In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: pychology

  • A Brexiter Takes Stock of the Dark Star

    Posted:

    I know that, in writing this, I was remembering a scene from an early “Star Wars” film. An ominous planet approaches. And I remember that image occurring to me, when I came across a book by Iain McGilchrist called “The Master and His Emissary – The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.”…

  • Jez and the Worship of Self

    Posted:

    Jez is a fundamentalist. He abides by the iron rules that keep his head together, and have done all his life. He dare not break free. The nation pays for his incapacity, amongst so much we are paying for just now – including humankind’s inability to bear very much reality.… continue reading

  • Parrot on the People’s March

    Posted:

    The people marching in London today were without a prime minister, or a leader of the opposition, or for that matter an effective political party to represent their interests. With jumped up fantasists from the bottom league running this nation, the people out on the streets today were giants and restored the nation’s honour, reminding…

  • Paradise Destroy

    Posted:

    “Humankind cannot bear very much Reality” is a quote from the poem “Four Quartets” by TS Eliot. If humanity is ever to be buried in a graveyard, once our work is done, this quote will be writ large on our gravestone.… continue reading

  • Augustin Doing Life

    Posted:

    “Augustin Doing Life” is the title of a poem I wrote eight years ago. The Augustin of the title is Augustin Robespierre, younger brother of the much better known and also more fanatical Maximilien Robespierre, both swept along by the upheavals of the French Revolution, and quite early in their lives, destroyed by them. They were…

  • Wrestling with the Dark Angel – a series of poems

    Posted:

    This drawing by Gustave Doré is one of several depictions by well-known artists of an incident recorded in the Book of Genesis, in which Jacob wrestled with an angel for a night. Towards the morning, the angel touched Jacob on the thigh, which left him “halt” (lame). But afterwards, the angel blessed him and changed…

  • I Came Running

    Posted:

    When Theresa May, the UK’s Conservative Prime Minister, called an election for June 2017, her manifesto included an opportunity to repeal New Labour’s ban on fox hunting. The Conservatives had expected to increase their majority, which would have eased May’s ability to push through Brexit. Instead they lost it.   I came running. I’d heard…

  • The History of the United Kingdom

    Posted:

    Click here for a summary of this piece, consisting of just over 700 words. Are You Sitting Comfortably ? The history of the United Kingdom (whose every seam is under terrible stretch and strain just now) continues so fast, so scattered, so hurt, so incoherent, so unguided and ill-advised, that it is hard to keep up,…