Composing Retreat in The Cosy Nook at Aldeburgh: Day 3
She has High Fever
She is Delirious with Weeping
Her Tears mingle with Drops of Sweat
The Salty Darkness is Upon Her.
Libretto: Revelations of Divine Love: Self 2022
Today I have been working on composing the section of Revelations of Divine Love that refers to the Fourteenth century anchorite, Julian of Norwich 's fever. She experiences delirium, the dark night of the soul, alchemical burning down to white ash, paranoia and rebirth. This relates to issues generated by the pandemic. I find it tough personal work.
Up till Christmas I could not bear to watch any documentaries about Covid patients. I was too frightened that I might get it. Perhaps I am uncommonly aware of the dire consequences of being stuck down by a maverick virus. Bornholm’s, which I had when I was 14 rampantly attacks the diaphragm area with excruciating shooting pain. It was accompanied by 10 days of extremely high fever.
Then I experienced a debilitating version of Glandular fever at 19 which rendered me unable to even push down one note on the piano. I lost three years of my study at The Royal College of Music. More recently in middle age I developed Shingles four years ago. Its effects were quickly reversed by the anti-virals that were developed to treat AIDs. Once you have had chicken pox, the virus lives eternally in your body and can emerge under stress. In my case I suffered the emotional consequence of being bullied. Finally, the feared Covid variant Omircron visited me at Christmas. My dreams during the first night of a relitively mild fever consisted of interior images of musically tight figures of cells lining up in my body in an orderly way. On a subliminal level these repeating images mimicked the efficacy of my two jabs and boosters. I was experiencing at a cellular point the arrested effects of the virus so that within a few days I was recovering well. It was however Bornholm’s which I best remember for its extremely high delirious fever. I particularly appreciated the loving care of our family doctor, Dr Horder who sent my urine to the hospital of Tropical diseases for diagnoses and the kind gesture of my mother taking me to a guest house in Broadstairs to recuperate.
After getting Covid, I braced myself to watch documentaries which showed patients in extremis, fighting for their lives. It was much worse than I had feared. The suffering, the sudden decline to death even for vigorously young people, the moment of incubation from which there might be no return and the moment of accepting that death was inevitable. This set me thinking about facing up to the issues around delirious fever and unplanned death as a part of the work. Could there be any hope in such a situation? With this is mind I find a resonance with the hallucinatory visions of Julian of Norwich. She describes a very personal encounter with the numinous during the few days when her fever was so high that she was given the last rites.
Experiences of delirious fever have resonances with acute hospitalised patients in the current pandemic. In Revelations of Love, Julian confronts her own mortality. She talks in great detail about wanting to have a near death experience in order to bring her closer to an understanding of what divinity is.
These difficult experiences hasten an un-expected and often unwanted Dark Night of the Soul. It is a tough spiritual pill for anyone to swallow. A long life, well lived gives a person a measured chance to make their peace with the end. However, in a Netflix documentary I witnessed a young man who had been ventilated and was about to die. The medics decision was taken to wake him, to tell him the situation and allow his parents to say goodbye to him. What an impossibly heart-breaking moment for everyone. Is there any way in which this suffering could lead to a psychic healing and a dawning of insight, illumination and wisdom? Leaving aside religious answers to this question Julian comes up with a positivity that has the potential to comfort everyone whatever their beliefs. The absolute highest conclusion of her visioning is that no matter what happens, all will be well.
Link to a two minute preparatory vocal improvisation made in a chapel in Cyprus by Opera Alchemist 2021 on Youtube
Reference: Convergence; Courage in a Crisis Netflix 2021
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