In praise of lazy mornings

In praise of lazy mornings

freedom, happiness, moments, sleep

Something magical about moments of morning idleness in idyllic spots.  Surely they allow some quiet clean up of over-burdened minds, or just some simple reprieve from restless strivings?  But still, leisure has its rewards here as well: idle mornings of meditation in...
Without going soft

Without going soft

beauty, imagination, resilience

I recently read Thucydides on the beach and was struck by how contemporary, or perhaps just timeless, he is.  Here is a thoughtful reflection in one of his reported speeches; you can love beauty of things and of the mind without going soft.  Our love of what is...
Of mathematical timelessness

Of mathematical timelessness

beauty, resilience

Yes, I have a lifelong attraction to the ‘timeless’, namely, things which retain our admiration or affection over centuries or millennia, due to an ineffable quality of not becoming dated, even if firmly rooted in a given time.Zbigniew Herbert has...
In love with an island

In love with an island

beauty, colour, discovery, moments

After about three decades and three months, Golding finally realized his war-postponed dream of visiting Ithaca.  With such a level of high expectation and anticipation, you might expect the reality of the place to disappoint.  Anything but, it transported him and was...
Intoxicating Ithaca

Intoxicating Ithaca

beauty, discovery, freedom, moments

Golding took several decades to realize his dream of visiting Ithaca, and a few months to make his own odyssean journey there by way of Troy.  Many of his descriptions of this and other Greek islands are intoxicating in their brightness and warmth, particularly as one...
The high Greek sky

The high Greek sky

beauty, colour, moments

Not the first time I have seen or read of the soaring ‘limitless Greek sky’.  It has something vaultingly, deeply, coolingly hyacinthine blue about it, making things seem clean, clear and uncluttered. You can stretch your spirit and limbs lying somewhere...
A spell of peace

A spell of peace

enchantment, life, moments

An intricate description of the effect an ancient temple can work on the spirit – a falling away of complication and anxiety and a spilling over of clarity and hope.  I had such a feeling when a handful of us were allowed to roam untrammelled through ruins and...
Vault into the blue

Vault into the blue

beauty, colour

Henry Miller’s Colossus of Maroussi is in some ways a record of a nuannaarpoq-fostering landscape and people, and I see the book as emitting the blindingly clean light of the Greek hyacinth blue sky. And I loved that ‘running leap and vault into the...

Pin It on Pinterest