July 2022 - Thinkers of Long Ago, Oxford

Many have thought in this Thoughtful Spot.  Great minds have pondered wondrous things beneath this old London plane tree (Platanus hispanica).  Somehow I think their thoughts have lingered, and have changed this place.  Is that possible, I wonder - can the thoughts, conversations, ideas seep into the fiber of a place and leave some vestige of their power when the thinkers have long since gone?  I doubt it, yet my imagination likes it so. And if ever there were a place to make one believe such a thing, it is this place. 

I wonder anyone does anything at Oxford but dream and remember.

 - William Butler Yeats

 ...that peculiar air of Oxford -
the air of liberty to care for the things of the mind...

- Henry James

The sky is grey with patches of brilliant white, the wind is gusty and hale, as though glad to be at work in such a beautiful place. Beside my little bench is a weather-worn limestone pillar, and dancing over it is a wisteria tree (Wisteria sinensis).  It's the sort of wisteria that only exists in very old places, with a trunk that rivals a young oak, and branches that spread and cling to four storeys worth of stone.  It is in the midst of a summer bloom, a gentler display than the spring abundance of purple, these drooping blossoms hide among long tendrils of leaves. Those tendrils look as though they intend to ensnare passersby, or at the very least peer into windows uninvited. 

All that is gold does not glitter/Not all who wander are lost...

- J.R.R. Tolkien

A magpie scampers across the grass in front of me, and two ravens strut by.  Could it be they enjoy smugly walking across that grass that students' steps may not touch?  Magpies are beautiful creatures, blue-black and purest white, they seem to sparkle in the sunlight.  And the sunlight is brilliant now, for the wind has driven the grey sky away.  The banks of the water are alive with goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and blue woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata), and cattails (Typha latifolia) bob placidly along the path.  The bells have rung, all out of time and characterful.  Jagged, cross-tipped spires reach for heaven, towering cross-tipped spruces reach beside them.  Ancient ivies and climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala) hide man's handiwork with God's, granting these stones a harmony with creation, and a sense of belonging in these woods and fields. It is a strange, nostalgic, contemplative place. Will my thoughts, too, linger here, waiting to be reclaimed?

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing... to find the place where all the beauty came from...

- C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College, Oxford