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The 52:52:52 project, launching on this site and on social media in 2025, will help you address 52 issues with 52 responses over 52 weeks.

This site addresses what's changing, at the personal, organisational and societal levels. You'll learn about key changes across more than 150 elements of life, from ageing and time, through nature and animals, to kindness and love...and much more besides, which will help you better prepare for related change in your own life.

Halcyon In Kaleidoscope features irregular and fragmentary writings - on ideas and values, places and people - which evolve over time into mini essais, paying humble homage to the peerless founder of the genre. The kaleidoscope is Halcyon's prime metaphor, viewing the world through ever-moving lenses.

A Mundane Comedy is Dom Kelleher's new book, which will be published in 2025. The introduction is available here and further extracts will appear on this site and on social media in the coming months.

Alternative

On Silbury Hill
Silbury Hill
Halcyon In Kal… 13 June 2023

 

Way back in 1999 I registered the internet domain name silburyhill.com and paid to maintain it for several years, without ever really doing anything with it. I eventually let the registration lapse, but even now, new developments at Silbury continue to resonate with me in a way that I can't easily put into words. 

Why I felt compelled - no other word will do - to acquire silburyhill.com as my first personal URL and why I paid a not inconsiderable sum to hold onto it a few years, despite being far from ready to launch my own website back then, I'm still far from certain.

On the Six of Hearts

Six of Hearts

 

Not  much of a card player but, as a very few people know, one particular, unassuming playing card has called to me down the years. Neither do I consider myself superstitious, nor credulous, but the following raised a wry smile nonetheless. Seems about right:

  • 6 of Hearts: Indicates a time of peace and harmony where you can work well with others to achieve your goals and overcome obstacles.
  • The Six of Cups in tarot is a card that takes you back to the joyful memories from your past, whether as a child, teenager or young adult. The Six of Cups also often indicates an increased level of harmony and cooperation in your relationships.

 

On Sun(s) Halcyon In Kal… 5 August 2022

 

The weird idea that Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily, if Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, goes supernova, recalls a dream, many years ago, of climbing a ridge in the desert and seeing a dawn uncannily like this photo...

 

S-TWO-SUNS-large

 

On Swimming
Swimming
Halcyon In Kal… 1 September 2021

 

Swimming in open water - ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans - is like crossing a boundary into another world. The ancient Celts even believed that submersion could provide a link to the supernatural - Carpe Diem

 

Entranced many years ago by Roger Deakin's wonderful Waterlog, which I have lent subsequently to others and they've had similarly joyous reactions. 

See also:

On Midsummer Eve
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Halcyon In Kal… 21 June 2019

 

We can be at our most reflective, and perhaps society could be at its most reflexive, around St John's Eve and the other, similar seven calendar points...

Goin' ridin' down by Avalon
Would you meet me in the country
In the summertime in England
Would you meet me?
In the Church of St. John . . .
Down by Avalon . . . .


 - from Summertime in England, by Van Morrison

On Colin Wilson

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Sad to read of the passing of Colin Wilson, a truly open-minded polymath, whose books, exhaustive range of interests, freedom of expression and seemingly boundless productivity I long found inspiring.

See also:

Quote 2073

The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish - Terence McKenna

Quote 2071

The beauties of the solid and material universe are but a part of the rich spectrum of existence. The one-tenth of an iceberg that is visible above the tideline of reality. Matter is that part of being that has crystallised, where the mind's light has petrified to concrete substance - Alan Moore ('Promethea')

Quote 2069

All the cultures in human history except the Western industrial civilization have held holotropic states of consciousness in great esteem. They induced them whenever they wanted to connect to their deities,other dimensions of reality,and with the forces of nature. They also used them for diagnosing and healing, cultivation of extrasensory perception, and artistic inspiration. They spent much time and energy to develop safe and effective ways of inducing them - Stanislav Grof