Seeing the Ocean in the Water
In 2014 blogger, Tim Urban, wrote a post called "Your Life in Weeks." In it is a graph 52 columns by 90 rows. It is a graphic representation of a person's life should they live until just before their 91st birthday. Oddly, this simple chart has had a profound impact on my life because I have a tendency to live this day much like the last, and the one I expect will come again tomorrow. A lot of the time is wasted on frivolous things and his chart reminds me that I won't get that time back. Once it's gone, it's gone. Seeing a representation of your time and the amount of spaces already checked off as well as the fewer number left to come is powerful. Another powerful tool to help me appreciate my life is to put it into context of history. Being here in Italy where I am engulfed in a medieval city it is easy to remember that I am only a member of the current generation in a very long list of generations who have been here before. History is a continuum and we are only here for a short time. At home in Victoria it is fairly easy to lose sight of that. The oldest building in our city is only 170 years old. I forget about the finite quality of time in modern surroundings. Our perception is skewed because of our myopic vision as Anthony De Mello pointed out in a story from his book, "The Song of the Bird":
“Excuse me, ” said an ocean fish to another fish. “You are older than l so can you tell me where to find this thing they call the ocean?”
”The ocean,” said the older fish, “is the thing you are in now.”
“Oh, this? But this is water. What I’m seeking is the ocean, ” said the disappointed fish as he swam away to search elsewhere.
Last week in Ischia I was reminded to stop focusing on the water long enough to see the ocean.
From a distance the beauty of the Castello Aragonese beguiles and mystically calls you forth. The ponte (bridge) that links Ischia to the tidal island is more than a physical connector, it is also a type of conduit between the past and the present. A bridge is not just a physical structure connecting two places, but also is a metaphorical vehicle which transports you from one state to another. In this case the pathway consists of the ancient town receding step by step into your own near past as the turquoise sea underfoot leads you into the cavern of the island ahead ready to reveal to you many layers of its distant past.
We enter the Castello at its base through a tunnel which leads to a small service elevator. We are grateful for this modern day convenience and for the comfortable but rather slow 200 ft ascent as we are transported out of the depths of an island to a bright and sunny gravel path leading up to the relatively new Chiesa dell'Immacolata which was completed in 1737.
The Church appears to be decommissioned and used for art exhibitions but my sensibilities prohibit the decommission the spiritual aspect of such architecture. It is purpose-built and maintains the qualities that its visionary Mother Abesss Battista Lanfreschi would've intended. The floor plan is a Greek cross which has a square central space and four arms of equal length. The central space looks to be about 40" x 40" with an equal volume in height before a series of clerestory windows from which the dome springs upward for a total of maybe 80 feet height in total. Apparently the Convent of the Poor Clares lived up to its name and were unable to complete the decoration of the church due to a lack of funds. The entire space is whitewashed and gives the most serene atmosphere. Unlike most ancient churches in which the artwork and decoration directs your thoughts, here the space encourages you feel - and what I feel here is tranquil and somehow simultaneously awe-struck and embraced. This is the magic of human scale. I feel like a participant in the space rather than an audience member. I catch myself thinking that if I were rich enough I'd build an exact replica and live out my days in meditation, although I quickly chastise myself for such grasping thoughts. I have a second interior reprimand when I experience a moment of envy for the Poor Clares who worshiped here.
Outside we next encounter the hall and cloister of the Convento di S. Maria della Consolazione. In a state of partial ruin, the arches of the ambulatory are adorned with fuchsia bougainvillaea and masses of green vines. Once more I romanticize about a past life in the convent until I learn that most of the nuns here were the first born daughters of wealthy families sent off to the convent so that the subsequently born sons would inherit. Lacking the option to choose this monastic way of life takes the romance out of it for me. It makes me ponder those young girls lives and what the lack of freedom would've been like. Would they have felt unloved by their families? Would they have found peace in this existence?
Consideration of their lives goes into overdrive as we take in the next space - the cemetery. The Cimitero della Monache Clarisse is not a graveyard as we know it - that is, located outside in a field. This cemetery is dug int the depths of the Castello underneath the Chiesa. It feels claustrophobic to go down the narrow stairwells and into the low-ceilinged, airless chambers. On first glance I thought the rooms housed toilets due to the seat funnels in the stone chairs. However, I learned that there was a much more gruesome purpose. When the sisters died their bodies were propped up on these chairs, left to slowly decompose. The holes in the seats were for the "draining of the humours." And what's even more macabre is that the living nuns would be required to go into the cemetery daily for several hours to pray and contemplate the value of the spirit over the useless, physical aspect of the human body.
In a complete reversal I've come to the conclusion that there was very little about the lives of the nuns that I would envy. How sad their lives seem to me now. I often complain about many aspects to modern life and I realize that history is safely kept in an imaginary state in my mind. The women and girls who lived here could not have imagined a world in which we live today. I wonder how they kept their spirits alive in such conditions, and I stop and give thanks for the multitude of freedoms and privileges I have.
I am brought back into the land of the living at the Chiesa S. Maria Della Grazie. This small church is situated on the edge of the island with a lookout on the sea. In the distance you can see the hazy outline of Capri. It seems a far distance from where we've just been both physically and emotionally. There is a lovely breeze off the sea. Here I can imagine the fishermen who lived on the island in the 15th century - simple lives connected to sea and land, and pausing their work on Sundays to worship in this little gem of a Church. Inside we take some time to sit in quiet mediation and while doing so become aware of the sound of Mozart's requiem - as if the spirits around us refuse to recede.
Finally, after an afternoon of walking the grounds of the Castello, we arrive at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Assumption, now in ruins. It was built upon an earlier destroyed cathedral which was built upon a pre-existing chapel. There are layers upon layers of architecture and reminders that there were countless stories of people who lived in this place. A good novelist would have no end of inspiration here. The first village on the Castello dates back to 474 BC. When Christ was born, this place was as ancient in that time as the Italian renaissance is to us now!
If I've been reminded of anything today it is certainly that people come and go, as I also will. I have been impressed by the architecture for its own sake, but more significantly for what it represents; the lives of the people who created it. All day I have felt the whispers of spirits saying "you too will be with us some day, enjoy your life, live it to the full". And I'm grateful for the reminder.
Music below by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble - ancient and modern music sublimely blended.
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