Vegan Britain, part 3
(Vegan Britain, part 2.)It was lunchtime when I got off the train at Waverley, so my first stop in Edinburgh had to be the Baked Potato Shop on Cockburn Street. I got quinoa and beet salad on a small spud, and (as expected) it was HUGE. Still the best-value meal in town. 
This is the only vegan boxed sandwich I found in ALL OF GREAT BRITAIN. (Don't you like how I made it sound as if I've traipsed all over, looking high and low?) But I bet hummus sandwiches-to-go will become much more popular in the future. Good on the National Library of Scotland for offering them—and their soups are usually vegan-friendly too; they're always vegetarian at least. 
Kate M. and I had seen each other for dinner in Galway a couple weeks before, but we caught up again over a lovely lunch at Henderson's. I got the veggie haggis (superb!) with the most amazing side salad (arugula, butternut squash, marinated tofu, pumpkin seeds, and I forget what else). 
Apart from Henderson's, David Bann is probably the best known vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh; I've only been there once (with Seanan when he came up for a few days after Hawthornden), and I don't remember either of us being very wowed. It was good, not great—though I do remember the big juicy green olives we ordered for an appetizer. Those were perfect. At any rate, I'll probably just keep returning to Henderson's on future trips to my favorite city. 
One rainy evening I walked down to the Forest Café and ordered a hummus plate, with a slab of rich and simple chocolate cake for dessert. 
Lunch at Meadowlark Number 39. The menu wasn't as extensive as I was hoping, but the tomato-rice soup was simple and hearty and the green (er, brown?) smoothie struck the perfect balance—healthy, definitely, but still sweet enough to taste good. 
Nice to see healthier snack options at the Edinburgh airport—I bought dried pineapple and a vegan energy bar with my leftover pound coins. Next time: all the meals in Ireland I haven't yet blogged about!
Vegan Britain, part 2
After lunch with Hana, I met Seanan at Kings Cross and we took the train to Brighton for a five o'clock dip in the ocean (brrrrrrrrrr!) 
Then we met up with Sam for coffee followed by dinner and drinks at the Prince George, which has an all-vegetarian pub menu. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Really good food, too. Sam says the standard is very high in Brighton; you won't find half-hearted pub grub anywhere, because a pub has to keep up with its competitors or it can't stay open. 
I'm looking forward to spending more time in Brighton on my next visit to the U.K.—it seems like a really fun and funky place (with, um, lots of pretty dress shops—which, again, were mercifully not open.) 
Let me tell you what an awesome friend Seanan is. While we were planning my visit, he said he had a few surprises and wanted to make a whole day out of them—“surprises" as in, I had absolutely no idea where we were going or what we were doing. Proper secrets!So we were walking in the Mayfair neighborhood, and when Seanan turned into the lobby of a posh hotel I thought he was joking. Turns out he'd made a reservation for high tea, with a vegan version for me! Apparently there is such a thing, though he'd had to ring several places before Flemings said they could accommodate us. Hooray for Flemings! 
Those of you who've had the experience of a proper English tea might be wondering if it measured up. Having had a "real" high tea at a cute country pub in Winchcombe during our Cotswolds trip, I can say that it did. I didn't miss the clotted cream one bit. The sandwiches had sunflower spread, the scones were of "I can't believe it's vegan" quality (you know how I champion vegan bakery, but it is hard to do things like scones well!), and the desserts were scrummy—a chocolate brownie, mocha cake, and a ginger cookie. Oh, and you should have seen the tea menu! It took me ages to make up my mind. (I settled on assam.) 
Next time: two days in Edinburgh!
The Lost Religion of Jesus
Rosslyn Chapel.And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
(Genesis 1:30)
If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, then you have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
—St. Francis of Assisi
Within Christianity there is not a real consciousness about diet. But someday the Church will wake up and realize that an ethical diet is necessary to a moral way of life.
—Brother Ron Pickarski, OFM
While I was at Hawthornden back in January, I went with a few of my fellow writers to the Sunday service at the 15th-century Rosslyn Chapel. We'd come mostly to soak up the medieval atmosphere; it's been a long time since I set foot in a church hoping to emerge again with any sort of insight or answer.The second time I attended this Church of Scotland service, the minister—a jovial middle-aged man—opened his sermon with a joke about the Findus horse meat scandal. I stared at him in disbelief. As he segued into a second joke about Little Bo Peep finding her sheep on the shelf at Tesco, I took a white-knuckled grip on my seat in the pew, quivering with indignation (and if you know me, you know I'm not exaggerating).I didn't hear another word he said. All I could think was, How can I look to this person for spiritual guidance?Until that moment, I might have made a casual assertion now and then that Jesus was a vegetarian. But when I heard the minister make those jokes about the slaughter of innocent animals, I knew it was true. How could the man who preached "do unto others," a man we sometimes refer to as "the prince of peace," actually sit down to dine on animal flesh?Turns out there's a wealth of evidence to support this intuition, and a trove of interesting books to interpret it. I recently finished The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity by Keith Akers, and right now I'm reading Rynn Berry's Food for the Gods: Vegetarianism and the World's Religions. You'll recall that Professor Berry gave us an excellent talk on the history of veganism on our last morning at Main Street Vegan Academy; and before we go any further, I should underline the rich historical precedent for vegetarianism. The Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, whom you remember as the guy who came up with a2 + b2 = c2, was also an ethical vegetarian; his many followers (and all who came after) were known as "Pythagoreans" up until the mid 19th century, when the word "vegetarian" was coined.In Food for the Gods, Berry writes:
Evidence for Jesus's vegetarianism in the canonical gospels is circumstantial, but nonetheless compelling. Ethical vegetarians find it inconceivable that such a potent religious figure and moral teacher could have slit the throat of an animal, or have eaten the cooked body parts of an animal. Apart from the moral impropriety of such a diet, flesh (not excluding the flesh of fish) was an extremely scarce commodity in the ancient world and would have been considered a luxurious food; it would have been out of character for a man who stressed simplicity and frugality in living to be eating such opulent food.
Speaking of frugality and simple living, I'll give you just one reason why I feel so uneasy in the religion I inherited, and why I avoid my hometown parish: the pastor built himself a three-car garage to house his Lexus (and two other cars, perhaps?) I'm certainly not saying the man should be living in a hovel and walking two miles to work, but a fancy car and a three-car garage built with parish funds don't qualify as "simple living" by any stretch of the imagination. People like to think of themselves as "good Christians," but how many of them actually live by the principles Jesus espoused?But I'm getting ahead of myself here. How do we know what Jesus really said—and what he actually ate? We must re-examine everything we think we know about him, teasing out the underlying motives of early church leaders. The Bible, as any rational Christian will admit, was written by human beings, each of whom had their own agenda. Nor does the Bible contain every worthy piece of scripture; many documents written by early followers and contemporaries of Jesus were jettisoned (or perhaps "suppressed" is a more accurate term) by Church "fathers." The discovery of the Nag Hammadi gospels in Egypt in 1945 yielded alternative accounts of Jesus's life and message, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Philip, and the Apocalypse of James. Keith Akers also draws on contemporary sources (like Epiphanius of Salamis), not all of whom were sympathetic toward those Jewish sects who lived by the teachings of Jesus (and if someone who obviously doesn't like or agree with you says nice things about you, we can feel that much more confident that those nice things are true).Akers makes the distinction, first and foremost, between Jewish Christians and gentile Christians. The first group was comprised of several similar sects, many of whom were considered heretical by the Jewish establishment; the Jewish Christians believed that Jesus was the prophet of whom Moses spoke, and that he had come not to establish his own religion, but to correct the false and adulterated parts of their scriptures (directions for animal sacrifice being but one example). Jewish Christian sects like the Ebionites (from the Hebrew ebionim, "the poor") lived in pacifist communities, pooling their resources and eating a vegetarian diet. It is very likely that Jesus lived and preached within just such a community; the apocryphal scriptures indicate that he overturned the money-changers' tables in the temple because he was opposed to the needless slaughter of oxen, sheep, goats, pigeons, and doves—that there was nothing "holy" about it! The priests, who lived on these offerings, were none too pleased of course—and if all this is true, it follows that Jesus would be arrested and crucified on the priests' instigation. (So many things about my religion just didn't make sense to me until I read these books.)As for gentile Christianity, Akers makes a fascinating point: that pacifism was a highly inconvenient principle vis-à-vis Constantine and his army, who converted en masse after the emperor, prompted by a vision, bade his army mark their shields with crosses before a military triumph. It is this faction, of course, which took over the "Christian" message and its dissemination, diluting or overlooking the most basic tenets of nonviolence and simple living. The Jewish Christians remembered and lived by these principles, but they weren't accepted by either orthodox Judaism or gentile Christianity, and as pacifists they suffered tremendously through a series of Jewish revolts against Rome in 66-70, 117, and 132-135 CE. Though contemporary sources tell us they regrouped at Pella after the first revolt around 70 CE, and through geographical description Matthew pinpoints his own location in that vicinity (thus bolstering the case that the Ebionites' version of the gospel was the original), Jewish Christianity was destined to remain on the fringes of this new world religion. Akers writes, "When the larger gentile Christian church drove out Jewish Christianity...it also lost the core of Jesus' teachings." Hugely influential Church fathers like St. Paul, who introduced the concept of "original sin," were instrumental in this adulteration process; contemporary sources tell us that the Jewish Christians were ardently opposed to Paul's methods, believing that he corrupted Jesus's teachings to suit his own ends. Those who came out on top politically were those who established the doctrine—a belief system Jesus himself would not recognize.
While the church rejected the requirement for vegetarianism, it is indisputable that there were very large numbers of vegetarians in early Christianity. In fact, there are hardly any references to any early Christians eating meat. The view that Jesus ate meat creates a paradox: vegetarianism was practiced by the apostles and numerous early followers of Jesus, including Jesus' own brother, but not by Jesus himself! It is as if everyone in the early church understood the message except the messenger. The much more likely explanation is that the original tradition was vegetarian, but that under the pressure of expediency and the popularity of Paul's writings in the second century, vegetarianism was first dropped as a requirement and finally even as a desideratum.
—Keith Akers, The Lost Religion of Jesus
* * *
Regarding Jesus's possible vegetarianism, the first problem that comes to mind is that classic story of the loaves and the fishes. In Food for the Gods, Professor Berry points out that we must revisit the original Greek to find out if there actually were fishes served at that wedding feast:
Now, most translators render opsaria as sardines or little fish, but opsaria which comes from the Greek opson (relish) also meant "relish"; so it's possible to translate it as five loaves and two "relishes," "dainties," or "tidbits."
Professor Berry mentioned in his lecture that "relish" is the primary meaning of the original word used, and "little fish" only the tertiary meaning. Furthermore, bread with some sort of relish was a commonplace meal in first-century Palestine:
In Jesus's time, they dipped their loaf in relish or they tore off pieces of bread from the loaf and dipped it in the opsarion, or relish, which might have consisted of finely chopped olives with spices or ground sesame paste.
In other words, "The Loaves and the Fishes" might rightfully be retranslated as "The Loaves and the Hummus." Of course, Rynn Berry and his colleagues have pointed out other mistranslations; considering man's place among the animals, for instance, "dominion" is very different from "stewardship." It's the difference between a guardian and a slave driver. As the Rev. Andrew Linzey says in his Food for the Gods interview, "The original author [of Genesis] was seeking to describe a relationship—not of egotistical exploitation—but of care for the earth. It's extraordinary that almost 2,000 years of biblical exegesis should so often have overlooked the radical vegetarian message in Genesis I."As I sat through the rest of the sermon that morning, I knew I had a choice to make. I could behave as I always had—i.e., fuming in silence—or I could push past the nervous twisting in my guts to speak my mind in a calm, rational, mature way. I really didn't want to walk to the back of the church when the service was over, and wait in the vestibule doorway while a mother and her young son spoke to the reverend about some ordinary piece of church business—but I knew I had to if I was going to become the person I'd been saying I wanted to grow into. (I'm reminded of something else Rev. Linzey said in his interview: "At particular moments, almost against oneself, one finds the energy to do seemingly impossible things.")So I waited. And once the parishioners had said goodbye, I stepped forward. "Reverend, may I tell you what's on my mind?" He said yes, of course, and I went on, "I was upset by the Little Bo Peep joke you made at the beginning of your sermon. I believe that if we want to see peace in the world we have to start with our own stomachs"—he laughed when I said this, but not unkindly—"and that's why I'm vegan. I'm not going to try to convince you of anything, I just needed to express this to you."The minister replied in a warm and genuinely concerned attitude, apologizing if he had offended me and remarking that he had several colleagues who were vegan. I thanked him for allowing me to "speak my truth" and rejoined my friends in the pew. But I couldn't focus on their conversation; my whole body thrummed with excited energy. I'd been able to turn that knot of frustrated nervous disappointment in my stomach into something constructive, and there is no way I can adequately describe to you just how wonderful it felt.I guess we'll never know for certain that Jesus was a vegetarian, but there is far too much "circumstantial" evidence to overlook the idea. He taught his followers to love God, and love one another—indeed, the entire religion is based upon this simple principle!—and if we are to conduct our lives in this way, it ultimately makes no sense to practice compassion only for our fellow humans.In this blog post I am truly only scratching the surface of this topic; if you are a devout Christian, I highly encourage you to read these books, and think long and critically about what you believe in. I've put together this (non-exhaustive) reading list for myself (drawn from the extensive bibliographies of Berry and Akers), and it includes titles by veg(etari)an theologians:
Is God a Vegetarian?: Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights by Richard A. Young
The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ by Charles Vaclavik
The Birth of Christianity: Reality and Myth by Joel Carmichael
Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church by Hans-Joachim Schoeps [this one I'll have to find at a good library!]
The Master: His Life and Teachings by John Todd FerrierThe Other Gospels: The Non-Canonical Gospel Texts, edited by Ron Cameron
Animal Theology and Christianity and the Rights of Animals by Rev. Andrew Linzey
Dominion: the Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully
For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action by Charles Camosy.
I no longer feel comfortable identifying myself as a Christian for reasons outlined above—and yet, as a vegan, I want to follow Jesus's example in a way I never felt inspired to do when I was a card-carrying Catholic.
Blissit be God
My new mantra: Blissit be God of al his gifts. (Spotted above a doorway in Advocates' Close, if I remember correctly.)I spent so much time blogging about Hawthornden that I neglected to share some of my other favorite moments in Scotland this time around. I managed to get to Glasgow for a meeting of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research (SSPR), holed up at the National Library, reconnected with my friend Kate Mathis (she of the gorgeous vintage sweaters!), and when Seanan came up from London we spent a very happy few days exploring Edinburgh together.
Walking up to Arthur's Seat. (Why is my shadow so enormous?)
The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.
This doll found in a London slum BROKE. MY. HEART. Yes, it is made from a worn-out shoe. Seanan said, "At least she had that to play with." (At the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh.)
Green no more. (I didn't get a good shot of all the litter.)
Spotted in a secondhand bookshop on the West Bow. HA.
We chose the easy path up Arthur's Seat (it's too easy, actually), then took our time coming down into Duddingston village for tea and lunch at the oldest pub in the city.
(To be honest, The Sheep Heid Inn isn't the top-notch gastropub it likes to think it is—my vegan option was lackluster—but it's still a cozy spot to relax after a windswept ramble.)
I don't have proper photos of it, but we also did the Mary King's Close tour, which was not nearly as cheesy as I was expecting. Packed with fascinating historical anecdotes, and I don't mind too much if half of them were made up. Now that's good entertainment.
Started rereading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell on the way home (found it for £2 in a charity shop, yay!), and it definitely holds up to a second read. Can't wait for the miniseries!
An afternoon ramble
As promised, a virtual walk on the Hawthornden demesne. (Gosh, I love that word. Don't get the opportunity to use it too often!)
This doorknocker is so old, it might fall off if you actually tried to use it!
"As we wend our way on the Hawthornden side of the bridge, always ascending, we gain some exquisite glimpses of Hawthornden Castle, perched on the edge of a steep cliff on our left. Advantage is taken of projecting rocks to get the best views possible of the river, flowing a hundred feet below us, and of the steep, well-wooded banks and rocks by which it is hemmed in, both above and below the castle. And there are some most charming spots among the grounds of Hawthornden. We feel that we are on classic ground. No wonder that the Poet Drummond loved it! No wonder that Sir Walter Scott went into ecstasies over it!"
When you come downhill towards the river there's a beautiful wood of birch trees, and the ground is carpeted with moss and these soft spiky green things. (Anyone know what they're called?)
We hope he loves her still.
(The castle is built on a little sandstone cliff, so when you are walking on the path beneath it there are plenty of rock formations to be seen.)
Drummond's Seat, overlooking woods and river. (I wonder if Drummond actually had it carved, or if the name is purely romantic.)
There is a very old tree downed in the path, the trunk cut so that there's still a narrow space to walk through. One day when it snowed I made the handprint on the right, and the next time I walked the loop I found someone had replied with the handprint on the left. (It took me like two weeks to remember to ask at the dinner table. It was Colin.)
One time I was sitting at the window up there (in the "summer library") and Melanie was walking down below, and we saw each other and waved. Another time I was walking and she was at her desk, and we waved. Little things like that gave me such pleasure.
The well-head outside the castle gate.
Back in the boot room (this is the view from the window), taking off coat and muddy footwear, shaking the cold out and looking forward to a nice hot cup of tea.
'This life I relish, and secure the next.'
Yeah, sorry, I fell off the map again. I was re-revising a novel (and now it's ready to go out!!!) More on that soon, hopefully.And now, without further ado: a proper Hawthornden post.
Hawthornden Castle was the home of the poet William Drummond (1585-1649). (You'd assume these lines are his, but they've actually been attributed to a poet called Young.) Drummond once invited Ben Jonson up for a visit, and he walked all the way from London! The poet laureate's visit is well documented. Apparently he wore out his welcome, but was happily oblivious to the fact that Drummond no longer considered him a friend. Yikes.Hawthornden is splendidly situated on a crag overlooking the River North Esk. The oldest part of the castle is a ruined tower that dates from the 15th century (there's now a small library housed in the ground floor); the greater part of the castle dates from the 17th century, when William Drummond's father acquired it. Thanks to Mrs. Heinz, it's been a writers' retreat since the early 1980s. Residencies last four weeks, and there are six writers there at a time. Hamish, the administrator, is effectively the host, making sure everything (from the ink cartridges in the printer to the happy vegan food on my plate) runs smoothly.
I can't possibly overstate what this residency meant to me. I needed the time, I needed the space, I needed the solitude and the glorious communion with nature, and I got all this "in spades" by the grace of Mrs. Heinz and the Hawthornden admissions panel. They gave me the chance to make my own magic.
The week before my residency began I also thanked William Drummond "in person." This portrait is on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.Considering the following item on the application form, I hadn't expected to dine like a queen (and hey, I would have been totally cool with eating only boiled vegetables for dinner, for an opportunity like this!)... 
...so I was delighted to find that the household staff had stocked the fridge with soy mince crumbles, soy cheese and almond milk for my arrival. (I get teary just thinking about it. THEY ARE SO AWESOME.) Ally is a fantastic chef--he cooked amazing vegan versions of every dinner for me: "shepherd's pie," veggie risotto, DIVINE curry, and so on. I always got dessert, too--fresh fruit and lemon sorbet or mango or chocolate soy yogurt. So I ate like a queen after all.I found the castle cozy, not spooky at all, and my fellows were absolutely lovely. I'd said to myself as I was looking ahead to the residency, "everyone there WILL be nice and friendly," and they totally were. I even got to connect with Kirsty (@kirstylogan) ahead of time on Twitter.(Oh, and I was the only American, which was very fun.)
Here was my favorite spot to read and dream--the "summer library" off the drawing room, with a gorgeous view over the ravine. It's cold in there, so I brought in a blanket, hat and scarf and got cozy on the window seat. I loved to come down again around 4:30 and watch the dusk settle over the valley. The trees in that ravine are the most majestic living things I have ever seen (and I have seen sequoias!)
I would get up around 9 and come down for breakfast (porridge with brown sugar and almond or coconut milk, wheat bread with sunflower spread, coffee and orange juice). Tendai and Helena are early (or at least earlier) risers, but I pretty much always got to have breakfast with Melanie, Kirsty, and Colin. I could never manage to get myself up earlier so I could meditate first thing, so I'd come back up to my room and take my twenty minutes of quiet time before I began to work.Oh, and speaking of quiet time--there is absolutely no internet at the castle, so you'd pretty much have to walk to the nearest public library (or the Rosslyn Chapel cafe, which has WiFi) if you wanted to get online. I didn't use the internet for TWO WHOLE WEEKS and it was amazing how much I enjoyed the breather. So much less noise in my head, you know?I reread and I cut and I re-outlined. I wrote HARD and it was so, so satisfying. I didn't really give myself any days off, and yet I always felt totally rested.
Lunch arrived in a Fortnum & Mason basket: some sort of delicious vegetable soup (like pea and mint, lentil, or tomato basil), a peanut butter sandwich on seeded wheat bread, and carrot sticks with hummus. (That's just what I wanted every day--you can order pretty much whatever you want for a sandwich and fruit.) On extra-specially lucky days I got soy cheese cut into sticks! (Mary and Georgina, I love you!)
The 17th-century wellhead just outside the castle gate.I always went for an afternoon walk (saving my peanut butter sandwich to have with tea afterward), though the break time and length depended on how the work was going that day. Most of the time I just did the fifteen-minute loop below the castle because I was anxious to get back to my desk. I went on longer walks in the last two weeks, once I knew I'd be making my goal for the residency (i.e., finishing the draft).In the evenings before dinner, I practiced yoga either with Melanie in the drawing room or on my own in my bedroom. (I'm doing yoga every day now. I feel my arm muscles getting stronger, and I'm more flexible than ever.)We came down for dinner at 7pm, and could always expect a lively conversation along with the meal. (There's a separate dining room for Sundays, with a proper fire in the grate. There used to be open fires in every room, but the fire department nixed that practice.)After dessert Hamish would say, "Shall we go upstairs?" and we'd spend an hour or two in the drawing room chatting, playing a board game, or reading in companionable silence. Then, before bedtime, I might take a nice long soak in the enormous old bathtub on the writers' floor (which, interestingly, was built for servants' quarters in the 19th century).
Two of our Sundays at Hawthornden Kirsty, Melanie, and I (plus Colin the first Sunday) attended Sunday service at Rosslyn Chapel (for the architecture, history, and atmosphere, I assure you), then walked back to the castle (Hamish dropped us off). I have photos from the first time I visited the chapel back in February 2011 that I never got around to blogging, so I'll tell you more in a future post. I snapped these icicles as we were walking home.
Mint in the library conservatory.
Drummond was engaged to a young, beautiful and accomplished lady, daughter of Cunninghame of Barnes. The day was fixed for the wedding. She died on its very eve. Such a blow to a tender and loving heart must have been terrible in the extreme. We need not wonder that the disconsolate and bereaved bridegroom left Hawthornden for some years, and travelled to distant climes and amid other scenes...
I browsed through this book. I know you will find this difficult to believe, but it is not as interesting as it looks.According to Reverend Thompson, the well in the courtyard is more than fifty feet deep ('with about 4 ft. of water when I measured it on 31st March, 1892.') Two views, from above...
...and below. (Taken on our tour of the caves and dungeon.)
(An excerpt from Susanna MacIver's Cookery and Pastry, 1789. Once I was finished with my rewrite I got to read interesting old books as research for my NEW novel.)
In the last days of our residency I joked about locking myself in Colin's humongous wardrobe so I wouldn't have to leave. Kirsty made each of us flash fiction zines as a going-away gift. We passed many contented evenings in this drawing room! (Also, each night of our last week, one of us would read from our work in progress. That was such a treat.)
It feels so dramatic to write a shipwreck with rain staticking & wind screaming down the chimney. Hawthornden, how will I write without you?-- Kirsty Logan (@kirstylogan) January 31, 2013
There are so many things I'm leaving out--weird things, wonderful things, things I'm not able to put words around just yet. It really was a magical period in my life, and I'll always be grateful to everyone at Hawthornden for that gift.
I have even more photos I want to share with you, so there will be another post (a "virtual castle walk") after this one!Also, if you are interested in applying to Hawthornden (snail mail only, annual deadline June 30th), leave me a comment with your email address and I'll get back to you with the details. (You could phone or write, the contact details are online, but they do have an email address.)* * *Previous Hawthornden posts:
Flashwrite #10: Make Your Own Ecstasy
The most accurate (and inspiring) definition of the word "ecstasy"...
ecstasy = ek + stasis = 'standing outside oneself'
...snow and more snow, and a bit of reflection on our four-week residency at beautiful Hawthornden Castle with my new friend Tendai Huchu, author of The Hairdresser of Harare. I read a short excerpt from The Essential Donne (now out of print), edited by Amy Clampitt. Proper entry on my Hawthornden experience coming soon!* * *(All Flashwrite episodes here.)
"First I was born; and now this."
(That's my favorite entry in the Hawthornden leaving book.)
I love Mrs. Heinz's bookplate. (Mrs. Heinz is our benefactress.)
The castle courtyard.
My primary workspace.
Two of the four Sundays Kirsty, Melanie and I went to the Rosslyn Chapel and walked home in the snow.
See that gable to the left of the turret? That was my room.
The old Rosslyn Castle station platform.
Down in the dungeon. Hamish looks tempted to lock me in.More soon (including a new video on Monday!)
Productivity Forecast
Me: My goal for Hawthornden is 100 pages.Mumsy: Sounds do-able.Me: In a month of no internet? Definitely.Mumsy: Then why not make it 200?
GULP.
The free one always tastes the best.Happy New Year! I'm in Edinburgh until Sunday, when I head out to Hawthornden for my four-week residency. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be here, and how excited and grateful I feel to have this opportunity!Contrary to plan, I won't be working on the new novel, although I am still doing research for it at the National Library this week. Instead I'll be revising (and greatly expanding) the novel I "finished" back in August. I hadn't really expected anything to come of it, but it turns out the book is much better than I judged it. So I can't really feel disappointed at not being able to throw myself into the new book when I've gotten so much lovely praise and thorough suggestions on this one!Actually, I've heard it said that you get the most out of a residency when you're already waist-deep in a project, and that makes sense. I might end up having a more productive month revising than I would have scratching out the first few chapters of a brand-new book. So I'm taking it as a sign that the new novel needs more time to marinate.How does one squeeze every last drop of potential out of four weeks of perfect freedom? Here's a contradiction for you: I expect that my productivity level will be inversely proportional to the amount of energy I expend worrying over said productivity. When I spend the earliest minutes of the morning clearing my mind of whatever psychic gunk might be left over from the day before, I've made space for new ideas to take root. Oftentimes "doing nothing" is way more fruitful than a determination to meet unrealistic or irrelevant goals.In other words...no word counts!Things I want to try this time around:1. Writing longhand as much as possible. I've printed out the manuscript, and I want to rearrange it the old-fashioned way, with new scenes on looseleaf paper. (Yup. Definitely no word counting.)2. Surfacing out of sleep much more slowly, and scribbling down even the least coherent fragments of dreams before I stretch or meditate or take a drink of water. The more I recognize this as an intuitive process, the "easier" it seems to flow for me.3. This might sound contradictory given what I wrote above, but: sticking to a schedule. Mornings and early afternoons are for writing and revising, late afternoons for reading. I used to think I worked best late at night, but nowadays I don't think the time of day matters in the slightest. I just like the feeling of putting in a good day's writing before noon. I'm not sure where daily exercise will fit in, but I'll figure that out.No need for Mac Freedom this time--there's no internet access at Hawthornden, period.I'll be back in February. Wish me luck!p.s.--Comments are switched off on this and all other entries on the front page of the blog, simply because I can't keep up with the spam while I'm away. (Believe me, I've tried every plug-in and filter. Obviously Movable Type isn't working for me, so I'll be switching to Wordpress in the near future.)p.p.s.--This lovely Hawthornden recap from Vanessa Gebbie has me even MORE excited!
Scotland 2013
My aforementioned good news is that I've received a monthlong fellowship at Hawthornden, a writers' retreat in a castle outside Edinburgh. I'm leaving just after New Years. This is an amazing opportunity in and of itself (big thanks to Nova and Rachel for telling me about it in the first place, and to Ann and Sally for writing me such splendid recommendations!), but there's an additional layer of awesomeness to this gift, since my new novel is set in Edinburgh. I feel doubly (triply, quadruply...quadruply??) blessed. I want to wring the inspiration, the possibility out of every single moment, waking AND sleeping.
You know I love my research, so naturally I've been reading about the Scottish Enlightenment and the history of Edinburgh in general. (You'll get a glimpse inside my project "binder" when I post a Scrivener how-to as part of my Flashwrite series--that's coming up in January.) I thought I'd post some appreciation photos of an old book I found at the Strand last holiday season, George Scott-Moncrieff's Edinburgh, published in London in 1947. (I'm only "starting" it now, but this novel took up residence in my head at least two years ago.)
Mappy endpapers!
What better reason for writing a book than to honor your lost loved ones?
A map of the city, 1647.
"With love and good wishes for a Merry Christmas and a happy 1949."* * *Previous exploits in and around Edinburgh: Enchanted Scotland, part 4; My Kind of Church; New Lanark; Adventures in Glasgow.
Adventures in Glasgow
One of the mid 19th-century 'Munich windows' at Glasgow Cathedral.I've heard that Edinburgh is the city to visit and Glasgow is the city to live in, and I can see why they say that--one's got the history and the other's got the edgy arts scene, nightclubs and suchlike. Though I've been living in Edinburgh these last five weeks I've been spending quite a bit of time in Glasgow, for a reason I may one day share with you. Until then, some sightseeing.Ready for the creepiest thing EVER?
Okay, maybe not THE creepiest thing, but she sure spooked the heck out of me on a gloomy afternoon. Spotted inside the Houldsworth mausoleum on the Necropolis (you can see the exterior of this mausoleum on the front page--it's the one on the right).A view of the cathedral from the cemetery, and another photo from the Houldsworth tomb:
I told some new friends I had gone to the Necropolis, and they seemed shocked. 'But it was two o'clock in the afternoon!' I said. I've heard that people often sleep in the tombs (and do, y'know, whatever else), but it never occurred to me to worry about going up there by myself during the day. I didn't see any unsavory characters lurking around, anyway--just other tourists, a gardener, and some locals walking their dogs.
On February 26th I went to the Tramway, a really neat post-industrial theatre space, to hear my friend Rhona's choir. This is a very lively and supremely talented ensemble group, the Second Hand Marching Band.And on my last afternoon in the city, I went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. What a treasure trove! If you're ever in Glasgow, don't miss it. The building itself is stunning too.
'Floating heads' high above a hall full of taxidermies, 19th-century portrait busts, and other interesting thingamabobs.
New Lanark
I spent most of Saturday at New Lanark, a late 18th-century mill town (and World Heritage site) situated along the River Clyde in South Lanarkshire. There's a lovely hourlong wooded walk that takes in three waterfalls (harnessed for hydroelectric power in 1927), although the weather was pretty dismal, so my photos of the falls aren't really worth sharing.The exhibition was open by the time I got back from my walk:
Above: the engine house; YARN!; the roof garden; a phrenology model in the restored 1820 period classroom.Robert Owen purchased the business from his father-in-law, David Dale,in 1799, and over the next few decades turned the weaving mill complex (which originally milled cotton picked by American slaves) into a celebrated experiment in utopian socialism. Owen thought even the humblest factory worker deserved a comprehensive education (at least until the age of ten, although continuing ed classes were offered at night), fresh air and exercise, a sick fund in case of illness, hygienic living spaces, and quality meat and produce available at reasonable prices at the village store. My inner cynic piped up as I went through the exhibition--no doubt such reforms resulted in a very obedient workforce; 'Institute for the Formation of Character,' ieeeee!, etc.--but it's true his ideas were well ahead of his time, and that what we take for granted now was pretty revolutionary back then. You learn on the cheesy 'Annie McLeod Experience' ride (narrated by the ghost of a 10-year-old millworker--!) that they worked six days a week, ten (or was it twelve?) hours a day, and only got two holidays a year--but back then that work schedule was generous.
The history lesson was interesting and all, but this was what I really came for. Bwahahahahaha. Proceeds benefit ongoing conservation efforts.
My kind of church
The south chapel murals depict the first part of the parable of the ten virgins (i.e., the wise and foolish virgins).On Sunday, thanks to my new friend Kate ('blessed by Kates', as I like to say), I was able to visit the Mansfield Traquair Centre, a deconsecrated church full of the most wonderful murals I've seen outside of Italy. (This building is actually called 'Edinburgh's Sistine Chapel', although tourists don't generally hear about it; it seems like they have sufficient income through space rental that they don't need to push for tourism.) It's only open to the public one Sunday afternoon per month, so I was very fortunate to be able to go!
The neo-Romanesque chancel arch, featuring the first set of murals (1895-1897). The worship of heaven as given in the Books of Ezekiel and Revelation.Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852-1936) was the foremost artist of the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland. She spent eight years on these murals, doing hardly any preparatory drawings before sketching the figures right onto the walls. This is a particularly stunning achievement given the curved surfaces of the chapel ceiling.
I wasn't surprised to hear that she took a holiday to Italy before returning to start the south chapel murals, because the virgins all have Botticelli coifs!
Two of the four angels symbolizing the ministries of the Catholic Apostolic Church: the Prophet in blue and the Pastor in silver (the other two are the Evangelist in scarlet and the Apostle in gold).
The north aisle features the conclusion of the parable of the ten virgins. The ornamentation on the walls and sloped ceiling are reminiscent of both William Morris and medieval illuminated manuscripts.
The happiest Judgment Day you will ever see.
So if you are coming to Edinburgh and are a huge art history nerd like I am, it's worth planning your visit around the opening days! I believe it's open daily during the theatre festival in August.
Enchanted Scotland, part 4
Danny had parked the van at the turn-off, a ten- or fifteen-minute walk up a hill, to avoid getting stuck in the morning, so we carried our bags through the snow. It was an invigorating way to start the day, that's for sure.
See that church? That's somebody's house. (I was too giddy to feel envious at the time, but I sure do looking back at the photos now!)
Mary Beth walking along ahead of me:
Later that day we went to Loch Ness. As you can see, Danny likes to flash his bum whenever there are enough cameras around:
(That's Adrienne pretending to be appalled. Why oh why didn't I have a snowball handy?)
(I'm not sure where this is exactly, we were just getting out to take pictures.)
We spent our last night at Oban. Here's the view over the town from McCaig's Tower:
Our last morning we got to visit Dunstaffnage Castle before it opened:
Late in the morning it started to snow pretty heavily, and Danny was worried we wouldn't make it back to Edinburgh that night. We made a quick stop at Kilmartin to check out the stones at the parish church, which date from the thirteenth to early eighteenth centuries:
I wish we'd had more time to wander through the graveyard; it doesn't get much more romantic than this:
Next we stopped at St. Conan's Kirk, one of my favorite places on the whole trip for its general wackiness (Danny aptly described it as a church built by people who had no idea what a church is supposed to look like--the rain spouts were shaped like rabbits, all that sort of thing) along with our snowball fight out back:
And that concludes my November trip to Scotland!
The Fairy Glen (Enchanted Scotland, part 3)
From the bower could be heard the pipe and the song and the voice of laughter as the fairies 'sett' and reeled in the mazes of the dance. Sometimes a man hearing the merry music and seeing the wonderful light within would be tempted to go in and join them, but woe to him if he omitted to leave a piece of iron at the door of the bower on entering, for the cunning fairies would close the door and the man would find no egress. There he would dance for years--but to him the years were as one day--while his wife and family mourned him as dead.
--from The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1911)
A 'fairy glen' on the Isle of Skye (that's me waving from on top of the 'fairy castle', photo thanks to Heather. By that time the weather had turned). Below: Dunbeg.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Enchanted Scotland, part 2
Above: photos from The Hermitage.The next day, on the isle of Skye:
Next is the best part: the fairy glen!
Enchanted Scotland, part 1
After Edinburgh I went on a backpackers' tour with Wild in Scotland, which I can't recommend highly enough. Everyone on the tour was nice, we got to stay in a castle with a secret passageway, went for walks in the snow and learned a lot about Scottish history and folklore. Our guide, Danny, is smart and hilarious and a whole lot of fun all around.[Edit, 2013: Sadly, Wild in Scotland is no longer in business.]
The first day was definitely a highlight—we walked part of the Fife coastal path, which involved quite a bit of clambering up and down the rocks. Below: Danny talks Adrienne down a fairly scary rock wall.
After lunch we drove to a church but walked past it, into the woods to an old Pictish gathering-place. Then, of course, the first Christians came along and made a few tweaks:
Below: the ruins of St. Andrew's Cathedral; Doune Castle, where part of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed; Hamish the hairy cooooooo (i.e., Highland cow) at Kilmahog.
Next post: snow, and lots of it (that's where the enchanted part comes in.)
Edinburgh
I loved Edinburgh. I loved the spooky old alleyways and the baked spuds stuffed with vegetarian haggis and the National Gallery (this painting in particular) and St. Giles (where I wandered in just in time for a free choral concert one Sunday evening).
The view from Edinburgh Castle; the green strip on the right is the dogs' cemetery.
The castle from below, about four o'clock in the afternoon.
St. Margaret: an early 20th-century window from the restored early 12th-century chapel.
At the top of Arthur's Seat. This walk was hands-down my favorite thing in Edinburgh--great panoramic views of the city from boggy hills that otherwise feel wonderfully remote.
(So many more great photos from Scotland, but I probably won't get around to posting them until after Christmas.)