Tara Brooch, example of the High Art of the 8th Century

When I was quite young, I saw the Anglo-Saxon ship burial horde of Sutton Hoo and marvelled at the exquisite artistic masterpieces that had been turned out by artists during a period that Western civilisation had come to label as the 'Dark Ages'.

There is nothing 'dark' about this period in our history, especially where metal work is concerned. Whether it is weapons or jewelry, the art of the period that spans the so-called Dark Ages is amazing in its intricacy and high quality.  The sword of Sutton Hoo is a masterpiece.   It is only recently that a contemporary knifemaker was able to duplicate the process.

The Tara Brooch was found in 1850 and rapidly recognised as one of the most important works of early Christian Irish Insular art; it is now displayed in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

Although the brooch is named after the Hill of Tara, traditionally seen as the seat of the High Kings of Ireland, the Tara Brooch has no connection to either the Hill of Tara or the High Kings of Ireland.

The brooch was supposedly found in August 1850 on the beach at Bettystown, near Laytown, County Meath, some 50 km (30 mi) north of Dublin. The finder, a peasant woman (or her two sons), claimed to have found it in a box buried in the sand, though many think it was in fact found inland and she claimed it was found at the beach to avoid a legal claim by the landowner.

It was sold to a dealer and then to the Dublin jeweler George Waterhouse who was already producing Celtic Revival jewelry and who renamed it the ‘Tara Brooch’ to make it more attractive to the masses.

Created in about 700 AD, the 7 inches (18 cm) long pseudo-penannular brooch is composed primarily of silver-gilt and is embellished with intricate abstract decoration including interlace on both front and back.

It was made in many pieces, with much of the decoration on small 'trays' or panels which were then fixed into place. When it was found only one panel of decoration was missing, but several more have now disappeared, apparently before 1872, when it entered the collection of the Royal Irish Academy, who later transferred their collection of antiquities to the new National Museum.

It is probably the most spectacular, and one of the best preserved, of several dozen high-status brooches found in Britain or Ireland, but mostly in Ireland. Although similar in style, each has a completely individual design in detail. Precious metals are used, but only semiprecious stones.

The design, the techniques of workmanship, including filigree and inlaying, and the gold, silver, copper, amber and glass are all of high quality, and exemplify the advanced state of goldsmith work in Ireland in the seventh century. The brooch has a pseudo penannular form. Like most brooches of the period, it contains neither Christian nor pagan religious motifs, and was made for a wealthy patron, almost certainly male as a personal expression of status.

Celtic Revival jewellery had become very fashionable over the previous decade and the discovery of the brooch could hardly have been better timed from this point of view.

Though made early in the period, the brooch was immediately recognised as the culminating masterpiece of the Irish development of large and superbly worked ornate brooches, a status it has retained ever since.

Waterhouse used it as the centre of displays of his replicas and imitations of Celtic brooches in his Dublin shop, also exhibiting it at The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and the Paris Exposition Universelle, as well as the Dublin exhibition visited by the Queen in 1853.  Queen Victoria had seen it previously when it was sent specially to Windsor Castle for her inspection.

Waterhouse had invented the brooch’s name, choosing to link it to the site associated with the High Kings of Ireland, ‘fully aware that this would feed the Irish middle class fantasy of being descended from them’. By the time the brooch passed to what is now the National Museum of Ireland in the 1870s, ‘Tara brooch’ had become a generic term for Celtic Revival brooches, some of which were now being made by Indian workshops for export to Europe.

Piling on Work for the Disabled Woman

Sometimes I honestly do not understand how it is that NO ONE can put himself or herself in another person's position, especially where disability is concerned... and by disability, I will widen the definition to include people who are very short.

Let's start with this house... it was built for the couple who bought the land, specifically according to THEIR plans, and the husband was an engineer.  And yet, despite the fact that his wife was shorter than the allegedly legendary short Emperor and could not be even five feet in height, the cupboards soar to the ceiling and he even had an iron rack for wineglasses that no one short of six feet possibly could reach even on tiptoes.

He has been married for almost fifty years I daresay to the same woman who kept hearth and home clean and safe for him and his children and yet he NEVER thought about her needs... I see it everywhere in this house.  He built an enormous 'man cave' (his term) in the basement with Surround Sound, an enormous television and an exercise room for himself with every wall covered with mirrors (and a lock on the inside, so obviously he did not want her to enter!)... but for her, he designed an ironing board with a tiny television that was less than 2 inches in size above the dryer in the laundry room ('so she could watch her 'stories' while she worked' he told us proudly).  I would not have bragged about any of it were I in his shoes.

And now the actually disabled woman who has a 'home aide' who comes to help her bathe and fixes meals.  Bear in mind the fact that I cannot stand without support and I cannot stand even with support for very long... yet, when she prepares even the simplest dish, she uses at least four bowls and pans and leaves them all dirty in the basin afterwards!  I never understood why people needed more than one bowl for mixing in any case, but here it is and the person who is using them is leaving the dirty dishes for me to wash up!  What logic is this?  I cannot possibly clean up after the person who supposedly is doing 'light housekeeping' for me!

Then there are the shoes left everywhere in this room... the physical therapist wants me to wear a specific sort of shoe for my exercises but despite the fact that he constantly reiterates the need for safety and tells me that nothing is more important, when he helps me to remove the shoes, he does not put them away.  My aide as well always leaves one set of slippers or shoes of mine in the middle of the floor and they are not even together but look as though they were flung about by a severe storm and then left to expire separately.  How can this be safe for me?  It is like a minefield of shoes in here and God knows it is a tiny room without any space at the best of times.

I hate to make the same requests again and again but no matter how many times I ask her to use a single bowl or to place my shoes at the wall or in a corner, it never happens.  Almost every one who ever has had servants knows that one actually works harder when they are about unless one has a manager in the form of a butler because they require endless supervision.  It is not much different with home aides... I do understand that they have many patients and they can't be expected to remember all the little preferences of each, but some things are simply common sense.  I can't be the only disabled person who needs the floor to be clear for reasons of safety.   Even with a walker, it is unsafe when one is forced to drive over a couple of unpaired shoes or slippers... not to mention the host of pillows that are supposed to be used under my legs and yet are placed by other people out of reach on the floor higglety pigglety rather than being stacked somewhere neatly.

Soon I shall be losing my home aide soon for two out of the five weekdays for which she was designated.  I really like her and she is a wonderful, warm and caring individual but I am reaching a point where I wonder if a bit of peace and quiet might not be welcome on those two days.  No extra washing up.  No storm of unmatched shoes.  No pillow islands everywhere in my way.

Pain makes me uncommunicative in any case.  I know that socialisation is important, which is one reason why I do write game guides and attempt to communicate regularly with friends and loved ones if at all possible, even if it is only through email or text.  Real life communication is a little more tricky as I feel I have to pretend all is well, to paste a smile on my face, to laugh and joke and make light of life's trials.   I am not unhappy by nature, but almost two decades of chronic severe pain has taken some of the joy from my being.

The Black Hole and the King's Grave

(King's Grave in Sweden)

Depression is a Black Hole that makes me think always of Alice in Wonderland.  Fall down it and you will be in a strange universe where none of the rules are known and where danger can lurk everywhere.  Nonsense becomes reality there.  I fear Depression with a vengeance.  When I was a child, my mother always threatened us with the dire results of embarking on any journey into what she defined as insanity, which had a very wide range of anything from liking the colour purple too much to being depressed or chronically unhappy.  She spoke frequently about a woman named Royal who threw her baby from a window and who represented the ultimate model of insanity.

When I was quite young, I spent a night once in a place that was devoted primarily to the insane.  The very next morning, I was told by the doctor that it had been almost a crime to send me there, that I had no business whatsoever in that place... thankfully, but the fear was embedded in me then for life. More than anything else, I fear those medications that are given to change the workings of the brain, to alter one's psyche chemically.  Too many medical professionals now seek to force so-called anti-depressants down the throats of pain patients.  I adamantly refuse any drug of that nature.  Pain is not equal to Depression.  One can fight pain constantly and still fight for the Light.

Yet, New Year's Eve usually makes me sad and the days afterwards tend to be bad days for me.  I lived far from my family often when I was young and I remember far too many New Year's Eves spent alone or with strangers.  The hype about the holiday makes it worse for people who are alone frankly.  Had it not been for all of that, I could have spent that evening alone happily with a good book or some project... but no.  One had to feel utterly alienated from the world, listening to the sounds of rejoicing everywhere else.

At University, the Halls were nearly empty during the Christmas holidays.  It depended on the schedule that year.  In some cases, one could remain there over the holidays but in other years, the University rented out the Hall to a Conference of some sort and one had to leave.  I always was a bit surprised by the way my friends often would ignore the fact that my own family was thousands of miles away... and basically lfet me alone to fend for myself over Christmas and the New Year.  For everything that my own family does wrong, we always have been extremely hospitable to strangers and people who are living far from their families, especially students.  Many of our own Christmas celebrations and New Year celebrations were shared with foreign students...  no such reciprocity existed for me for the most part.

I am not saying that I spent every Christmas and the New Year alone during my university years and the years thereafter when I did not live near my family but there are far too many memories of lonely holidays really.  Perhaps other people in the same situation do better because they care less.   I do know that the 'magic' of Christmas always meant a great deal to me and still does.

My family is heavily invested in Christmas, Twelfth Night, Easter and even St. Valentine's Day to some extent.  I am grateful for that, even while it can make life more difficult if one is alone.  Now, thankfully, I do not have to spend those holidays alone... although it may be a battle sometimes and if I were not capable of decorating, no one else would do it I suspect.

Today is the Eve of the Epiphany.  As children, Twelfth Night was the one day when we were allowed to have our own party with guests who were our own age.  We celebrated with a cake that had a bean in it, and crowned the person who found the bean either King of the Bean or Queen of the Bean.  That individual then chose his/her consort while blindfolded.

We put out our shoes for the Three Kings.  Later, having discovered that, in some lands, children left carrots for the donkey and camels, we did the same.  In the morning, we would find our shoes filled with coins, chocolates and a small gift.

Christmas Eve is the other 'magical' event when one awakens to find stockings filled with chocolates, clementines and small gifts.  One must leave an offering for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve as well as a letter.

When Freya was little, I took her to the Mall where Santa sat enthroned in a little booth dispensing good cheer to all.  Children were queued up to tell him what they wanted for Christmas while they sat on his lap and had a photo taken of the event.  When we arrived, though, Santa was ducking out of the booth and headed for an ice cream shop.  Freya wanted an ice cream as well and wanted to see Santa... we witnessed him buying a milkshake for himself and he returned Freya's greeting and wished her a happy Christmas.

From that point onward, Freya insisted that we make a milkshake for Santa every Christmas Eve, so the milkshake of eggnog and ice cream was added to the plate of sweets and the carrots for the reindeer.

Yet I have not even mentioned the King's Grave in Sweden.  It is an incredible burial mound from the
Bronze Age, a double burial with fabulous carvings on stone.  It is situated in the province of Skane near Kivik.

I am given an incredible sense of peace whenever I have entered a burial mound.  When I visited Tarquinia over a decade ago, I was quite disabled and had difficulty walking.  The driver of the car suggested I wait at the top of the stairs, but what point in that?  One sees nothing.  When I expressed as much, he helped me down the stairs over and over so that I could visit all the chambers one by one.
The Etruscans, like many ancient people, had a fabulous method of burial which included a bed for the deceased and a dining table and benches for the living AND deceased.  The family would visit their beloved dead regularly (one hopes), bearing good and drink.  You can see the same practice in contemporary Mexico on the Day of the Dead.  It is good to commune with the dead.  The ancient Northern people would perform a ritual on the burial mounds of heroes, kings and dead family members, seeking a visitation, sleeping there through the night or a couple of nights if necessary until a vision or visitation occurred.

Most people in our Western cultures do not look at Death or the Dead in the same fashion.  When graves are visited, flowers are placed and perhaps prayers made but there is no ritual that opens the gates to the other realm.  Obviously, those fabulous burial mounds and mausoleums were reserved for the rich and powerful but at least every one had the concept of communion with the dead and celebrations with the dead in their psyches.

The irony for me is that going underground gives me a sense of wellbeing and peace, whether it is spelunking or walking through a cave system or burial system beneath the earth.  I never have feared that darkness.  The darkness I fear is above ground, in the atmosphere that is supposed to be ruled by the sun.  Below ground, I am happy to embrace the velvet black of a cave or mound.  Light is welcome to explore different areas but I love to sit in the utter blackness of a cave or mound, to feel enveloped in it.  THAT is NOT depression.

They moved my father's grave without even telling us and they continue to deny the fact, even though more than one family member has vivid memories of its original placement.  'As a matter of fact, he was buried in my mother's family's section of a graveyard originally.  Now a plaque that was purchased by some half-siblings evidently marks a spot where he was not originally interred and God only knows if any of his bones are beneath it.  Probably not.  The West has little respect for the Dead.

Nor is there a sense of community between the generations.  Part of the reason for the dining tables and the bed in the mausoleum was to continue a relationship that existed while the deceased remained still alive and a part of his or her family.  Death was the portal to another world BUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DECEASED AND FAMILY REMAINED VIBRANT AND UNINTERRUPTED.

How different our culture where we send our elders to a nursing home or retirement community long before they expire.  We do not visit them there.  Why then would we visit the House of Death once they move onward.

In so many cases, the family is eager for the old person to die.  No time they say, to care for him or her and yet they resent the cost of keeping that individual in a nursing home, retirement home or hospice.

I see the same issue with children when both parents work.  In many cases, neither is willing to give up his or her job for a few years to become a full time parent.   The child is sent almost immediately to a day care facility or creche.   Often the cost of that care is equal to the wages earned by one of the parents but it is more important to keep the job than to give the child the experience of having a father or mother at home with him or her.

I look at the Barrows in England, Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia and the Tomb Houses of the Etruscans and the Maltese and other ancient civilisations and I see that we not only have a very different perception of Death than they had but a very different perception of Life and Family.  I personally do not think we have advanced at all spiritually or morally or in any emotional sense.  It is we who are the true barbarians.

For what could be more elegant and civilised than to give a dinner party for some one beloved who is deceased.  How better to celebrate Life than by ermbracing Death as part of a continuing existence.  How much less would we fear Death if we invited the Dead to dine with us?

Instead, we cower from the vision of our own mortality.  We are alienated at every stage of our lives: as children, as young adults and finally as old people.

One horrible aspect of this situation is that the elders often are forced to declare war against their natural heirs, to fight tooth and nail for their survival when in fact, all should share in whatever bounty the family possesses.

Once upon a time, a Family had an identity that transcended individual members.  One laboured for the sake of the family honour, for the family in posterity.  Now, the elders are aware that they often represent nothing more than a nuisance and a potential drain on the wealth of the younger members and they quite understandably lose any desire to leave anything behind.  It is a bizarre and unnatural situation but it is quickly becoming the rule rather than the exception.