For a while now The Great Stoppage had been replaced by the Slow Reawakening. Life had visibly and audibly resumed something akin to its habitual rhythms. John Delacroix experienced this as a kind of loss and not, as apparently he was supposed to, as a definite gain, a victory even. During the stoppage he had... Continue Reading →
You don't need a horoscope or a microscopeTo see the mess that you're inIf you open up your heartYou will know what I meanWe've been polluted so longNow here's a way for you to get cleanBy chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free(George Harrison) A young monk was anxious about the eternal... Continue Reading →
'In this town it's a long time between breakfasts' (Brigadoon, 1966 TV Version) 'The Legend of Brigadoon' began as a Broadway musical and went on to become an Hollywood film. It tells the story of two Americans who stumble into a small Scottish town which, every hundred years, springs into existence for a day and... Continue Reading →
Three word slogans where the words are chosen to fit the mood of the time can have great mobilising potential. In the United Kingdom 'Take Back Control' and 'Get Brexit Done' had the power to win a referendum and an election respectively. 'Peace, Bread, Land,' and 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' played their part in stupendous revolutionary... Continue Reading →
Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren't my thoughts. I couldn't think anything half so exquisite. They came from somewhere. (Lucy Maud Montgomery, Emily Climbs) ...the war which the demons wage against us by means of thoughts is more severe than the war they wage by means of material things. (St... Continue Reading →
Or: The Box Hill Dialogues Although the idea of privilege is rather over used at times it is a thing and it does have significance. It is, moreover, a universal phenomenon. There is no human society of which we know where privilege did not exist, if only that which accrues to the strong over the weak,... Continue Reading →
Dawn chorus, subdued and sparse, The birds of summer have flown. Washed-out blue, an autumn sky, Autumn life, drifting darkward. Pale gold late October sun. A soft light. Not a warm one. Each born thing comes to fruition, Welcome or not, still it matures. That which has been sown will be reaped. And yet, what... Continue Reading →
Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in... Continue Reading →
Thou hast told me of a Yoga of constant oneness, O Krishna, of a communion which is ever one. But, Krishna, the mind is inconstant: in its restlessness I cannot find rest. The mind is restless, Krishna, impetuous, self-willed, hard to train: to master the mind seems as difficult as to master the mighty winds.... Continue Reading →
Tom Holland, the historian and amateur-but-elite cricketer, races his way through about 2498 years of human history in the course of not much more than 500 pages for his latest book Dominion. The object of the exercise is to trace the impact which a particular collection of ideas and beliefs has had in the rise and... Continue Reading →
