Seasonal Meditations and Rites
I am delighted to be able to post here the second of John of Monmouth’s two important articles on the Regency: ‘The Regency: Seasonal Meditations & Rites’. It was previously published in the February issue of The Cauldron.
Love and Death
Verses to Love and Death: IV
In fact we are at all times
At the point of death.
Though we may say,
‘There are years before us yet’
But think of years passed…
How little time, or none at all
Is taken by a space of memories.
Or perhaps it is that only pain
Takes place in time,
And all the convoluted nonsense
Written about time
Is useless
Before this one gutaching fact,
That we stand this side the racked gate,
Like deprived children sucking at fingers,
And peer at the country beyond:
The banks of heather, and the high
Beeches clumped upon the hills.
© The Estate of Ronald M. White
The Symbol on the Gravestones
Some time ago it was noted in an article that the graves of Ronald White (d. 1998) and George Winter (d. 1983) are marked by gravestones bearing the same unusual symbol. The author of the article engaged in some ill-informed speculation as to the symbol’s meaning. Here it is as it appears on the two gravestones: to the left, on Ronald White’s gravestone and to the right (photographed slightly at an angle) on George Winter’s stone:
The symbol is one that Ron White used as his potter’s mark, in slightly varying forms, and it is incised or painted on many of his ceramic pieces:
The symbol represents the Goddess, with her arms raised in blessing.
This small ceramic statuette of the Goddess, also made by Ron White, gives a visual clue to its development:
The Goddess is at the heart of everything that Ronald White believed in and revered.
