In search of Eden

Voyaging in space, time and imagination

In memorium: Malcolm – per ardua ad astra

I came across this document, going through some of my old papers this week: it’s a prospectus for a voyage, closely planned a quarter century ago, never fulfilled. Ah, but we may still dream.

I have never considered myself to be other than an optimist. I believe that it is possible to be content, fulfilled - happy - on this earth and that my life and that of those that I care for and love can be shaped by my efforts to ensure than the sum of the parts is for better, not worse. But as I have grown older there has, imperceptibly, begun an under-current of dissatisfaction, no longer born of callow youthfulness, but of the experiences I and others have had, that has led me to question whether my philosophy is not flawed, maybe even fatally so.

Of course, being dissatisfied is not the same as being a pessimist but it brings with it an unease. And, too often in the past decade, I have found myself in the company of people whose own self-belief has faltered when push has come to shove (I include myself at times). It is time for action; time to push out the boundaries, far beyond the mundane, beyond the routines of materialistic daily life, to seek, before it really is too late, answers to the bigger questions; to embrace adventure, like Odysseus, on wine dark seas.

To sail away: in fact, to search for a mythic Eden: to make it a reality. (Image: OGHM)

Both a metaphor and a place with meaning, the Garden of Eden expresses a desire for the place where we would go but for not knowing where it is. Biblically, our expulsion from it represented the fall of mankind, the condition from which we all have – throughout our lives – strived to overcome. It is pre-birth and post-death: nirvana and paradise. It is beyond knowing but graspable – why else would folk willingly die in the belief that, in their self-perceived selflessness or sacrifice, they will instantly attain it? In our present condition, this latter issue has become far closer, more threatening to each of us.

Yet in a world riven with centuries of conflict it has not stopped the dreams of men and women that – somewhere – it still awaits us here, on this earth, not in some confected world beyond. Enormous effort has been put into finding it, for venal and venerated purposes. Mundanely, even today, it graces the pages of thousands upon thousands of brochures for holidays – or retirement homes.

We believe we might have it, even if briefly, in an instant hedonistic pleasure of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, or in the few weeks we could find ourselves on a beach. A novel was written about just that perfect, paradisiacal beach. Many more are written about the perfect relationship, the moment before the fall. Daily, we are assailed by exhortations to change ourselves, to make each of us more perfect, in shape, in mind, in career, to attain that state of grace so seductively described – even as a fantasy – in religious terms in Genesis.

On one of the walls of my children’s house is a poignant reminder that ‘Eden’ may exist before our eyes; that we can miss it because it might be so ordinary. A sentimental Victorian print shows a man and a woman in a suburban park, arm in arm. The weather is cold and damp yet she looks at him with shining eyes; she has found it with him. The question that lingers is: has he as well? (His face is turned toward hers.)

So, is Eden a state of grace independent of space or time? Can we not find it within ourselves, no need for a journey to somewhere else? Are we blind to its presence in and around us? And what on earth could a sailing expedition around the world discover that is not available in a local bookshop?

For a very long time – too long, perhaps, and by lingering there lays doubt – I have wondered about this earthly paradise. To take the Judeo-Christian tradition, that huge body of theology and philosophy that has shaped the modern world like no other: have we ever actually left Eden? Have we missed the point entirely, not seeing that the alleged ‘fall’ was a failure by humanity, from time immemorial, to witness what existed, but which we have striven seemingly so hard to expunge? That rather than imagine Eden as ‘other’, it is here, built over, plundered, exploited and, too often, totally destroyed, but waiting to be uncovered – somewhere nearby.

The recent growth of the green movement, in its secular fashion, recognises more of this than it might admit to. Further back, the visionary William Blake expressed it in England’s unofficial national anthem: Jerusalem. As I look along the valley of the Chess, deep in The Chilterns in Buckinghamshire, walking in the summer sunshine, taking in the inexpressibly beautiful – even though man-shaped – landscape, it occurs to me more that there is no need for any lengthy voyage. If I – or you – could just walk these green and pleasant fields every day, understand the rhythms of the seasons, in short, return to an earlier, but still reachable, time, would this not be enough?

So, then, in a few words, no further need for action?

Well, yes and no. Only by making this immense journey, I believe, can I know; it may be different for each of us. But that cosmic restlessness that has driven me since my earliest childhood remains; if anything, it has grown. And with time I have accumulated a store of knowledge, of geography and history, of practical matters of navigation and seamanship that I wish to exploit, to use in this attempt to discover something profound about the world.

The desire that has driven so many to seek to uncover, once and for all – even if only for themselves – the truth of this paradoxical place is driving me, now. Apart from a lifelong yearning, born of childhood reading, of Stevenson, Conrad, (yes, I was precocious), among many others, to ‘put on my (sea)boots and go’ to quote another restless wanderer of the great oceans (Bill Tilman), there is this: the time has picked itself and it is now. Like some force beyond my conscious reason, I am, even as I write this, being propelled to act. For the first time in my life I am allowing that unconscious drive to take me, where it will. It is very exciting.

This, then, is a personal journey, a quest, a voyage of discovery, looking both inward and out. Circumnavigating the globe has, of late, come to mean high technology, high performance and literally driven individuals or teams of men and women, all determined to be faster, more visible, more – dare one say it – venal in intent than the last. The game is all about money, fame and celebrity – I will not say celebration because there is a joylessness about their activities which belies any hope of happiness.

In Search of Eden is a circumnavigation whose express – indeed only – purpose is to seek out the joy we seem to have so little of in our daily lives, to explore the past along with many of the attempts to locate life’s true purpose, to try to establish whether there are people who have remained firmly within the orbit of Eden simply by escaping the grind of western materialism.

It is concentrated on the far away merely because logic would suggest proximity to the modern world works against worldly happiness. It looks more at islands because, by their very nature, they both isolate and expand the mind: isolate it from the hustle and bustle, expand it into a quieter, more serene space. Or so one might have reason to believe.

Despite the shrinkage of the earth to a global village, it remains a very large place, where uninhabited, or sparsely populated, areas still abound. By travelling by sea, and at a pace that would not have startled the early European explorers, I hope to establish a rhythm that will resonate with that past, as well as with the search in the present. There are no hidden agendas here, just a burning desire to make this great journey.

‘Come, the lines are doubled, ready to slip at a moment’s notice. The yacht we will be sailing in, First Light, is dipping and rising against a gentle current, her sails half furled, waiting, waiting. Her skipper and crew, their eyes tightened against the fierce heat of the early morning sun, are gazing well beyond the mouth of the bay. There are seabirds, circling and, just outside the rim of vision, the fish are jumping, flying fish. The weather is calm; it is time to find out, time, at long last, to just go.’

The yacht I had already chosen, all those years ago, was laying in Crete; but the next step never took place. Looking over those detailed plans today, I am left wondering just what might have happened if those lines had been slipped, the circumnavigation begun. Regrets? Not today, just fond, fading memories of what the children in Ransome’s Pigeon Post memorably dubbed ‘Camp Might Have Been’.

‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on…’

This week: Tim watched Career Girls, Mike Leigh’s 1997 acclaimed comedy drama starring Katrin Cartlidge and Lynda Steadman on Channel Four. It has room for a cameo part for a ghastly yuppie played with gusto by Andy Serkis, whom I used to be acquainted with when I lived in Bermondsey. The story is light on the surface but surprisingly deep in content.

Quote of the week: When asked what he thought about Western Civilisation Mahatma Ghandi replied: ‘I think it would be a very good thing.’

Music of the week: Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the Eroica. Originally dedicated to Napoleon, Beethoven scratched out the encomium when he heard the man had declared himself emperor. Beethoven, a life-long republican and agnostic, had seen nemesis, in that fateful act. There is a stunning recording by Barenboim, part of the complete set of the nine symphonies on Warner Classics, with the maestro conducting the Berlin Staatskapelle, priced at a bargain £13.24.