Literae Antiquitas

A bit of a random post this evening… even more so than usual!

To the left is an image of a part of an ancient document discovered sometime around 1930.
It is written in Latin, but it is very easy to translate into English what is actually being said.
The ancient text that it is from translates to ‘The Book of the Ancient Premonitions’. Word for word, or thereabouts, the above paragraph reads as ‘In the British Isles, a man who lives in the north, who is known as Aquathomas, will feel out of tune with a throbbing knee and a running and throbbing nose’. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have sworn that it was actually written about me. This is the first paragraph of the book, which goes on to predict events such as man going to the moon, the invention of the lightbulb, the post-it note and the Great Storm of 1987. Other events, people and inventions are included, and, believe it or not, there is a drawing of a Wyvern on page two.

The odd thing is, I am suffering from those very symptoms (nose and knees), and have been since last week, but how could an ancient seer have predicted me from thousands of years ago? And why would – and how could – and in fact why should – those symptoms be of any importance or significance?

I mean to say. Man going to the Moon: a remarkable feat of engineering, courage and perseverance if ever there was one. The lightbulb: where would we be without that? The Great Storm of 1987: when the weather people got it slightly wrong. And the post-it note: we’d be lost without that one today, wouldn’t we? And the inclusion of the Wyvern really baffles belief.

Going back to the post-it note. The back of my mind is telling me that it was really a mistake, and wasn’t intended to be made… which just goes to show that sometimes good can come out of anything, even mistakes. I think even the weather people learned from their mistake that awkward night all those many years ago.

The lightbulb has evolved into a symbol for a great idea, and, in my mind, I can’t think of a better idea than man being able to explore the stars. Going beyond the Moon, and experiencing the many magical mysteries that this great Universe of ours has to offer. I can’t see myself being part of a mission to venture out into the far reaches of space in this lifetime, but I can see myself soaring through the Universe on my own steam in my mind’s eye. And who knows, maybe, possibly, in my next lifetime I will be part of one of these missions.

I’ll have to see if I can translate more of that ancient text. Maybe the prediction is about me, but not the current me that I know. Maybe the prediction will tell me that there is more to Aquathomas than hay fever and a dodgy knee. Like, maybe, think of all of the other parts that are fine and feel good; after all, there are more of them!

This version of Aquatom does think like that quite a lot of the time, but on occasions I tend to forget. There is a lot more to feeling good than first meets the eye!