Twilight. Trees cover the mountainside. Their bark blistered; their branches bare; their trunks broken. Rocks are cracked, deep cuts score the ground, dried up ravines are etched into the mountain side. Pathways meander to the top which are used by the huge beast which lives in the vast caves beneath. The dying dragon pulls her…
Month: March 2010
If I Could Write . . .
I would of course be brilliant. I would be Zola reborn, I would be deep yet brief like Chekhov, I would be passionate and sparse like Steinbeck, I would be wide-ranging and evocative like Fast. There would be a hint of Byron in my irony and humour, the politics of Mary Ann Evans in my…
To Folly We Drink
It is strange to me to think that in a world where everything including the planet was given as a free gift with nothing more than the transference of energy needed to accomplish anything in a human life, that we created money. That we divided the planet up into sections we can buy and sell…
Rivers Come And Go
There is great beauty around a tidal river. I grew up with one and getting to know the hours of its high and low tides gives one a knowledge of the phases of the moon. Gives one an appreciation of how boats rise and fall and tip gently when they hit the bottom of the…
History Is Long, Memory Is Short
If a generation is 25 years there have been 80 generations since Jesus lived and 104 since the Buddha. I am sure someone could work out the days and I am certain some church somewhere has a sign ‘XXXX Days since Calvary How Many More To Go?’ These are not huge numbers. They are not…
I am Just Delighted
http://internetreviewofbooks.com/mar10/brief_reviews.html A BRIEF HISTORY OF LIES: The Most Brilliant Book Ever Written! By Daniel Nanavati 106 pp. CreateSpace $8 I expected A Brief History of Lies to be whimsical, and it is—and funny, too, with delightful British humor. But it’s also, philosophical and … surprisingly wise. If it appears simple at first glance, that’s deceptive….
If The World Only Knew
We lack empathy. Long ago when I was a student the traditional question was to ask what the implications of the statement ‘I have a pain in your leg’ meant. Apart from the obvious implications for identity there is also for me, the residual understanding of empathy and why we lack so much of it….
Camp Fire
In the history of what we lose as we develop societies, and in addition to those people who have already said the ‘family’ meal and interactions of playing parlor games have become a thing of the past for nearly everyone in the developed world, I would add story telling. When those first lamps were lit…
The High Places
Religiosity is on the increase in every part of the world apart from Western Europe. Many years ago I thought of making a series about ‘The High Places’ and why so many religions across the world went ‘up’ mountains to worship their gods. If this had been the only thing religious people did it would…
The Old, Old Song
by Charles Kingsley When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen,— Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. When all the world…