All Roads Lead to Narnia...

"Okay, let's go around the room, each of us state our name and then list your favourite Lewis book and why."

This was the ice-breaker strategy of the guest lecturer for my afternoon courses here at Cambridge. He happens to be Dr. Michael Ward, Anglican clergyman, author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis, former President of the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society and administrator of The Kilns from 1996-1999. http://www.planetnarnia.com/

He recalled living there (The Kilns) before the reno when it was in a state of serious disrepair - when it was a "dung heap" as his friends were wont to call it.

My answer to his question you may already know if you're following this blog - my intro to Lewis was playing the part of the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so it naturally holds a special place in my heart. After that, A Grief Observed was an early influence and much appreciated source of comfort in the late 80's.

What's your favourite and what makes it so?

If I had my wits about me I'd create some sort of poll that you could sign into...alas, I decline for the sake of self-preservation. Some things on this computer still take too long and are therefore more trouble than they're worth!

The Planet Narnia is a work of genius, a breakthrough in the endless quest to understand the structure of Narnia's symbolism. The author demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets -- Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus and Saturn -- planets which Lewis described as 'spiritual symbols of permanent value' and 'especially worthwhile in our own generation.'

In The Discarded Image, Lewis' introduction to the medieval worldview, he repeatedly encourages his readers to take a stroll under the sky at night. Looking up at the heavens now, Lewis argues, is a very different experience from what it was in the Middle Ages.

Back then, in the nearest part of the sky our eyes would have seen--or, rather, see through--the transparent sphere in which the Planet Luna revolves, then the larger sphere of Mercury, then the still larger one of Venus, and so on through the spheres of Sol, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, each sphere rotating more rapidly than the last and each exerting a peculiar influence upon mundane people and events, and even upon the metals in the Earth's crust. Beyond Saturn's sphere we would have seen the heaven of the fixed stars, the Stellatum, and, beyond that, the Primum Mobile, the sphere which conveys movement to all the other, lower spheres. Further than the Primum Mobile we would not have been able to see, for that would take our sight outside the created order in the Empyrean, the very home of God and all the elect.

You might be asking yourself the question, "What exactly does astrology have to do with Christianity?"
And I will attempt to answer that in some future post...if you're interested, which of course, I won't know unless you comment. I would like to know what you're favourite Lewis work is and then I shall publish those results.
Right now I'm off to the Bag End Cafe where pilgrims/artists of many kind meet for fellowship and a pint of beer. I think Catherine might be presenting a poem and I don't want to miss it!
Luv y'll but feeling sad that this will soon be history...