Temporality is traditionally the linear progression of past, present and future, we are born, we live, we die, but you don't have to be a philosopher to realise that clock time, calendar time, the day-to-day travel of time is not spiritual time, epiphanic time, nostalgic, memory time… I could go on but I am returning to nostalgic, the word is an amalgamation of the Greek νόστος (nóstos), meaning "homecoming", and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain, ache". Now the word ἄλγος (álgos) comes from Homer's Odyssey and suddenly, on the back of those Icarus wings we are etymologically transported back to Odysseus in the 8th Century BC and a representation of one of the first literary heroes to be caught in the nostalgic mode. But we can link to these ideas in many ways, though poetry and thought and music, for example, John Tavener wrote about the Orthodox feast of the Protecting Veil which commemorates the 10th Century apparition of Mary, the Theotokos, in Constantinople. Whether we believe the apparition idea of Mary or even Odysseus' epic journey is of little matter, what matters is the memory that throughout time things have been and will always be, remembered and commemorated in art, and like the West Pier above (now crumbling into the sea) while our stay may be temporal it has nothing to do with our time of being and remembering. Well anyway that's what I was thinking (while writing) this morning, while drinking early grey tea at the kitchen table and listening to this - happy Sunday:
