Inside and outside, 22 May 2020, Day 60 of Covid 19 Isolation

Borders are in the news today, opening state borders, but also continuing boundaries between people. And the separation between being at home and being in the public sphere, or even inside and outside is still tense. I visited my office at the university today to get a book and the place was deserted of staff and students, empty corridors, vacant lawns and pathways, the wonderful teeming mass of people from all over the world, vanished. 'Take the bitter as the sweet' St Francis was supposed to have said. Think about the 'hesychasts' ('hesychia' is silence) the mystics of early Christian centuries devoted to the pursuit of quiet, getting beyond the chattering  mind to find some other immensity, a stillness. Some hermits lived in wild mountains in small houses eating forest greens and grinding chestnuts or a little wheat for bread, making baskets or brooms to earn a living. Many societies have lived as simply as this, including Australian foragers. The Cycladic stone bowl in the painting comes from an Early Bronze age tomb, from a small settlement on one of the many islands in the Aegean that made slowly pondered artefacts. There are many ways to live, not just the one I am used to.

Diana Wood Conroy 'Inside and outside', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 22 May 2020