The Greeks were great ones for summing up human existence in their myths about Hades and the punishments metered out to individuals. Tantalus who bent down to drink to find the water immediately receded and lifted his hand to grab at the grapes above him to find they pulled away. Sisyphus who had to roll…
Month: August 2010
Autumn
The colder early mornings have been here for over a week now but today the rain came. Lots of it. It can get so heavy here the hill turns into a small river and the piping which the local council religiously clean twice a year but never unblock, spills over very quickly. At the bottom…
Getting To The Top
Mountaineers say they climb mountains because they are there, and the pinnacle (literally) is to climb Everest (Mount Qomolangma). They put a lot of training and body building hours to be fit enough to ascend, they plan for years and struggle up that mountain and if they fail they go back and finally they get to…
Artists
Gabriela Sepulveda lives in America and answered my request for artists to illustrate my work. She liked Blueskin the Cat, which is actually also my mother’s favourite story, about a highwayman in the 18th Century who is reincarnated as a cat and his subsequent adventures which finally take him to America. I received on Facebook…
Back And Forward
When we are growing up and making choices, some of which may be forced upon us by family, circumstance and society, we are usually defined by what we want to achieve and the paths we choose. It is only when we are much older, when choices become more limited because time becomes fragile, that we…
Be Honest And Open
I come from a tradition of writers (that may have started in Spain) who believe that writing is about telling the truth and by so doing being honest about one’s own self; in the hope that by relating one person’s experience of the world others may learn that they are not alone. It comes from…
Memories Are Fast
I shot a couple of short videos with a friend of mine recently and as his wife has just given birth to their second child I suggested taking a video of his son and baby daughter. He did not want to, saying that he could take pictures in frames but moving images only made him…
The Quality Of Touch
I love using my fountain pen. I grew up with ink and pens and never really took to Biro though I can see their usefulness. But even today I still think my neatest and most beautiful writing is done in pencil, because I learned to write in pencil and I can still see myself trying…
Trust Me To Lie
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could tell when someone is lying the way we can with a four year old? “Did you have sex with that women?” “No I didn’t and don’t pay any attention to the woman holding my trousers.” “Of course I never took that bribe and my bank account deposit details…
A Passion For Breathing
We rarely think much about it – letting our lungs just do their thing; but philosophers down the ages and more recently holistic health-practitioners have more and more taught how to concentrate on one’s breathing as a way to settle one’s mind. How many of us I wonder sit at the computer and breath in…