"I thought I saw a swallow land, upon my hand, on summer day" - Roy Harper
For the gardener, this is the peak of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and weeks following Midsummer Day are a time of quietness, of flower festivals, of fragrant old roses around mildewed old church doors and of wandering among indecipherable gravestones and of coming hollyhocks and of lemon balm and of long, long ago memories, but always of "history is now, and England".
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.
I was relatively late getting into Dylan properly...into my early 20s - although before that I'd appreciated individual songs, such as Lay Lady Lay, Like A Rolling Stone and others.
However, when his force finally it hit me, it hit me hard. Chimes of Freedom, To Ramona and Ballad in Plain D all affected me on a deep emotional level in different ways, while the likes of One More Cup of Coffee had a beguiling exoticism.
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In 1883, Antoni Gaudí began working on the Sagrada Família in Barcelona and before his death managed to complete the crypt, apse and part of the Nativity facade. Work slowed during the 1930s and 40s, then picked up again in the 1950s and a series of architects carried on Gaudí’s work, completing new towers and facades.
The cyclical nature of the seasons of the spirit is counter to our dominant cultural narrative of self-improvement, with its ethos of linear progression toward states of ever-increasing flourishing. It is counter, too, to the world’s major spiritual traditions, with their ideas of salvation and enlightenment, argued Maria Popova.
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:
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them - David Hume
When I was studying, inter alia, Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh many years ago, local boy made good David Hume was a name never far any philosophy professor or tutor's lips.
Aeon wrote movingly of Hume's life:
"While Hume was lying aged 65 on his deathbed at the end of a happy, successful and (for the times) long life, he told his doctor: ‘I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.’ Three days before he died, on 25 August 1776, probably of abdominal cancer, his doctor could still report that he was ‘quite free from anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well with the assistance of amusing books’."
Nearly two centuries after his death, the final resting place of William Blake (1757-1827) was finally marked with a gravestone. The remains of the poet-painter lie in a common grave under an anonymous patch of grass in Bunhill Fields cemetery, just outside the City of London.
Patti Smith would celebrate Blake as “the loom’s loom, spinning the fiber of revelation” — a guiding sun in the human cosmos of creativity.
For Psyche, a sense of humour is virtuous because it helps people govern and express the emotions of contempt, trust, amusement and hope. And these emotions answer to the universal flourishing-related needs of criticism, connection, coping and capability. All in all, a sense of humour is a virtue.
We often assume that laughter occurs when we hear something funny, but research has shown that it is the people doing the speaking who laugh the most - 46% more than their audience.
During dark days of worsening refugee crises and increasing populism, can we still imagine reaching a state of "xenophilia"...overcoming our "homophily", i.e. the love of that which is like us, and reaching the love of that which is different?
Indeed, if we're ever going to care enough about conflict, genocide, poverty, hunger etc. enough to act on them properly, then we need to try much harder to avoid conflict with people we might not yet fully understand.
While most people start running for the physical benefits of the sport, it can also be hugely beneficial for your mental health. A study on 14,000 people undertaken by Asics(opens in new tab) during the pandemic has found that 82% of UK runners say running helps to clear their mind, and 78% feel more sane and in control as a result of running.
The Garden releases its last
radiance, not as something failed,
but as its full reason for being: to give
continually, to its last bit of energetic being.
Its giving is its beauty. It is a smile,
it is the heart of love.
- from “Equinox” by Richard Wehrman, from the book, THE BOOK OF THE GARDEN, Copyright © 2014
The Autumnal Equinox occurs the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator from north to south. On this day light and darkness are equally balanced.
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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...
The most crucial decision-making skill, some scientists are now saying, is the ability to think about your own thinking, or metacognition. According to this emerging new vision of decision-making, the best predictor of good judgement isn't intuition or experience or intelligence, but willingness to engage in introspection, to cultivate "the art of self-overhearing".
Not quite the same thing as blogging, I feel. A fool with a tool is still...well, let's just say that perhaps not all humans demonstrate all of the time the "floodlight intelligence" that's supposed to distinguish us from the "laser-beam" intelligence of other animals.
Tim Marshall produced a surprise bestseller in 2015: Prisoners of Geography argued maps could explain the biggest problems in international relations. To understand Russian aggression in Ukraine, for example, you needed to grapple with the shape of the north European plain, which has directed centuries of Russian military history.
The follow-up, The Power of Geography throws things forward to the regions that will shape tomorrow’s global politics, including Iran, the Sahel and space. His experience close to many frontlines means he knows first-hand how physical topography conditions the literal contours of battle. With a rare ability to boil down complexity with wit, he maps a baffling world for us all.
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.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment topped Open Culture's crowdsourced list of Books Intelligent People Should Read. I certainly enjoyed its narrow intensity, a stark contrast to the broad sweep of the same author's equally magisterial The Brothers Karamazov.
Reading Sunday at the Pool in Kigali and subsequently speaking with people with first-hand experience in Rwanda, makes one wonder about gradual disengagement from morality. For example, anti-Israel sentiment can morph into anti-Jewish sentiment. Del Amitri warned 30 years ago that "they'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock and we'll all go along like before".
"There are two great forces of human nature......self-interest and caring for others", according to Bill Gates.
If true, then:
(1) What is the approximate balance between the two today - in individuals, organisations and societies? How much time do we really spend thinking about and then acting on other people's needs?
(2) How can we start an open and ongoing debate about what the balance should be - next year, in 2030 etc? If we don't do this, then how can individuals really know how to lead a "good" life, can organisations know what their wider responsibilities really are and can societies really know how to develop fair policies for all?
