Monday 27 June 2016

Favourite Poems - No Man Is An Island



This famous poem, written by John Dunne in 1624, was read out on stage at Glastonbury by PJ Harvey in June 2016 following the Referendum. How apt and and moving it is. 

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee. 



Tuesday 24 May 2016

Chelsea Flower Show 2016


Chelsea Flower Show 2016 was as interesting as ever, both for the superb show gardens (especially the 'Best In Show' Telegraph garden by Any Sprugeon) as well as for the plants that go in an out of fashion. This year no one used Anthriscus 'Ravenswing' when only three years ago it was everywhere, and there was masses of purple. For more photos click here 

Saturday 21 May 2016

Favourite Gardens - West Green



West Green near Hartley Whitney is a beautiful 1720's house with a somewhat scarred past (brutal first owner Gen Henry Hartley and almost demolished by an IRA bomb) that was left to the National Trust by Sir Victor Sassoon in 1957 but has been taken on a long lease by Marylyn Abbott who has completely redesigned the fascinating and beautiful garden. Click here for some more photos.  

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Favourite Sculptures - the Garden Gallery


Rachel Bebb's wonderful Garden Gallery in Broughton held a private view for the latest summer exhibition of sculptures called 'Footprints on the Sands of Time' and featuring Charlotte Mayer as well as 120 other works. Click here for some more photos of the exhibition. 

Monday 16 May 2016

The Manor at Upton Grey

     

The Manor House at Upton Grey is an Arts & Craft house with a beautiful garden carefully restored by Rosamund Wallinger and her husband based on the original plans by Gertrude Jeykell from 1908.
Click here for some more photos   

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Favourite Gardens - Hinton Ampner


'At Hinton, I am inclined to believe that the most attractive area is the sward of plain grass between the church and the house with the tall jade-green stems of beech trees rising beyond it. There is a spaciousness and tranquillity here which my more elaborate efforts elsewhere have not achieved.' - Ralph Dutton.

Although much of the garden is lovely, I agree with Dutton that the best part is the 'ungardened' view between the house and the church where the ancient beeches preside over the smooth sweeps of lawn. Much of the garden is on clay which is easily dried out by the wind, so that topiary and areas such as the Dell, full of mature trees and shrubs, are more successful.

I do agree with Dutton, though, when he writes: 'I have learnt during the past years what above all I want from a garden and that is tranquillity.'

The view from the terrace in June.

The house is wonderful, having relatively few perfectly proportioned principal rooms, all beautifully decorated in Dutton's precise neo-Georgian style.

The Entrance Hall

The South Drawing Room


The Dining Room

Breakfast laid out in Ralph Dutton's bedroom
For more photos, click here

Friday 4 March 2016

Favourite Paintings - Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint - Group IV No 3 The Ten Largest -  Youth 1907
A Swedish artist and Theosophist who I had never heard of until the exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, is probably the first pure abstract artist. The painting above was painted in 1907, before others such as Kandinsky.

For a brief biography, see here

See more of her paintings here

Saturday 23 January 2016

The Forms of Love





Love comprehends the complexity of human relationship in all its forms. All of us hold feelings for others, but these feelings differ according to the people involved and the circumstances under which we interact. In the English language there is only one word to describe all of them: Love.

It wasn’t always so. The Ancient Greeks had around thirty words to describe Love in all its shades and complexities. The most easily recognizable of these forms are generally accepted to be the following seven:

Agape – the love of humanity (also known as ‘Love without desire’)
The kind of love which makes us sad when we hear of a crisis in another country (or our own); that makes us give our time or money to charity; and makes us feel connected to people we don’t know simply on the basis of our shared experience as human beings.

Storge – family love
The love a parent or grandparent has for a child, or the love a child has for a favourite aunt or uncle. Equally, the love a foster parent feels for children in his/her care. Also of course the love between siblings.

Pragma – love which endures
The love between a married couple which typically develops over a long period of time. This is the love that endures in sickness and in health and is also the love which exists between old friends (of the same or different sexes) and which causes one to care for another in later life.

Philautia – self-respect
The love we give to ourselves. This is not vanity, like narcissism, but our joy in being true to our own nature and values. It gives us the strength to care for ourselves so that we can in turn care for others.

Philia – shared experience
The love we feel for people we combine with to achieve a shared goal – our fellow workers, the players in a team or soldiers in an army.

Ludus – flirting, playful affection
The feelings we have when we play at what it might be like to be in love with someone.

Eros – romantic and erotic love
The one which is most often thought of as love but is really based on sexual attraction. It can turn into other kinds of love – like pragma – but it starts as romance.

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Favourite Quotations - Oscar Wilde

                      

“I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”

Friday 25 December 2015

Favourite Writings: Jalaluddin Al-Rumi


“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” 
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
“The moon stays bright when it doesn’t avoid the night.”
“What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.”
“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”
“Stop behaving small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
“Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape.”
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.”
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?”
“Only with the heart can you touch the sky.”
“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First, to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without your feet.”
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
“Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”
“Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.”
“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames”
“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?”
“Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.”
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…Welcome and entertain them all. 
Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.”
“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”
“All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”
“I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside.”
“You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck!”
“Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?”
“There is a fountain inside you. Don’t walk around with an empty bucket.”
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
“That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.”
“What you seek is seeking you.”
“Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.”

"Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion."
"Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that."
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
"Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop."
"I have been a seeker and I still am, but I stopped asking the books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my Soul."
"In the blackest of your moments, wait with no fear."
"These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them."
"Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there."
Jalaluddin al-Rumi

See also, Jalaluddin Al-Rumi