We saw Ballet Russes a few weeks ago; two of seven people in the audience. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a film so utterly devoid of appalling content was so under-attended. My sister tells me, however, that it was slated to run for two weeks in New York back in November and that it’s still going strong. Maybe there’s less appreciation for classical ballet down here, though I’d hate to think it! 

The film opened modestly, quietly: a clip of ancient footage of a twirling 1930’s era dancer in a white tutu on a dimly lit stage. I felt my eyes burning and dashed away a quick tear. And then there was the great Dame Alicia Markova, throwing back her impeccably-groomed head with a reminiscent smile saying how grand it was, that great adventure of the Ballet Russes.

It all began with a little band of Russian refugees in Paris in the 1920’s and the daring of an intrepid ballet master—none other than George Balanchine—to make a world-famous company out of mere girls. Not one of the celebrated ‘Baby Ballerinas’, Irina Baronova, Tatiana Riabouchinska, and Tamara Tchinerova were more than 13 when they were given staring roles. But it worked, and it took the world by storm, charming America half out of its senses. Sets by Matisse, costumes by Dali, and a choreographer bold enough to set ballets to the symphonies of Tchaikovsky and Brahms—an unheard of liberty! The result—in the words of Maria Tallchief, one of the greatest American ballerinas of all time and future principal with the company, “It was the most glamorous thing I had ever seen in my entire life.”

By the end of the movie I was glad there were so few in the theatre because I was sobbing. The full impact of the commitment level of these bygone dancers descended upon me all at once, I suppose. I was deeply moved by the harsh realities of the privations they endured, even at the height of their fame, simply to do what they loved and to do it like the world had never seen. I wondered how many famous artists today would put up with exhausting sea voyages with immediate performances at their end, little food at times—and not by choice, learning three full ballets in a matter of days, and all for, as Frederic Franklin so aptly put it, ‘pennies’. There may have been huge squabbles over money between directors and backers and choreographers, but from all appearances, the dancers were just there to dance because it was their passion and because they were good at it.

My sister and I have enjoyed discussing the implications of such an example, and its message of excellence to all artists in all of their various callings. If each of God’s children would give their heart, soul, mind and strength in like manner to loving Him through their individual talents and creative abilities, think of the glory that would rise continually to Him through the many and varied forms of artisic expression! More thoughts coming, specifically as this applies to dance…

An ordinary morning last week turned into a post for the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship…

‘There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.’   Ralph Waldo Emerson

I grew up in a busy, lively household. There was always someone coming and going, some project underway or some party planning afoot. But no matter how full the days were, the wheels of industry always ground to a halt at the sacred chiming of four o’ clock. I remember being up to my ears in a sewing venture or a literature assignment behind the closed door of my bedroom and hearing that insistent blaring whistle of the teakettle in the kitchen. It broke upon the most intent of pursuits without apology and summoned my sister and me to the living room post haste.

Mama would have the tea tray ready and would be laying out ginger cookies or lemon crisps on a Spode plate. More often than not she’d use her grandmother’s silver tea pot, though all of the loved china ones–especially the powder blue Hall–would come into service in their turn. Winter and summer we’d sit in the living room sipping Darjeeling or Earl Grey from Mama’s Blue Italian cups and discussing the events of the day. If Daddy came home in time Mama would fetch him a cup and he’d enliven our feminine chatter with a humorous story du jour from the courthouse.

Such happy memories those are to me! I still manage to wander towards Mama’s house when I’m in town on errands knowing that the kettle will be on the boil before I’ve gotten in the driveway good. What tangles we’ve sorted out, what godly counsel I’ve received over all these hundreds upon hundreds of steaming cups!

When I was newly married I mistook my late afternoon plunges for caffeine deficiency, and, amid the half-dozen things I was trying to wrap up before my husband came home from work, I’d brew a quick mug. Dashing all over the house with the label hanging over the edge of the cup, I’d partake of it like a stimulant, a last little surge of energy to squeeze one more ‘check’ onto my all-important ‘to-do’ list. It didn’t take me long to realize that this so-called tea time–which my mother would lament as ‘nearly-tea’, had she witnessed my cheap imitation–wasn’t having quite the same effect as the quiet pauses I was accustomed to. In fact, I was more harried than not by the time my husband came in the door, wound up as much by my frantic sprint as by the injection of the aforementioned tonic.

It finally dawned on me that it was the pause itself that refeshed; the calming ritual of a few moments’ preparation, the friendly whistle of the boiling kettle, the cherished cup and the small silver tray, the ‘little bite’ of something tasty–these were all part and parcel of the allure of tea. I now look forward to my afternoon tea as a reward for a busy day or a solace for a hard one. I make much of it as a gift to myself. And on the weekends, or when Philip is home in time to join me we have such merry little parties! I have my own favorite pot, and a stash of the loveliest teas, white, green, red and black, from my favorite tea shop. (Here’s a plug for all of you local readers!) Seasonal fruit makes for a lovely addition, or a couple of dates and a dish of almonds. (And as a nod to some very happy trips to the Blessed Plot, I always have a tidy supply of digestive biscuits or custard creams on hand for those days when sugar is a necessity! )

I came across this precious poem in a search for Alice Van Leer Carrick the other day and I just had to share it. How well I remember what is was like to be quite small and to lie in bed at night imagining all the wonders just beyond my window…   

Why does the wind lie down at night
When all the sky is red,
Why does the moon begin to shine
When I am put to bed,
And all the little stars come out
And twinkle overhead?

I see the sun shine all the day,
I gather daisies in my play,
But oh, I truly wish that I
Could see the stars bloom in the sky!
I’d love to see the moon shine down,
And silver all the roofs in town,
But always off to sleep I go
Just as the sun is getting low.

Alice Van Leer Carrick 

“God spoke to me this morning.”

I looked up at Philip with a little grin.  I always save my best thoughts for those mellow moments at the end of the meal, when Caspian, having abandoned all hope of receiving anything from the table, has laid his head down on Philip’s foot with a sigh and the dishes in the sink have yet to be thought of.

“He did?”  Philip’s face was all animated interest in the soft glow of candlelight and he laid down his fork.  “In the Bible?”

“No—it was in a poem.”  I paused and lifted my eyebrows significantly.

“Is that so?”  He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms with a satisfied smile.  “And do I get to hear it?”

That was all I was waiting for, and he knew it.  I dashed into the kitchen where my journal sat waiting on the counter and dashed back again, as if afraid that the enchanted moment of communion would pass if the twilight deepened any more outside or the candles on the table burned a bit lower.  I read it out loud to him there in the waning, flickering light and could feel the joy throbbing in my voice, unabated since that morning’s first perusal of Yeats’ The Two Trees. 

When I was done Philip silently reached for my journal which I had laid on the table between us and read it slowly to himself.  When he finally looked up at me his face bore a reflection of my own joy, and a dawning awareness of what I had seen buried like a horde of fairie gold within the exquisite lines.

 
THE TWO TREES

by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the wingèd sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

It has been said that for every look at self we must take ten looks at Christ. I find that truth expressed with such magnificent beauty in this poem. For while the accepted modern interpretation–and for all I know, the original intent–of these lines may uphold an inward search for goodness apart from Christ, as a Christian I take great delight in the freedom I have to search out the gleaming flashes of truth that glitter and sparkle with such inexorable joy in the world around me.  As C.S. Lewis recounted in Surprised by Joy, longings that disclose eternal realities may be mediated to us by ‘the water-colour world of Morris, the leafy recesses of Malory, the twilight of Yeats…’  That is just the wonder of poetry, or of anything beautiful, for that matter.  They bear the opportunity of communicating spiritual truth, these remnants of a lost Eden, and give us courage to hope in a Redemptive Plan that is steadily, patiently, unrelentingly working to restore all things to their original purpose. 

For what does the holy tree represent to me but Holy Desire, indeed, the Life from which all living springs?  As a believer I have the blessed opportunity to gaze into my own heart and see Jesus Christ.  That unspeakable reality jars me time and again from morbid introspection and self-centered cynicism. It reminds me that while ‘those who fain would serve Him best are conscious most of wrong within’, the consciousness of our very weaknesses is what ultimately propells us towards Him with a force that all the ‘natural virtues’ in the world together could never muster. And it silences those ‘ravens of unresting thought’, those ceaseless doubts and questions and inward deliberations, as if by some potent charm. When the home of our thoughts shifts from ‘who am I?’ to ‘Who is He?’ I believe we begin to fathom the miracle of ‘Christ in us, the hope of glory’.

The truth is that ‘anyone who is in Christ is a new creation: the old has gone; the new has come’. Throughout the Bible, God’s people are likened to thriving trees and fruitful gardens. He calls us ‘trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord’; He promises that if we abide in Him we’ll bear fruit that remains. I just love that image of His life in me being a indefatiguable green growing thing that even my obtuseness, my failures and sins, cannot destroy.

Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusts in Thee…

I still miss my dear Victoria magazine.  I guess I think about it especially this time of year because the Valentine’s issue was always so delectable.  And perhaps because the first one I ever picked up in the grocery store was February 1989.  I could scarcely believe my eyes as I started flipping through, and closed it with an instinctive gesture.  This was no ordinary periodical to peruse aimlessly in a check-out line.  This was a literal infusion of beauty that made something glow deep down inside of me.  I carried it home with a secret delight, and sprawled across my bed in my pink and blue room I fell under the spell of a magazine that impacted me as no other publication ever has–or ever will. 

It sounds trite to say it, but Victoria was truly a friend to me throughout my teenage years, a companion that offered me a lovely alternative to the ungainly and downright ugly trends I saw all around. Into my twenties I started picking up decorating ideas for my someday coming ‘house o’ dreams’.  And when I was planning my wedding, I knew exactly which issues to take to the florist and to spread before the cateress.  At last I would have my own version of the flower coronet from June 1990 and the afternoon tea reception all silver and lace and roses that was a composite of many nuptiuals covered in those grace-laden pages.

I found the inspiration for my dear kitchen in January 2000.  We had been talking about tackling the project for months, but the moment my eyes lighted on those white cabinets with inset doors and glass panes I knew where to start.  "This is it," I told Philip.  And he believed me enough to start ripping up the floor and pulling off the cabinet facings! 

When the old editor stepped down and a new one emerged I began to feel nervous.  My friends and I would discuss it with furrowed brows–"Have you seen the new Victoria?"  "Yes, it looks like Good Housekeeping or Elle Decor."  We were worried.  The cover lost its sloping script.  The by-line tellingly went from A Return to Loveliness to Celebrating the Achievements of Women.  The only achievements that I was interested in celebrating–at least in the pages of that old-fashioned publication–were the time-honored ones of true beauty, home-keeping, literature, gardening, fine arts.  I wanted to read about the tender, nostalgic things that first drew me in the first place, that spoke to my feminine heart and told me I was not alone in my passions.  

I cancelled my subcription after an almost tearful deliberation.  I just couldn’t watch the demise.  It was like seeing an old and dear friend slowly distance themselves.  But then I thought better of it.  I would rather go down fighting, for surely Victoria was worth fighting for.  So I wrote a letter.  (I can hear Jo March–"A letter?  That’ll show them…")

For those who are interested you will find find it below:

Dear Ms. —-,

I have never been very good about writing letters of praise or complaint. To be honest, I have composed far more in my head than have ever been set down on paper. But this situation, owing to its nearness to my heart, compells me to voice my opinions as vehemently as possible.

I have been a ‘Victoria’ subscriber since almost the very beginning. (April 1989) From the first moment that I opened your beautiful magazine I was transported to a sweet, romantic time that I have always felt akin to. Your writers have possessed the artful ability to captivate and charm, to make one feel as if the world really was a place where loveliness thrived and gentle thoughts and manners held an honored place. And your photographs are works of art! It has always been calming to me merely to flip through the pages and lose myself in the sheer prettiness of them–the verdant English landscapes and tumbling gardens, dainty dressing tables and gowns fit for princesses.

I buy your decorating books and your cookbooks (and I have never known a ‘Victoria’ recipe to fail!). As teenagers, my friends and I would attempt to re-create scenes from your magazine, coming up with outfits and events inspired right out of your pages. I was even published in your ‘Reader-to-Reader’ newsletter, an honor which I hold very dear. I have saved each and every issue in pristine condition, pulling out old ones seasonally to glance over and gain fresh ideas from.

I share all of this to give weight to my complaint. As you can see, I have been a faithful ‘Victoria’ reader for twelve years, and have awaited its monthly arrival with eagerness. What a disappointment, then, to witness the change that has apparently swept over it in recent months. 

What has become of my beautiful magazine, with its elegant fonts and sweeping title and its timeless, edifying articles? I don’t want to read about facial peels in ‘Victoria’; I want to read about rosewater and glycerin, and gardenias in the hair, and all of the other pretty things that set it apart from every other magazine. I don’t know this new Victoria; it’s a stranger to me.

I understand that nothing can remain changeless with stagnation. That variety and progress are necessary to keep your readers becoming bored. But I felt that you had always done a good job at that without compromising that intangible charm that makes ‘Victoria’ so special. I hate to say this, but I find much in the last few issues to be trite and unappealingly up-to-date, with glaring block letters stamped across the front and pictures all layered on top of each other. I flipped through the entire January issue without seeing one thing that made me want to stop and savor.

I dislike coming across so critically. This is just to important to me to let it slip by. I cannot bear to see my favorite magazine reduced to something I don’t want to spend money on anymore. Please consider these thoughts and feelings from a loyal subscriber. They represent those of many others I have talked with.

Have the last five issues been merely an experiment? Have the vision and purpose of ‘Victoria’ changed altogether? Can I expect to see a ‘return to loveliness’ in the pages of my magazine?

In just a few weeks I had a very kind, handwritten note from the editor herself.  She explained away the changes as an attempt to attract advertisers, and cordially invited me to view Victoria as a ‘old friend in new clothes’. And she promised that I would never see another article on facial peeling in my magazine (emphasis hers). 

She was right–I didn’t see that again, or much of anything else.  For soon after that Victoria died. My friends and I started receiving Self and Cooking Light to fill out the remainder of our subscriptions. And my dear friend was no more.

Please don’t think me overly-sentimental. (Okay maybe I am, but that’s beside the point…) There’s just never been anything like it, and I have reason to think there never will. I am not a person that gets excited over magazines–I hate to admit it, but my Living will lie untouched for weeks after its arrival. (Actually, I’ve cancelled that one, too, now…) But I have all of my old Victorias, carefully sorted and filed and ready for easy access whenever I need them. And in this frantic modern world, that’s more often than not.

Who will join me in lifting a tea cup to the lost, lamented Victoria?

Here’s a little post I wrote for YLCF:

Hearts and Flowers 

Here is a song I urge you to purchase as an mp3. (It’s only .99! And I don’t think it’s available on an album.) It’s one that Philip and I just love. Whenever it comes on, we both stop whatever we happen to be doing and just sit down and listen to it.

If you like it, you can purchase it here.  Select ‘In Tall Buildings’.

We heard Gillian Welch perfom this song live, and the audience was visibly moved–us included!  As Gillian says in her introduction, it’s one that will make people want to quit their jobs and move to the country.  So very touching, and a sad commentary on our wealth-driven society. If you’ve never heard Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, allow me to introduce you to the finest bluegrass pair living!! Their soulful harmonies are some of the most hauting music I’ve ever heard. (And the best CD–in my opinion–is Revival.  Maybe it’s just because we listened to that one all through our engagement!

Yesterday afternoon found me poking about in the attic in search of old family ephemera for an article I was writing.  The day was wild and wet, and the wind shrieked deliciously about the eaves as I crouched under the one dim lamp, a pile of yellowed papers and photographs on my lap.  As a little girl I used to dream of an attic such as this for the Nancy Drew mysteries I was always acting out with my sister.  I love my shadowy garrett all the more now because of it, I imagine.  I wish that it was populated with hump-backed trunks filled with vintage treasures and make-shift costumes and adorned with imaginative stage draperies like the March girls’, but perhaps that will come with time.  For now, there’s plenty of scope for the imagination in the mysteriously shrouded pictures and chairs and the boxes upon boxes of geneaolgy paraphernalia.

I love my history, and it’s so real to me when I can read over one of my great-grandmother’s college papers or finger a scrap from her wedding dress.  I never tire of poring over old pictures, imagining the hopes and dreams behind the solemn faces.  And I love it when I make a connection in my own mind between the stories my grandmother told me as a child and the scrawling script on the back of one of  these faded prints.  Yesterday I came across a photo of Ida Ward and her young daugher, Frances.  I gazed at it tenderly for a while, noting the protective arm of the mother and the unclouded smile of the child, remembering the story that Ida had died soon after that picture was made and that Frances had gone to live with my great-grandparents (Ida’s brother and sister-in-law) who always had room in their home and their hearts for another child.  Interestingly enough, I found a book in an old bookstore years ago that bore the inscription Frances Ward, S—- Georgia.  There was no doubt that it was the same Frances; the little town was much to small to have more than one.  I bought it on the spot.

This beautiful lady above was so arresting that I pulled her out and scanned her.  Her name was Myrtle, and she was one of my great-grandmother’s best friends at Young Harris College, class of 1905.  Isn’t she lovely?  Why, oh why can’t we dress and fix out hair like that now?  Most all of the romance has gone out of feminine apparel–but I digress… (And yes, there are exceptions, of course …)

On a humorous note, I found a letter tucked in among some papers of those same college days that made me gasp and then smile.  It was addressed to: Those young ladies who are in the habit of assembling over our unfortunate heads on Sundays and other days for the purpose of enjoying the sound of their own voices and feet, particularly of the latter.

What followed was a missive that would put Lady Catherine de Bourgh to shame.  A scathing remonstrance upon, presumably, my great-grandmother and her ‘giddy’ friends for the carelessness and cruelties of Youth–though upon close inspection the only real accusation I could find was that of their youth itself.  Knowing all that I do of my great-grandmother, her serious passion for study, her humor, her kindness, I can scarcely comprehend anyone writing her a letter like this!  It sounds like something out of the Anne books–Diana’s offended Aunt Josephine or one of the surly Pringle clan.  My very vivid imagination tells me that these charming young ladies won her over in the end and wrought a great victory for the side of Friendship.

I love everything that’s old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

Oliver Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer

Here is an exquisite little poem for a chilly night…

The hearth we sit around is prayer,
At desk and choir-stall: there
The warmth of love bounds forth
In stationary fire;
Within the house of faith the north
And night of self-retire
Shut out the door, and hot desire
Lights up the air,
Runs through the hair,
As morning sunrise brightly tints the spire.

copyright Dom Julian Stead, There Shines Forth Christ