Things they are a'changin', here in this wonderful free space with no strings attached alive and growing since 2006. Time for a bit of pruning for a start: the bin is filling up. Then there are the damaged posts, where pictures have gone and got lost by some mysterious process I don't understand. But here's… Continue reading Straw Dogs, Wild Flowers and — this Moment
Category: writing
The Charabanc of Trippers
previously published 13th May 2014 on Perpetual-Lab, somehow lost in transit I didn’t explain what happened to the book Wayfaring, which was briefly published under Creative Commons in pdf, before being withdrawn from free distribution. I feel no compulsion to give a reason, but here are two. (a) Uncertainty (b) a decision to postpone publication… Continue reading The Charabanc of Trippers
The Book of Disquiet . . .
. . . to be continued in my next Fernando Pessoa's book is my favourite of all time, and I'd like to share with you some of the things I love his writing for and revere the man, not just the author, for his profound insights about life, the world and everything. He achieved this… Continue reading The Book of Disquiet . . .
a Moment Captured in Time
Originally drafted 7th January 2007 on "perpetual-lab" in Blogger and never published there. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve chosen eccentricity as an alternative spiritual path. I was encouraged down this track by reading John Cowper Powys, who I consider to be the greatest novelist in English of the twentieth century, despite being hardly known.… Continue reading a Moment Captured in Time
Planning One’s Endgame
When I set my mind to it, this head is crowded with enough memories to spend the rest of my life writing it all down, supposing I aim for two hours a day. But how do I know which bits will be of interest to future generations?. Modesty, probably false, wants to add "if any".… Continue reading Planning One’s Endgame
Don’t Be Abashed
Originally published on August 18th, 2010 I’ve agreed to help publicize DBA Lehane’s competition, which is to help publicize his website. I don’t normally do much to publicize anything. Perhaps I just want to show you my own entry. I’ve never written a short story before, never mind a short short one. It is exactly… Continue reading Don’t Be Abashed
Sailing into WebSpace
A while ago I created this website. It was before the days of blogs. I used some free kind of web design software. It was harder to use than blogger or WordPress, or so it seemed at the time, but provided some lovely backgrounds. The site is ian.mulder.clara.net. You can view it from any browser,… Continue reading Sailing into WebSpace
Joy without a cause
I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. Night shall be thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope. Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hopeInspired by G.K. Chesterton's Ballad of the White… Continue reading Joy without a cause
While Unsleeping
A kind of liberation ensues when you accept the situation, displeasing as it may be, that you find yourself in at this moment. For example insomnia & remembrance of past mistakes—to name but one. For me, they are synonymous. Liberation is an art, the act of turning something round the other way.To embrace the negative… Continue reading While Unsleeping
The Steps
From Bryan White So how did I get here? And what do I do now? There's a point when your kids are still little. They're little, but they're not babies anymore. They're starting to need their space. You're not just a young couple with a baby; you've officially reached that turning point where you're a… Continue reading The Steps
An open letter to the person complaining . . .
Dear sir (or madame, or however you're supposed to formally address the fragile star children from the planet Zir who have recently come to walk among us), I saw a comment you left somewhere the other day, saying that you "can't stand" when people start sentences (or maybe it was paragraphs) with the word "and."… Continue reading An open letter to the person complaining . . .
Carbon Footprint
From Bryan White In my last post, I gave a few examples of song lyrics that I claimed "created a piece of common ground." For the sake of giving a more complete picture, I figured that I should also try to give an example of poetry or lyrics that, in my opinion, fail in this… Continue reading Carbon Footprint
The Poetic
From Bryan White For a long time, I was divided between two possible directions that I wanted go with my writing. On the one hand, I felt like I wanted to write something "intellectual" for lack of a better word, something that was like a complicated machine with all kinds of ideas and moving parts,… Continue reading The Poetic
Rooted here
I've never been constrained by any sense of what this site is supposed to be about. It's always arisen from the urge to write a post, in the context of this moment in space and time. The topics have been innumerable, but after all these years I've realized there's no need to index them, when… Continue reading Rooted here
Jotted psalm
We cannot own love, only glimpse, feel it touch us, pass through, dwell in us. We are more or less feeble receivers, picking up signals from an unnown transmitter. Science is a petty thing before love, for it wants to know, grasp, possess, dismantle to fragments harness, claim, proclaim. Yet science is a thing: wonderful,… Continue reading Jotted psalm
How we got here, where we go next
I had pretty much done with A Wayfarer’s Notes, actually, didn’t feel loyalty to it any more, only a certain nostalgia, as when you pass a house where you once lived. You see it now owned by someone else, and realize that the fabric of the building, the bricks and mortar, are not what made… Continue reading How we got here, where we go next
The Exchange of Gifts
As Dr Johnson put it:Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Even a personal health scare, when you don’t really know what’s going on, does concentrate the mind to an extent, till you decide that it’s going to be all right… Continue reading The Exchange of Gifts
The Nature of the I
The “I” is easily defined. It is what I mean when I say “I”. There is no confusion about it, no argument as to whether this “I” is real. René Descartes nailed it: cogito, ergo sum. Such simplicity has been wrecked by the introduction of “ego”, a weasel word so tricky as to defy… Continue reading The Nature of the I
Indefinite Sabbatical
Undeterred by the sign, I had my first and last kangaroo-burger here, on May 23rd 2012, somewhere in Amsterdam, near a canal.This blog has been going nearly ten years now. Why? Occupational therapy, mania, addiction? May the world judge. It’s time to take a rest, of uncertain duration. There are other things to explore, other… Continue reading Indefinite Sabbatical
Fingers and Moon
I was dumbfounded: confounded and struck dumb at the same time. It was a congenial place to be, I discovered, being content to stay there a while, sheltered in the dignity and grace of not knowing, that is, shedding false knowledge. . . . But now I find myself wanting to speak, for which I… Continue reading Fingers and Moon
The printing-factory
I wonder why, out of the mass of all we forget, some inconsequential things stick in our minds. Perhaps they chime with our destiny, that elusive future no one can see till it arrives. And when it does, perhaps something from our rag-bag of memories may “ring a bell”, as if it had been foreshadowed.… Continue reading The printing-factory
The Sun-dial factory
I’ve written several times about the factory across from our bedroom and how the morning sun progressively reaches down from the tips of its roof. When you wake and look out, it gives you an idea of what time it is, taking the season into account. On many nights and days too, I see the… Continue reading The Sun-dial factory
The King James Version
In my last I said “I hope to return to this theme in another post”. I had mentioned the Bible, in the King James Version completed in 1611. In its time and for several centuries it was Holy Writ, an authority not to be questioned by its readers, till developments in science, evolutionary theory and… Continue reading The King James Version
Touching Earth
Updated on 25th May 2024, our 19th wedding anniversary. Yesterday was a special birthday, so I made a special card: a photo from before we knew one another, and a reminder of a rather special holiday in south-west Wales —a cabin on a farm, surrounded by tame animals. I've left the words unedited: they seem… Continue reading Touching Earth
The magic fence
It’s been raining every day for weeks. Catching a cold gave me an additional reason to stay indoors, but the other morning, in the bright lull after a heavy downpour, I ventured out for a couple of errands, taking the usual shortcut to the shops on Ledborough Road, through the derelict school yard and the… Continue reading The magic fence
Dreaming spires
Oxford is everything that my own town is not, and it’s only 30 miles away. I decided Park and Ride was the best way to enter in triumph, using my new electronic bus pass, on a superb day in June, discovering that the students are in exams and the streets are a motley of tourists.… Continue reading Dreaming spires
Possessed by a god
Suppose I took it on myself to explain what a blog is, to someone who’d never encountered the idea. How would I go about it? Is there a common root to which all blogs are connected? I’m not thinking so much of topics, which are clearly as diverse as the authors themselves. But I wonder… Continue reading Possessed by a god
Your diary
By way of distraction from the mind-blowing world of Friedrich Nietzsche, I’ve been adding new functions to the diary mentioned in an earlier post. We live in a world where new technology must sometimes struggle to compete with the tried-and-tested. I’m very fond of fountain-pens. It is easy to be sentimentally attached to the flow… Continue reading Your diary
The secret life of strangers
How is it possible to remember a moment when nothing actually happened? I don’t know, but such moments are the ones I remember most vividly. There were some major works being done on the railway line which affected the bridge above, in the middle of the village’s main street. In consequence, traffic on the bridge… Continue reading The secret life of strangers
Such is Life
The postman left a package which felt like a small book. Not expecting any such thing, I was delighted; then opened it, and was Deloitted. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is the current incarnation of a company I left in 1985, known then as Touche Ross & Co, Accountants. I was in their management consultancy, but now… Continue reading Such is Life
Unto the Hills
“When I was someone else, that I am not now ...” continued. Let us assume that each one of us contains multiple personalities. Vincent exists in the written word, is not quite the same as his author, who inhabits other dimensions never written down. Vincent is several persons, separated by time-slices, spliced together into fragments… Continue reading Unto the Hills
The mysterious impulse
It would be idle to inquire why Mr Razumov has left this record behind him. It is inconceivable that he should have wished any human eye to see it. A mysterious impulse of human nature comes into play here. Putting aside Samuel Pepys, who has forced in this way the door of immortality, [we observe… Continue reading The mysterious impulse
Body consciousness
My body is an instrument, both scientific and musical. I use it to discover the world through the senses. Meanwhile, it vibrates with its own frequencies, for no other purpose but joy and sensuous pleasure. “Body consciousness” needs what Wikipedia calls “disambiguation”. In the media, which is to say in the lowest common denominator of… Continue reading Body consciousness
The Long Journey to Now
Click to enlarge. On the back is pencilled “June 15th 1919 Morgan & brother officers” in my grandmother’s writing. I think Morgan is the third from the left I’m walking through Hughenden Park, pondering the suitcase of old photos, wondering what I can tell and what I cannot. There is no point in showing the… Continue reading The Long Journey to Now
Blazing a trail
In these pieces I have a consistent aim, like a would-be acrobat endlessly repeating the same manoeuvre, aiming at perfect execution, to demonstrate something to the audience, using his entire body and soul in the demonstration, so that the slightest distraction such as a thought or an itch somewhere on his skin would affect the… Continue reading Blazing a trail
Religion in Public Life
It’s apparent from the Web that in America religion is as much an irritant on the public consciousness as politics. I mean, you get bitten by the media and you can’t help scratching all the time. So the agenda is stolen. I don’t want to react to the state of religion in America or in… Continue reading Religion in Public Life
Unblocking
I’ve been glad of the chance to edit some of Ghetufool’s work lately. Writing is something I’m driven to by an impulse that won’t be denied. So what to do when writer’s block strikes? Turn to religion, I suppose, as people do when they feel vulnerable and melancholy. A fellow-blogger* distinguishes “the stratagem of God… Continue reading Unblocking
Writing Instrument
We think we know somebody. They think they know us. It’s nice because we can always be surprised. My son takes present-buying seriously. He went to a hippy shop and toyed with getting me a piece of angel merchandise or a Native American dream-catcher; but fortunately thought better. I received a hastily-wrapped book and opened… Continue reading Writing Instrument
Profane influence
A reader of this blog and heaven-sent friend [Ghetu!], whose anonymity I shall defend to my last breath, unless he declares himself of his own accord, complains to me thus: I have decided to stop reading your blog. It has such a profane influence on me that I have stopped thinking in the way I… Continue reading Profane influence
One thought fills immensity*
Every thought could fill a book. It’s the middle of the night now. My dream was so powerful and enigmatic that it woke me up marvelling. I was having a reunion with my first wife. We were laughing. Her face was radiant. We were very good friends. Why did we ever split up? Why did… Continue reading One thought fills immensity*
Mill Park
Restored from corrupted version published on 7th March 2007, when I was working on contract at Fujitsu There have not been many pictures decorating this blog lately. I almost feel like renouncing photography as a means of trying to capture the world’s beauty, because it cannot reproduce the glowing mysterious surfaces that I see. I… Continue reading Mill Park
Divine Anarchy
Twilight on Christmas Day: Dashwood Mausoleum (illumined) & St Lawrence’s Church with Golden Ball I want to speak theologically, to say what I think about God and angels. But then, it’s a bit hard putting abstractions into words. No, that’s completely wrong. It is all too easy to put abstractions into words, and give them… Continue reading Divine Anarchy
Like wildfire
I woke in the night and fell victim to a train of thought, so insistent in its claim to significance that the only way to shut it off was turn on a bedside light and scribble some words in my notebook, raw and unpolished. It did the trick, I returned to slumber and then in… Continue reading Like wildfire
View from the Hill
I thought I might develop my "best", i.e. most "serious" ideas into a book. But as I'm addicted to blogging, I'd continue to use this space as often as possible, cultivating a wry, self-deprecating manner: for the interaction, for the moral support, a boost to a flagging confidence. The words for my writing, the best… Continue reading View from the Hill
Being universal
The more personal, the more universal. I saw something like this on some comments to a blog, a while ago. This is what I have been struggling to formulate ever since I came across the works of John Cowper Powys, a great author who has yet to be discovered by most of the world’s discerning… Continue reading Being universal
From a nest of terrorists
High Wycombe is no different now that it has been exposed as the home of several “monsters of evil”, who wanted to “commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale”. It’s still a place where races and religions work seamlessly together. Good neighbourliness is the norm. This morning my car’s battery ran down again. So I… Continue reading From a nest of terrorists
Zorba the Greek
"I’m glad not to have yet seen the film of Zorba the Greek, for it is the book which speaks to me, as I savour a few pages for the first time each day. The film must be full of colour and atmosphere and dancing and dulcimer-playing, but Kazantzakis in the book covers spiritual search… Continue reading Zorba the Greek
The price of civilisation
While I was living in Jamaica, I managed to help earn a few pennies by typing and editing literary and academic texts. One such was a student’s philosophy dissertation. She was not an agile writer or an original thinker but she did put together some others’ work in a coherent way, to the effect that… Continue reading The price of civilisation
a wayfarer’s notes 