Past

The entries below highlight Dom Kelleher's subjective views on an ever-changing range and scope of subjects.

This is less a blog than a set of irregularly updated and often fragmentary views - on ideas and values, places and people - evolving over time into mini essais which pay humble homage to the peerless founder of the genre. The writing is provisional, always open to change as new thoughts and ideas emerge.

The kaleidoscope is Halcyon's prime metaphor, embracing constant change and viewing the world through ever-moving lenses.

Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre, whom I studied at university and whose work has interested me ever since, introduces us to the idea of our absolute freedom. While he admits that we are limited by some physical and social circumstances, he places us utterly in charge of ourselves.

In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau swapped his busy schedule in Concord, Massachusetts, for a wooden hut he built himself near Walden Pond. We had the privilege to visit Walden in July 2012; it exceeded expectations in its tranquillity and beauty - and the swim in the pond itself was unforgettable.

Writing in the winter of 1843, shortly after Margaret Fuller’s mentorship made him a writer, the twenty-five-year-old Thoreau awakened to a snow-covered wonderland and marvelled at the splendour of a world reborn.

Please see below "talking change" pages, containing a wide range of quotes - some famous, many unavailable anywhere else - covering each of the 150+ elements of life that Halcyon writes about.

This is a work-in-progress and many more talking change pages will be added in late 2023.

See also:

• Talking Change - Acceptance
• Talking Change - Activism
• Talking Change - Animals

Carl Jung, who founded analytical psychology. was influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, and religious studies.

Jung, like Freud, comes under the psychodynamic approach to counselling. He worked a lot with archetypes – recurring images or patterns that represent a typical human experience.