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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.

Death

On Dante
Dante
Halcyon In Kal… 19 December 2024

 

Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" is an epic poem written in the early 14th century, divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

 

Inferno:

  • Dante finds himself lost in a dark forest and guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
  • The pair descends through the nine circles of Hell, each representing different sins and their corresponding punishments.
  • Notable figures from history and mythology are encountered, and Dante learns about the consequences of sin.
  • Satan resides at the centre of Hell, and Dante and Virgil eventually climb down Satan's body to reach the other side of the Earth.

 

Purgatorio:

On Ancestors

Submitted by Halcyon In Kal… on 11 November 2024
Ancestry

 

If the past is replayed too fast, life seems futile, and humanity resembles water flowing from a tap, straight down the drain.  A film of history for today needs to be in slow motion, showing every person who ever lived as a star, though dimly visible in a night sky, a history still unexplored - Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity

A call to action. Time to explore these unexplored histories together. 

On Legacy
Christopher Hitchens
Halcyon Inspired 2 September 2024

See also:

Those who study the stories and myths we tell point out that they often share remarkable similarities. They very often involve a separation from home, a test of character, and then a return home with new wisdom or strength. One of these transformative trials comes when we lose someone we truly and deeply love. Those who have known grief understand something more about life. When we suffer the loss of someone we love, we know what it means to be left alone and behind.

On Dylan Thomas

Submitted by Halcyon In Kal… on 15 November 2023
Dylan Thomas

 

As we pass the 70th anniversary of Dylan Thomas' death - or rather his work - has remained dear to me, one way of another, for nearly 40 years, from his poems, through the biographies I consumed at Edinburgh and subsequently, a profile on Great Lives and an excellent BBC commentary on Under Milk Wood.

During a guided "green meditation" in the summer of 2023, while focusing my attention on the beauty of a nearby plant, I was reminded of Thomas' The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.

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