Surf Lessons
You never forget the first time you “catch a wave”. Squinting into the sun, looking backwards, waiting for the rising swell, capped by a white foam. Paddling as fast as you can to keep up. And then the feeling of being carried by something infinitely more powerful than yourself.
Change: Wisdom realising emptiness
What bliss and dread to know that nothing comes to anything in the finale of our days: we breathe and breathe again and then, before the look has scarcely touched the hour, we fade into another dream, a different fragment of a different star.
Tales from Dublin pubs: The Lower Deck of Richmond Road
The pub has a unique way of getting a helping hand behind the bar when it gets busy. They allow certain customers to do the unthinkable: cross over the threshold and step behind the bar to occasionally help out.
Mercuries #4: The book reincarnate
The material of literature is language and the material of performance is liveness. These improvised, talking performances explore the various tropes of public speaking, such as recitation, reading and introductions. They tend to grow from small gestures into weirder things.
Change
Change, Samothraki, 2018. Thomas Helm
Whirr and Chime
Waiting makes you a passive consequence of externalities. Action transforms you into a cause. Even if the result is small, it still feels incredibly meaningful. And meaningful moments are ones that are the most pleasant to recall.
Time and patience: the essential ingredients of sustainable cookery
Recipe: Jellied rabbit served with chargrilled chicory and quail’s egg salad and buttery parsley Anya potatoes. Driven partly by a desire to understand my cultural and historical context, and partly by nostalgia for a time when fast-consumption and fast-production were alien I have wanted to try jellied rabbit for a very long time.
Three-dimensional time
Three-dimensional time is filled with overlaps, old tides sleeping inside us. Our lives are tied not only to the linear past-present-future trajectory, but also to the memories that shape our emotions and perceptions.
Does slavery still exist?
George Floyd’s death has massive and tragic consequences, but in the U.S.A there have been many other black men who have died at the hands of the police. What does slavery mean in today’s world?
Remembering
Out of despair she asked for help and searched the river with her eyes. The reply rose up as a flicker of light weaved into the water. It was the moon. Water had received her orison and carried her word to the moon. Moon spoke…
Pájaro contra el borde de la noche (Bird against the edge of the night) by Luis Naón
To me, freedom, beauty, and light are concrete words related to this metaphor of “the bird against the edge of the night”. Art could also be in the list, when its free expression and internal necessities - free of the constraints of fashion, compromise, and demagoguery – confront, like each man, their own night.
Madam Desire
Madam Desire, 2020. Thomas Helm
On statues and nationalism: Stone is not as true as flesh
Whilst the past should never be forgotten or white-washed, divisions that result from divergent perceptions and emotional registers preclude any attempt to advance. Only through a more holistic understanding can we move forward. Protecting stone at the cost of flesh will not get us anywhere. Stone cannot deliver the whole truth.
The miracles of world-creating discord
Desire, the indefatigable disrupter, the sweet enemy of civilizations, the creator of worlds, the destroyer of philosophies, the pulse behind variety, the naked, animal essence, intensely alive, unwilling to negotiate with reason; desire, the pure current of the ego, the usurper of the heart, the piercing and poisonous arrow. How many names are there to bless desire with?
Madam Desire
A poem-song about living under the thumb of Madam Desire by Mercurius. Presented to the public for the first time by Mercurius Magazine.
Mercuries #3: The razorblade in London
The material of literature is language and the material of performance is liveness. These improvised, talking performances explore the various tropes of public speaking, such as recitation, reading and introductions. They tend to grow from small gestures into weirder things.
The colour of thunder (el color del trueno)
The colour of thunder (el color del trueno) by Ariadna. Presented to the public for the first time by Mercurius Magazine.
Between nature and culture
It is normal to be worried and dissatisfied these days. Former icons are invalid, old narratives are deceitful, mainstream thinking is biased, our feelings betray us, and reason only hastens arguments against ourselves. One might say: our entire culture is opposed to nature, and nature is always right. However, this opposition seems misconceived.
Meditations: Tree of death
On the solstice 2020, I encountered the ancient Crowhurst Yew and had a conversation.
Yoga can help you find your inner sun
In the practice of yoga, you turn the voltage down and enter an introspective state. You get in touch with your inner nature. You become the sun that shines and the moon that reflects the light of others.
The never-ending quest…
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