The Critical Degree
It's called 'The critical degree,' and no-one talks about it because no-one seems to know what it really means. You divide the zodiac into the mansions of the moon and then... and then I drift off because I like the sound of 'The Mansions of the Moon.' The critical degree is a moment of greatest sensitivity in each sign. In Aquarius it's the 9th degree, and there Saturn sits in my chart. Apparently this placement turns Saturn from Dumbledore into Doc Emmett Brown. From being old and wise he becomes old, wise, and mad; as he's also Chronos, there's an element of what another doctor would call wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff... And because when all is said and done, I'm here for the poetry, that's what I'll use.
A new contract has given me the opportunity to go find myself a favourite treat, a new perfume. Despite knowing I can get just as gorgeous infusions from mixed essential oils, I do have a great weakness for the glamour of perfume, the bottles, the evocation of ideas, the silliness of it. Much of it is about very ordinary chemicals marketed straight into one's dreams; nevertheless I love just wandering into Selfridges surveying row upon row of ridiculous philtres and concoctions, bottles gilded with constellations, or tricked out in suede and glass; and the mingled scents! Coffee and oud, roses of course, vetiver, black hemlock and truffle oil, amber and benzoin amid every marketing trick under the sun. I try them and ask how much they are. Nothing I like is under a hundred, some are nearer twice that. One bottle presented to me was £340. I tried it just to see what exactly a £340 perfume smells like, and I honestly can't remember. That's how ordinary it was.
Then the critical degree emerges. I step back and observe the spheres of Chronos and Earth, the world shifts and blurs and there are people who may well be my ancestors, late 17th century labourers on the Earl of Perth's interest. I can't get too excited because there are a couple of potential alternatives I need to check up. Still, I consider those people, whether we are related or not. They work on the lands that the Earl owns, and the Earl backs the Jacobites consistently. After the uprisings, the Earl is attainted,his lands go to the Crown, and at some point when some laird or other takes over, the Clearances begin and the people who work on that land are just driven away, my possible ancestors among them. They will become the diaspora that floods into the cities, they will be the grist for many a mill.
But when they are first thrown out of their homes, it's not the English, but the lairds who destroy their lives in order to create sheep wastelands and grouse moors. The argument is that at this point the real Scottish enlightenment begins, but no-one can deny that the Gaelic culture is almost entirely obliterated. In earlier posts, I talk about a clan citing lineage back to Arthur; it's a fun idea, but this is a much more likely reality, to come from the lost and invisible poor, bereft of language and heritage.
And what would they make of their 9th or 10th Great Grand-daughter? What difference would they see between me and the lairds or the English come to that? My life would seem like a crazy dream to them, I who have the benefit of books and heating, a health service, a school, a university or two, the world at my fingertips, the ability to throw money at a bottle of pleasant liquid; money that would have bought a parcel of good land in their day. How could we communicate with one another? Would we even seem like the same species, never mind the same ancestry?
The vision shifts again, forward, though there are no inheritors, because this is the end of the line for the family; if the UN report is right, for all the family. Our ancestors had no hope of understanding us, but chances are our descendants will understand us too well.
And suddenly it's best not to get out of the DeLorean.
A new contract has given me the opportunity to go find myself a favourite treat, a new perfume. Despite knowing I can get just as gorgeous infusions from mixed essential oils, I do have a great weakness for the glamour of perfume, the bottles, the evocation of ideas, the silliness of it. Much of it is about very ordinary chemicals marketed straight into one's dreams; nevertheless I love just wandering into Selfridges surveying row upon row of ridiculous philtres and concoctions, bottles gilded with constellations, or tricked out in suede and glass; and the mingled scents! Coffee and oud, roses of course, vetiver, black hemlock and truffle oil, amber and benzoin amid every marketing trick under the sun. I try them and ask how much they are. Nothing I like is under a hundred, some are nearer twice that. One bottle presented to me was £340. I tried it just to see what exactly a £340 perfume smells like, and I honestly can't remember. That's how ordinary it was.
Then the critical degree emerges. I step back and observe the spheres of Chronos and Earth, the world shifts and blurs and there are people who may well be my ancestors, late 17th century labourers on the Earl of Perth's interest. I can't get too excited because there are a couple of potential alternatives I need to check up. Still, I consider those people, whether we are related or not. They work on the lands that the Earl owns, and the Earl backs the Jacobites consistently. After the uprisings, the Earl is attainted,his lands go to the Crown, and at some point when some laird or other takes over, the Clearances begin and the people who work on that land are just driven away, my possible ancestors among them. They will become the diaspora that floods into the cities, they will be the grist for many a mill.
But when they are first thrown out of their homes, it's not the English, but the lairds who destroy their lives in order to create sheep wastelands and grouse moors. The argument is that at this point the real Scottish enlightenment begins, but no-one can deny that the Gaelic culture is almost entirely obliterated. In earlier posts, I talk about a clan citing lineage back to Arthur; it's a fun idea, but this is a much more likely reality, to come from the lost and invisible poor, bereft of language and heritage.
And what would they make of their 9th or 10th Great Grand-daughter? What difference would they see between me and the lairds or the English come to that? My life would seem like a crazy dream to them, I who have the benefit of books and heating, a health service, a school, a university or two, the world at my fingertips, the ability to throw money at a bottle of pleasant liquid; money that would have bought a parcel of good land in their day. How could we communicate with one another? Would we even seem like the same species, never mind the same ancestry?
The vision shifts again, forward, though there are no inheritors, because this is the end of the line for the family; if the UN report is right, for all the family. Our ancestors had no hope of understanding us, but chances are our descendants will understand us too well.
And suddenly it's best not to get out of the DeLorean.