Think of summer on the campus, postgraduates. Warm yourselves with thoughts of the height of the Newcastle summer, on the Mercia campus.
Think of teeshirt weather. Short-sleeve weather. Even the postgraduates from the Middle East, wandering in short sleeves. Even postgraduates from India, coatless in the Newcastle summertime.
Think of the twenty-hour days, at the height of summer. Think of twenty hours’ worth of light.
Think of summer optimism, postgraduates. Of summer plans. Of the great summer casting-off, after the last meetings, the Boards of Examiners; the Board of Studies.
Think of summer relief. Gone, the terms’ pressure. Gone, the need to mark. To run seminars. Gone, the need to go to training. The need for method class. Gone, the duty of attending guest speakers’ talks. Of having to ask questions, having to look clever. No more duties.
Think of your summer studies, postgraduates. Of your summer reading. Were you going to tackle The Science of Logic this year? The entirety of Kierkegaard, including the sermons? Was it to be an Aristotle’s Metaphysics summer?
Think of summer writing, postgraduates. Of climbing into summer’s cockpit. Of the aim to complete a great arc of work. A javelin-throw of work. Because summer is the time for utter work. For entire work. For being lost in work, all of you. Everything you are. Of work become a summer gesture.
Think of summer thoughts, postgraduates. Summer ideas! That seem to float upwards. That seem to rise into the sky, like fire balloons. Summer thoughts, rising. Summer ideas, rising. But casually. Neglectfully. Without paying any attention to themselves. Without trying. Without effort.
Think of summer peace, postgraduates. Of the summer spell, cast over all things. The summer trance. The summer stillness. With no undergraduates about. Corridors, uncrowded. Empty foyers. Quiet paths. Campus car-parks, empty of cars.
Think of the paradisical campus, postgraduates. Of the campus as Paradise. The campus before the term-time Fall. Think of the innocent campus. The sinless campus. When you can all but walk with God in the cool of the evenings.
Where it’s no longer about productivity. About the frantic scrabble to finish work. When there are no more panic-bursts. No more crazed heart-thumping. No near heart attacks from study.
Expansiveness, instead. Air, instead. And summer air – warm air. The opposite of our Organisational Management winter! The opposite of our White-Witch winter!
When you could open the windows of your work, postgraduates. When you could let your work breathe. Let it rise, like bread. When you could knead the air into your work – the summer air. When your work warms up, becomes elastic – when it can be stretched. Opened.
When your work expands, postgraduates. When work isn’t about just this or that. When work’s about everything. The All. Hen panta. When work is an exodus, an opening out, and nothing more.
Deep summer – think of that, postgraduates. Summer within summer. Summer furled in summer, as in a bud. Whorling open. Blooming open. An opening you with it. Think of summer, expanding in you, postgraduates. Expanding you. Until you become summer giants. Until you can cross the campus in a single step …
Work in Progress 