We’re deep into winter. In Brittany it’s been an incredibly wet autumn into winter after an unseasonal burst of heat in the first part of October. Like many areas we’ve had a succession of storms, with Storm Ciaran doing massive damage across the region. The wreck of woodland just as the trees hunker into winter, […]
Writing into hope in an overwhelming world
We are living in an extraordinary times. Even those who have decided not to listen to or watch news cannot be unaware of the current situation in Israel and Gaza or that elsewhere other conflicts continue to rage. Most people are still reeling from the global pandemic that has set of a global wave of […]
Writing the cycles of life and death
In my last blog I wrote about transcendence, about how all humans reach beyond ourselves and have a sense of spirituality, irrespective of particular faith traditions. Part of writing about transcendence and acknowledging it in our art comes from our awareness of mortality. Our atoms will be returned to the universe. Living in cycles We’re […]
Writing into transcendence
As writers we take many diverse paths through areas of faith and ethics, but whatever the individual routes, writers are always concerned wth making meaning and with the ‘spiritual’ whether this is conceived within our without a particular religion or belief system. The sources of spirituality Recently, working with a group of prose writers, one […]
Writing the soft animal
I’ve been reading Melanie Challenger’s book, How to Be an Animal, a wonderful reminder that we are embodied and that, despite all that is extraordinary about humanity, we are not separate from the rest of nature. The poet Mary Oliver, summed this up in one of the finest lines of poetry, in ‘Wild Geese’: You […]
Writing the earth
Tomorrow I will be leaving Reagh—a friend’s cottage in rural Ireland, complete with a maze in which it is absolutely possible to get lost, a fairy glade, magical garden, and a small river. It’s an enchanted place where pipistrelle bats fly in the evenings and we might catch a glimpse of a large hare. Following […]