1213

The street number of my apartment. France versus England in medieval times. Apparently, the Fifth Crusade began then. I googled it and read a bit but then became overwhelmed by the information that followed. I always thought that the Catholic church had always had Communion, but apparently there was a massive “council” meeting in 1215AD Rome about the issue of transubstantiation with many abbots, bishops and archbishops. Almost 1000 abbots attended. The total number of attendees was 1383. Imagine it! Where did they stay for the duration of the event? What kind of sleeping arrangements were made for so many men of the cloth? Did they sleep in cloth tents? Or did they have something more substantial, like buildings to protect them from the elements? How did they get food and drink? They could have had massive dining halls. Did they sleep in cots? How did they bathe and how often? Yes. That thought of the masses in medieval Europe is indeed overwhelming. At least they didn’t have plastic back then, so they wouldn’t have had to deal with plastic rubbish. I imagine that they would have had natural food, it was the only thing that was around then. Meats such as boar, rabbit, and deer. Fish. Mediterranean herbs such as oregano, basil, and rosemary. Garlic. Sea salt. Drinks such as red wine, but was it filtered with water as the Ancient Greeks did at their traditional gatherings that lasted several days? Those gatherings initially celebrating the pagan Gods and Goddesses of the Greek pantheon through the telling of stories on the stages of Ancient Greek theatre. I sit and wonder about this in my modern apartment. The Wi-Fi waves doing whatever they do to my brain and body. I pause and hear the songs of birds outside my open window. But I then imagine other windows, the windows of old that did not have bars or screens against the insects and creatures. Like moths. Moths are strange creatures; they are drawn to light at night and dust the air with their special substances. Or so I imagine. What were moths like back then? Did they flutter and bump around the open candles, as they do around light bulbs now? Their wings would be singed, and they may drop dead from a single attempt to find the light. Why does the light matter to moths? I don’t want to find a scientific reason for it online. I want to know if moths have a spiritual purpose. Like the search for enlightenment by Buddhists and Hindus. Yogis too, search for a kind of enlightenment which initially begins from the breath and asanas of yoga, but then it becomes a deeper journey. The alignment of the body aligning the soul for the purpose of finding a higher self and state of being. The moon is respected by yogis who do not practice Ashtanga Vinyasa Surya Namaskar during the full moon nor the new moon. Not everyone in their synthetic gym clothes knows this. Nor even the simple Indian dairy farmers, who have forgotten Sanskrit chants in pursuit of having a few cows and polluted land. Their stone floors in their humble abodes riddled with flies when the food is left on the floor after eating. No fly screens there. Just wooden windows that can be opened or closed. Miniature goats wandering inside the home and bleating. Something like the medieval era, but the plastic litter on their fields betrays it to be a modern circumstance. They have lost something. It seems unconscionable that the people can live this way everyday, as if they can’t clean up rubbish. There is no strong belief in the deities to do something, as far as I could tell when I was there. Just as an observer. Their bodies ignored except for modern things such as hair dye. Although it could have been henna. Glowing reddish orange in the sun against their brown skin.

The way of life could be improved by returning to the old ways. Even when there are Eurocentric medieval festivals in Australia in the winter every year, there are still plastics and the intrusions of modern invention. But all only recently in the scheme of things. I was born on a plastic planet. Plastic had secured its grip on the populations. Pollution of the water necessitating plastic bottles of water for the average person, instead of some fancy reusable bottle and filtered water. Those fancy bottles make a sound when dropped on the floor of the Shala. By accident of course. As they float over after a yoga session to the free matcha or whatever herbal tea they find with an organic label, even if the label is scrawled in handwriting. What seems exclusive in a modern lifestyle is probably better for the earth. But then there are all of the flights that the modern person can take. Where are the ships? That is how my ancestors got around to other countries from England and other parts of Europe. Time is restricted by lengthy land travel. Peace is interrupted by the roaring discord of traffic. Life cheapened by necessity and circumstance. Choice though. A lot of choice can be had. And yet some live in similar ways to back then. When it didn’t seem likely that a woman could chose her life, have a career, have a backbone, have muscles. Instead some women still crouch in fear, not believing the freedom that exists now. Women wiped out from history by the patriarchy then? No now. Fooling themselves that they are living a good life if they are prostitutes with high earnings, when they still have that look of the poor women in homeless shelters. That frozen look, the shoulders raised, the heart chakra not attended to by the owner of the body, which she struggles to believe is herself. It’s so great that everyone else can also suffer her misery, instead of her. But she is going around without that awareness, because she has the bills paid. She has the car, the house, the clothes. The empty gaze full of false eyelash flutters. And where did the nuns go? Where were they in 1213?