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The Secret Garden...continued
The Secret Garden... continued
Welcome to the second acre of the secret garden,
 created with love by the Order of St Derek of Jarman.
All quotes here come from the beautiful 'Modern Nature: The Journals of Derek Jarman' and are copyright to the Estate of Derek Jarman unless otherwise stated.  
This page, like all gardens, is still a work in progress but we hope it will be a sanctuary of reflection and serenity.
Sister Morticia, 08/01/03
"The bluebell, Hyacinthus nonscriptus, is the hyacinth of the ancients, the flower of grief and mourning.  

Hyacinth, son of the king of Sparta, whose sparkling blue eyes and jet black hair enflamed Phoebus Apollo, whipped Zephyrus into a frenzy of desire; but the boy loved the sun god best, causing the wild west wind to seek a terrible revenge.  

One day as Hyacinth and Apollo were playing quoits Zephyrus caught a quoit in a whirlwind and smashed the boy's beautiful face, killing him. Grief stricken, Apollo raised the purple flower from the drops of blood on which he traced the letters ai ai, so his anguish would echo through the spring."
"Whenever you walk in a sunny bluebell wood, remember it is the heart of a passionate love.

It is dangerous to kiss there, as the wind sighing in the branches will want to blow you and the boy apart.  

Your love may wilt and die as quickly as the flowers you pick, your hands will be stained with the blood.

So leave the wood in peace, empty-handed.  For the blue-eyed flower with its heavy fragrance only belongs to the sun."
A hallucinatory dusk, washed with colours to drive Monet to suicide.  At sunset the brightest sickle moon appeared in a gentle blue sky; minute by minute gathering in intensity it stayed until just before midnight.
Night clear as a bell - the blue passed through violet with strands of rose and old gold to become a deep indigo.  So etched were the moon and stars they seemed to have been cut out by a child to decorate a crib.
The night sky here is a riot that outshines the brightest lights of Piccadilly; the stars have the intesity of jewels. So flat is the Ness that those stars that lie at the horizon touch your very feet and the moon tips the waves with silver.
The nuclear power station is a great ocean liner moored in the firmament, ablaze with light: white, yellow, ruby.  Whilst around the bay the lights stretch from Folkeston to Dover.  High above, jet liners from the south flash silent in the stars.  On these awesome nights, reduced to silence, I walk across the Ness.
Never in my many sleepless nights have I witnessed a spectacle like this.  Not the antique bells of the flocks moving up a Sardinian hillside, the barking of the dogs and the sharp cries of the shepherd boys, nor moonlit nights sailing the Aegean, nor the scented nighs and fireflies of Fire Island, smashed glass star-strewn through the piers along the Hudson - nothing can quite equal this.
The orchestra has struck up the music of the spheres, the spectral dancers on the fated liner while you off your feet till you feel the great globe move.  Light-hearted laughter.  
Here man has invaded the heavens; but the moon, not to be usurped, shines  sickle bright, gathering our souls.
Derek Jarman, 8th April 1989
Links to other Derek Jarman Sites
Brother Blonde's own site of worship
Angels do not wish to dispirit you with the primal black of the void.  They are the light in that dark, the star swarm, singing the music of the spheres.  Every angel bears a true thought. They are the bees of infinity, the messengers of Lady Wisdom.  Their thoughts are honeyed sweet. 'Dead Souls', they whisper.  Wisdom is opaque, indistinct, only discovered by an archaeology of the soul.

 

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