfellows, yet inexorably linked.
Technically, Judaism is not a race because Jews do not share one common ancestry: some Jews hail from Europe, others from the Middle East. People of many races have become Jewish over the centuries. So, although Judaism is a cultural as well as a religious identity, Jewish nationality has been dispersed throughout the world for two thousand years. Yet the country of Israel is seen to be the Jewish homeland, and "being Jewish" certainly means you are part of the Jewish people, whether you were born into a culturally Jewish home, or because you choose to practise the Jewish religion. Jewish identity is automatically bestowed on babies of Jewish mothers according to Orthodox Judaism, and of Jewish mothers or fathers according to Reform Judaism. This Jewish identity can endure throughout life even if someone subsequently doesn't practise Judaism as a religion. Still with moi??
Jewish ethnicity, nationality, religion and culture are clearly strongly interrelated: definition of Jewishness can be based on nationality or religion. As the only faith of the Jewish nation, converts to Judaism hold the same status as Jews by birth within the Jewish ethnos, traditionally absorbed into the Jewish people. In 2010, the Jewish population was estimated at more than thirteen million across the world. It's estimated that only about forty percent of the global Jewish population live in Israel. Judaism literally means of the land of Judah, and all Jews are said to be descended from the Israelites. In fact, most Jewish people have lived in diaspora since the legendary destruction of the First Temple, in the sixth century before Christ. Israel aside, they've formed a minority in every country they've lived in. Throughout Jewish history, Jews have been repeatedly expelled from their original homeland and areas they've settled in; from the Roman Empire, through the Crusades, to the dreadful Holocaust of World War II. During that state-organised persecution and systematic genocide, six million European Jews were slaughtered, for being Jewish.
Israel was established as an independent, democratic Jewish state in May 1948. In the following ten years, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million. There was a mass immigration of Jews who survived the Holocaust and those subsequently fleeing from Arab countries, Ethiopia and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Apart from the West Bank area over the river Jordan, modern Israel is roughly located on the site of the kingdoms of the ancient Israelites and Judah, later Palestine. This area is historically the birthplace of Christianity and Judaism, also sacred to Islam. World War II had left the surviving European Jews in as displaced persons and refugees; miserably, many were then held in internment camps organised by Britain and other powers. More than ninety percent of these Jewish refugees asked to live in their own state, in the region of Palestine. The Jewish people believe this land was promised to the patriarchs of their faith by God Himself. In response to the crisis, the United Nations recommended partitioning Palestine, with land given over to form a new Jewish nation. Obviously, Palestinian born Arabs would not be happy with this; neighbouring Arab states tried to invade the day after the state of Israel was declared. In 1950, citing Jus Sanguinis, the Law of Return granted all Jews protected and immediate citizenship of Israel if they wanted it. More than sixty turbulent years later, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been declared Palestinian Territories since 1988, although this identity remains unrecognised by the United Nations and a quarter of the world's countries, including Israel and the United States.
National identity can be a glorious and unifying thing; disputed or mistaken identity of land or boundaries can be ugly, destructive and unending.
Friedrich Johann Schiller was another (German-born) poet and philosopher; he wrote that "It's not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons." Sometimes bonds form inexplicably but seemingly inevitably, with places as much as people. He also expressed his idea of Utopia as somewhere where everyone could be content and everything could be found beautiful. Sadly, no passport stamp will ever read "Utopia", but it may be sought by or carried within every human being. Nationality is not purely ancestry or heritage, DNA, religious or social allegiance, blood or soil: it can be any or all of these things. Ideally, it is "home is where the heart is" on the largest and yet most personal scale. So spare a thought for those who feel they must leave everything familiar to them to find refuge, social acceptance and financial security. People not welcome in their homeland; evicted by war or nature, displaced by new governments and flags. While some people may emigrate; others simply flee. It's as negligibly easy as it was in the 1930s to blame today's incoming displaced people for the losses and hardships of an established community. For every individual we feel may have played the system like a fiddle, there are so many others whose nationality has been abused or stripped from them. I may not refer to myself as English, but I'm deeply distressed when helpful people suggest I should give up my home in Sussex and look for a good job overseas. I moan that my house is falling down around my ears, but it's still my little haven. To dismantle it and leave it behind would rip the middle out of me. What if you or I had no choice? What if choice was made by a government or a gun?
When I tried to find a suitable piece of music to add to this post about nationality, I found countless beautiful songs, in every genre, praising and idealising particular cities, countries or continents. I found very few which simply evoked a feeling of unmapped belonging; if anyone reading this has suggestions, I would be interested to hear them. If I've offended anyone by saying that I don't readily describe myself as English or British; whatever I think of the bankers, the public sector cuts and the higher tax threshold, I'm totally appreciative that the land I was born in accepts that I call myself half Irish and half Belgian. For that, I am wholly grateful.
"After the spiritual powers, there is no thing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality."
George William Russell
"This is Your Land" Simple Minds
"Land" (Carol Ann Duffy) If we were shades
who walked here once
over the heather, over the shining stones,
fresh in our skin and bones
with all of the time to come
left to be us, if we were dust,
once flesh, where a cloud
swoons on the breast of a hill,
breathing here still
in our countable days,
the words we said, snagged on the air
like the murmuring bees,
as we lay by the loch,
parting our clothes with our hands
to feel who we were,
we would rather be there than where we are here,
all that was due to us
still up ahead,
if we were shades or dust
who lived love
before we were long dead.
