I often feel that my life unfolds at just the right pace and in just the right way. And at the moments when I find it the most troubling, the most difficult, the most puzzling, there are always moments following that smooth and clarify and fortify. I feel that in Budapest I felt that around my Jewish identity... the most acute angst followed by the sweetest inner reassurance. And in Prague, I'm feeling that around my personal identity as well. Not that either of these questions, or any question of identity, is ever fully answered. Just the easing of tension, I guess.
I think part of it is that Prague is such a beautiful city. Quite seriously, the view when I left our apartment this morning took my breath away and made me tear up a little. It really is such a fairy tale city, and you all know how I feel about fairy tales. And right now, the weather is so cold and clear and crisp, which is very native to me, I feel very at home.
And part of it is that in a little bookshop where Kafka used to live, I bought
Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke and I read it all this afternoon over a mug of mocha and it really touched me. And I know most people reading this blog read
Letters long, long ago, but this was my first time and it just felt so perfectly apt, so exactly what I should be reading, and I repeat...
"A person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead, and it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."
So here's a recap of my days holding hands with Rainer Maria Rilke (and a little Franz Kafka) <3
So I started day 1 in the Alchemy museum in the Old City. Of course I did, this is me we're talking about. It's presented in a pretty kitschy way, which is silly because it's a legitimate historical site and it's so cool!
So the museum is in a house dating originally from the 14th century. Rabbi Loew of golem fame bought it and he and his colleagues dug out cellars underneath to make their lab. I didn't know Loew was an alchemist until I visited the museum but it really makes sense since he was into Kabbalah, and it makes sense then that he was the one fabled to have made the golem, if he already had a reputation for attempting transmutation.
Anyway, Loew was buddy buddy with King Rudolf the II, and there was a 3 km passage dug (and now uncovered) between the lab under the house and the castle on the other side of the river so the king could come by for a hit of Elixer of Life in secret.
ISN'T THAT CRAZY AND AMAZING??
That was my reaction to most things I saw and since it's so near Christmas, I was the only one there so I got a private tour, and I think my guide was very amused by me.
This is the study where Loew and his buddies hung out. It's been restored, but the wall paintings are restored from originals and the desk is even the same one Loew had.
This is a copy of a book of alchemy notes, all in latin. The original is now in the Czech National Library.
"I would ask you, as best I can, to have patience towards everything that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or like books that are written in a remote foreign language."
-RM Rilke
"What's with all the crocodiles?" I asked. Ilya, my guide, told me that there are no crocodiles in Czech lands, and when travelers brought them back, people in Prague thought they were crazy mythological creatures, like baby dragons, so alchemists and mystics and stuff were into them.
Ilya: What do you think these faces are?
Ariane: I have no idea.
Ilya: Take a guess.
Ariane: Are they death masks?
Ilya: No. Most people think they're a demon or something. But they're MOSES.
Ariane: Whaaaaaat?
Ilya: Yep. People thought Moses had horns because of a mis-translation of the Hebrew. The Hebrew says Moses's head was crowned by the setting sun but apparently the word for sunset in Hebrew is close to the word for horns, so the early translator said his head was crowned by horns.
Ariane: But if this was Rabbi Loew's lab, don't you think he'd have known better? He read Hebrew, he'd probably not decorate with a horned Moses chandelier...
Ilya: ...Hm.
And he later told me that the decor in the renovated study ranges from all the years the house was in use, hence the Christian stuff too. So who knows, I guess.
There was a SECRET PASSAGE! When you turn the dragon statue on the shelf. I made him close it so I could re-open it myself. He was very patient with me. The mechanism was restored but there was definitely a secret passage in Loew's time, too.
One of the rooms of the lab below. The Furnace is original to the 16th century, the glasswear at the top is also original. A lot of the glassware survived because the area flooded and it was underwater.
Another room of the lab. In the back is the passage to the castle.
So when the dig team found this plaque to the Holy Roman emperor defeating the pagans, they thought it was really odd that a bunch of Jewish alchemists would have this up in their lab. So they dug around it, and they found this door, and behind the door they found 5 bottles of the "elixer of life" and the 28 page recipe of it. It's mostly herbs, alcohol, and opium.
My guide told me it doesn't really make you immortal (surprise!) but maybe it does make you live a bit longer. Loew lived to be 89, which was quite long for the time. The museum gave the recipe to some Benedictine monks who translated it from the latin and now you can buy it in expensive bottles in the gift shop. The lady there reassured me that you only need to drink about 5 drops with some sugar every morning before breakfast. But I'm pretty okay with aging and dying so I passed.
"The meaning of life is that it has its end."
-Kafka
So this is the original furnace they used to blow their own glass. You couldn't just go out and buy all those funny bottles, they had to make them themselves. Which meant they needed a fire of 500+ degrees, and they couldn't really have a chimney because they had to keep the lab a secret (because the church would frown on people tampering with mortality...) so it was freaking HOT down there and they could only work a few people at a time and for a few hours at a time.
Ilya asked if I wanted a picture with the lab, and I said: OF COURSE I DO.
One of the bottles of the elixir of life that they found.
Restored inscription that in Latin says something like "It is no shame to spend your life in study. Our gold is not the usual kind." Very Jewish.
Rudolf and his wifey... Katherine?
Ilya: They took the elixir of love together.
Ariane: Didn't he die of syphilis? Not sure that worked out for him.
Ilya: But they had a loving marriage and five children. I think they were successful.
Ariane: A toss up.
Ilya: Do you want to smell the love elixir?
Ariane: It smells like wine.
Ilya: I think it works.
Ariane: So what do I do? Club the dude and pour it down his throat?
Ilya: No! You drink it WITH him.
Ariane: So I drink it with someone who already loves me?
Ilya: No, someone who wants to fall in love with you.
Ariane: That doesn't sound like a very useful potion.
Over all, a great time in the Rabbi's alchemy lab.
Then I wandered around Prague!
Lots of strange street art in Prague. This is a Kafka statue.
"You need not do anything. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, just wait. You need not even wait, just learn to be quiet, still and solitary. And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked. It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
-Kafka
Pretty
Prague Castle!
In the castle district
I feel like I spent a lot of the fall avoiding being by myself. There was some kind of fear of being by myself, like if I were alone with my thoughts, I would feel homesick, or I would feel lonely. But spending time on my own in Europe has been so refreshing and beautiful, and I feel really reinvigorated by it.
"The only dangerous and bad sorrows are those that we bear among other people in order to drown them out; just as illnesses that are treated superficially and foolishly only return and break out all the more horribly after a short while... "
"We must always persist with what is difficult, so that which still appears to us now as the most alien will become what is most familiar and true to us. How could we forget those ancient legends that exist at the origin of all peoples, the legends of dragons that turn into princesses at the ultimate moment; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses that are just waiting for us to appear beautiful and courageous one day. Perhaps everything terrible is at its deepest level that which is helpless and that wants help from us."
-Rilke
A big church
Another church
Castle gates and some guards
Ouch!
Double ouch!
Looking down at the city
Sometimes Sam and I pretend we're newly weds
Kafka's former writing house on Golden Lane
Me on golden lane!
Inside the big church
Not today, Satan! Not today!
Swanky tomb
I like that their nativity scene is an advent calendar, since it was the 23rd, Mary and Jesus aren't there yet.
Inside the old royal palace
There were wild peacocks in the park and they came really close to me!
Awww.
Memorial to how much communism sucked.
Charles Bridge at Night
The next day, we started out at Cafe Louvre, where Einstein, Rilke, Kafka, and others all hung out at one point or another. It was closed down in communist times for being a hangout of subversive types, but it's open again these days.
Yum.
"I wanted only to advise you to grow peacefully and seriously through your development; there is no more violent way of disturbing it than looking outwards and expecting an external answer to questions that can only be answered by your innermost feelings in your quietest hour."
-Rilke
Then we went to the Alphonse Mucha museum. I knew about Mucha's success as a poster artist, but I didn't know about his Czech nationalism, or his anti-germanization stance, or his status as a Freemason. Or that he was captured by the gestapo and died of illness he contracted in prison. Now I like him even more.
Then we strolled around the old quarter, and saw such things as the astronomical clock, which measures days and planetary movements.
Then into the Jewish Quarter for Xmas eve! I didn't know the Czech helped Israel. Nice.
Me and the Old New Synagogue, where Rabbi Loew officiated. Inside you can see his seat.
And around the back you can see the door to the attic where the golem's body is supposed to be kept. The bottom rungs of the ladder have been removed because nobody's allowed up there anymore.
I like this hunky rendition of the golem on the van of this Jewish catering company.
More commemorations by the haganah.
Jewish cemetery. There are 12 LAYERS of bodies under there.
Lots of bodies!
Lots!
These stones are from the 14th century!
Rabbi Loew's grave. These guy in the right was crying over it, which I find very bizarre. Loew was a cool dude who had a cool life and died old. This guy was crying like... Western Wall crying. And he wouldn't get out of my picture so that's probably why I'm annoyed.
You can't really see it here, but the lower clock is in Hebrew and runs backwards :)
Then we went to the Spanish synagogue, which is just a museum now. It's very pretty but pretty sterile. There aren't a lot of Jews living in Prague anymore, so everything feels pretty and dead.
This is the Pinkas synagogue. You can't see it in this picture but...
All of the walls are covered with over 80,000 names of the known Czech victims of the holocaust.
In part of the synagogue there was a little gallery of artwork that children made while imprisoned at Theresienstadt. It was really moving... a lot of them drew the ordeals they'd been through. A lot of them drew memories of Jewish holidays, seders like seders I've been to, shabbats like shabbats I've been to. A lot of them drew dreams of what Israel must look like, oases and palm trees and bedouins and beaches. Some of them were already so artistically talented, it's so tragic to think of that loss. And all of the loss, of course.
I read an interesting plaque about Theresienstadt. Since it was a model camp used for propaganda films, they had a lot of the most talented Jews they captured sent there... writers, artists, scientists, etc... and in their spare time the prisoners set up schools for the children. So these children strangely got amazing educations... science classes taught by Europe's best scientists. Writing and theater classes by Europe's best writers and actors. Drawing classes by the best artists, etc.. Then they were mostly shipped to death camps and died. But still. Fascinating. Jews are fascinating.
"I can only wish for you that you trustingly and patiently allow the wonderful solitude to work on itself, no longer as something to be excluded from your life but as something that in everything that lies before you to experience and do you will constantly and quietly crucially work as an anonymous influence, rather as the blood of our forefathers continually moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique, irreplaceable being that we are at every turn of our lives."
-Rilke
