It’s been quite a week, the first I’ve worked full-time in an office for ten years. As it happens it’s the same company which took me on in 1965 (my first real job) and trained me in punched card equipment. These had been invented by Herman Hollerith and James Powers to speed up the US… Continue reading Witchcraft?
Adapting
Babylon town is not without footpaths, so I took my dictaphone for a walk and recorded some reflections in my lunch break. “My role is to provide computer support to an international company, let’s call it MaxiRam, to manage a logistical problem. I’m hoping that in return they will help manage my own logistical problem,… Continue reading Adapting
The Butterfly Phase
I love the idea of miracles and wish life to be filled with them: every day an Ebenezer Scrooge transformed into a kindly old man. So I won’t stop using the word, even though some people associate it with supernatural divine intervention. No wonder, if you put it that way, that rationalists protest, “There’s no… Continue reading The Butterfly Phase
Watercress & Angels
I went to the doctor about two unrelated issues. The upshot was, no action or prescription. But I came out of there a new man, with a spring in my step etc, which lasted at least two hours. All week I'd been dreading it: the inevitable physical examination and its possible verdict. The aftermath could… Continue reading Watercress & Angels
Ritual and Reason
Visits to the sunflower field in Downley, mentioned three times before, have become a private ritual. These unharvested crops survive like invincible peasant crones. In Italian, the sunflower is the girasole or “turn-sun”. Its sun-worship is enabled by fibrous sinews in its "neck", made of certain cellulose molecules, and these don’t decay as rapidly as… Continue reading Ritual and Reason
Self-doubt
“Self-doubt is what distinguishes man from the other animals.” What do you think of that? I wish I’d started an anthology of such pronouncements about 60 years ago, because I’ve been hearing them forever and sometimes made them up myself, as above. I expect someone has already done it and all you have to do… Continue reading Self-doubt
Mission to Babylon
MaxiRam and Babylon Town were my code names respectively for the Fujitsu Corporation and the town of Bracknell, in Berkshire It is the fate of beautiful English towns to have been raped by mass ownership of the motorcar. You can see the ugly scars: inner-ring roads, underpasses, flyovers, clusters of roundabouts, out-of town retail parks,… Continue reading Mission to Babylon
Healing
It’s not the done thing to bore the company with ongoing bulletins of one’s ailment, but when dramatic recovery is the punch-line, we can risk stretching a point. A week ago, I was troubled in mind, as I recorded in this post. I lit a candle in the church, said a prayer for the world… Continue reading Healing
Rainy day window
Three telephone wires pass through the upper branches of a yew tree at the front, so I’m drafting this quick, before the tree’s violent agitations snap them and my internet connection. Like a child in a bygone age, I sit wide-eyed on a wooden stool, gazing out at the storm of gusting wind and rain.… Continue reading Rainy day window
The placebo effect
The doctor was reassuring: I could continue exercise but avoid further 4-mile walks for a bit. He scribbled a prescription for anti-inflammatory drugs, both pill and gel. In two or three days, he promised, I would be back to normal. The oracle’s verdict cheered me so much, I walked out of the surgery without limping.… Continue reading The placebo effect
Why pain?
Since my last I have hardly ventured outside due to a pain in my thigh. It’s not swollen and there is no bruise, just a pain sometimes severe, as when walking or standing. I suppose a muscle got pulled on Friday when I went up to that mysterious US base. Each day since recovering from… Continue reading Why pain?
Community
I walked into town on an errand, with a sense of loss in the back of my mind. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” said the poet. He might as well have said “Things end.” I had let go of something, not from necessity, but “for the best”. It was time to finish it for… Continue reading Community
Enough of priesthoods
Once again I am grateful to Alistair for his blog post which argues that blogs can offer us a window for awareness of inner wisdom. That's a brief paraphrase of Alistair’s argument, avoiding his use of “exoteric” and “esoteric” (“for the many”, “for the few”): it will become apparent why. He compares blogging with traditional… Continue reading Enough of priesthoods
Dawn today
Went walking in the park, whilst the sun started to light up the sky.
Mozart and Angels
I’ve been preoccupied with engineering of late, getting my hands dirty on oily metal, instead of this digital thing, tapping on a keyboard to send digital signals, using digits of the hand, co-ordinated by the eye. Coincidentally, I've been watching The Train (1964), starring Paul Scofield, Burt Lancaster and Jeanne Moreau. The drama of the… Continue reading Mozart and Angels
Confession
“Those who want to push their boundaries to the extreme are driven to do so by chronic dissatisfaction, a disease so common these days that it’s seldom diagnosed: but one whose effect on behaviour makes the world unsatisfactory.” (paraphrase of the end of my last post) I’m sorry for writing something so confused and unsatisfactory… Continue reading Confession
The art of the possible
Much of what people call angelic inspiration could also be called coincidence, and that is fine by me. The Heavenly Host have not hired me as one of their PR consultants, so far as I know; which does not rule out the possibility that I have taken on the job unwittingly. At least, if we… Continue reading The art of the possible
Angelic Brightness
Simon Templar (“The Saint”) is the twentieth century Robin Hood. I have not encountered him on the screen and only read a few stories of his exploits, though I did recently thrill to the swashbuckling of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood directed by Michael Curtiz in 1938. And now I’ve encountered a co-author of The Saint.… Continue reading Angelic Brightness
Divine Anarchy
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 an imaginary reality. So I’m rather glad to find myself talking about bees and… Continue reading Divine Anarchy
Wasp honey
We’d had family over Christmas, and as luck would have it, just as they were leaving after two days and we were seeing them off, a couple of Karleen's friends arrived with a bag-full of drinks to spend the evening with us. To a solitary like myself, the boredom of exchanging inanities for several hours… Continue reading Wasp honey
Angels and us
At some point in the Christmas season the pathos converts to joy; just as grape juice needs only yeast and a little time to turn into wine. This is the Christmas miracle, repeated every year: “Peace, goodwill to men”. I used to think it was a supernatural thing, as though some power, God I suppose,… Continue reading Angels and us
In the days of low sun
High Wycombe is centred on a narrow river valley running east and west and surrounded by hills whose ridges and valleys radiate like spokes of a wheel. This morning I drove down Hamilton Road, which offers the broadest vista of the town as you descend the hill. It was soon after dawn with a hard… Continue reading In the days of low sun
Christmas Past
Yes, time can be a spiral, as Cream pointed out in her comment on my last. But it can seem like a circle of recurrence too, as the season evokes emotions long past. I’ve been wanting to write of life’s pathos for weeks now, but today it caught up with me, with an inescapable twisting… Continue reading Christmas Past
Time consumes; art distils
Time is like a forest fire, consuming everything in its path. Our most intense moments burn bright and hot, leaving nothing but fragile tatters of memory. Where would we be without art, snatching moments before they disintegrate into oblivion? What else but art, crucible for smelting the ore of our lives till we get a… Continue reading Time consumes; art distils
It hasn’t stopped raining …
It hasn’t stopped raining. Four inches were recorded yesterday in North Wales. Nobody would go out walking for fun in weather like this. I’m a nobody and I did. (thanks Kathy!) But more of that in my next. I’d bought a new bunch of flowers as instructed, despite my protestations to She Who Must be… Continue reading It hasn’t stopped raining …
In the bleak midwinter
Christmas is the most renowned of all the world’s festivals. It’s full of drama and contrast and potent symbols. Like many, I dread the tawdry commercialisation, sentimentality and ubiquity of this season’s trappings. But I see it differently now, having spent an entire year celebrating the daily advance and decline of Nature's rhythms in the… Continue reading In the bleak midwinter
Being a nobody
In the last post we were talking about ideas as wildfire: they burn and destroy, they have awesome power and are therefore dangerous. There is a school of thought very dominant in the world at present that power is intrinsically good. Needless to say this is an idea promoted exclusively by the powerful, just as… Continue reading Being a nobody
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
Why do ladybirds have spots?
Why do ladybirds have spots? I don’t know, but I’ve just guessed the reason for their shape. It gives them a hemispherical hard-top, like a sports car, to conserve heat during hibernation. Unlike other insects which seek cosy cracks against the weather, they can choose quite exposed places. I found these little bugs clinging to… Continue reading Why do ladybirds have spots?
Fragile
The eastern sky glowed golden yesterday morning, over the chimney pots and the tower of All Saints’ Parish Church. I saw the outline of a hundred wheeling birds, swallows I think, gathering for their departure to North Africa. Later as I went walking, some half-denuded shrubs were full of birds chirping and hopping excitedly from… Continue reading Fragile
The human condition
In the spring and summer of this year 2006 I opened all my senses, not just the usual five, to Nature. I’m searching here for an adequate word, but Nature will have to do. I exposed myself to the sublime and intricate world of non-human life, its pathos and grandeur. I discovered that lambs and… Continue reading The human condition
What Grandma told me…
In 1964 I became friends with my landlord’s son when he came to paint the window-frames. I was suffering from depression and he recommended a psychoanalyst by the name of Theodore Faithfull, a white-haired gentleman in his eighties, the grandfather of Marianne Faithfull, who had just recorded her first hit, "As Tears Go By". (These… Continue reading What Grandma told me…
Maslow’s pyramid
The last few posts have been linked, in a kind of serial discussion. I try to keep individual posts to a tolerable length—about 500 words. This allows breaks for input of comments, which greatly influence the direction we take. It’s an interactive process, “as in life”, like a plant growing in its environment. It’s an… Continue reading Maslow’s pyramid
Travelling light
(Continued from "one Piece of Baggage") After writing the previous piece, I was fired up to continue immediately, but life intervened, & the mood is a little different now. I wanted to get feedback from others before putting in a tentative answer of my own to the question I had raised. Thanks, Imemine, Serenity and… Continue reading Travelling light
One piece of baggage
If a sage today were to give one piece of advice, what would it be? What could best guide the lone seeker towards spiritual fulfilment whilst improving communal behaviour in our shared home, Earth? It’s easy to assume that the semi-mythical words of Buddha or Jesus are just as potent today as when first spoken… Continue reading One piece of baggage
Abundance
Today, it’s the privilege of many, but not all, to adopt whatever beliefs and practices we wish, and we have the internet to provide us with the texts and the fellow-pilgrims. It’s an odd contrast with the Europe of 500 years ago, which I sketched in my last. Then, it was your town or village… Continue reading Abundance
Bible-reading martyrs
In the Middle Ages (I used to study Medieval History, so I know) the religious and secular realms---Church and State---would either be at war with one another or in some kind of alliance, as in “The Holy Roman Empire”, which was neither holy nor Roman. In matters secular, foreign policy and internal laws were backed… Continue reading Bible-reading martyrs
New Morning
In the last few days something happened to me. It felt like “I have found my power”. In 1972 I read some shortened version of Valmiki’s Ramayana – in an English translation – which, if my memory has not distorted it, started with some yogis competing with one another for the acquisition of assorted powers… Continue reading New Morning
Young, heroic and lethal
Almost everyone is baffled by the strangeness of the world today. Not children, of course. They take as they find for adaptation is what they do. On the way to adulthood we choose either to swim with the tide, taking advantage of the way things are, or finding some token way to set ourselves against… Continue reading Young, heroic and lethal
Punishment or happiness
“Motivation is a major problem and one of the factors for people failing to meet their goals in life. So what do you do to get motivated?” I saw this question, with ensuing discussion, in a social media forum that I knew quite well (Ecademy, now defunct) Other participants didn't find it at all strange.… Continue reading Punishment or happiness
Powys and the dead frog
I don’t normally post extended quotes, but this—including the dead frog—expresses in more masterly language what I would have liked to write today. "When one considers how dependent we all are—especially such parasitic weaklings as artists, poets, writers, priests, philosophers—upon the hard one-track energies of the industrious producers and shrewd traders, it seems only fair… Continue reading Powys and the dead frog
Cause of insanity
Update on December 13th 2020: You don't hear the term "mental illness" these days. It's called "mental health issues", and embraces every kind of grief, depression and general unhappiness, especially including effects of loneliness arising from precautions against the corona-virus pandemic I’ve been wondering today what mental illness is. There’s a propaganda campaign going on… Continue reading Cause of insanity
Hornet’s nest
Walking in Bradenham Woods, I saw a huge wasp – a hornet. It was hovering about near the base of two tree-trunks, which had holes in. The one thing I know about hornets’ nests is not to stir them up. I’d come to look for Grim’s Ditch, but all I saw was footpaths just like… Continue reading Hornet’s nest
Like water
Some people plan out their lives, and desire to impose their will upon the world. I’m of a different persuasion now, more like a cloud, whose nature is to expand and constantly change its shape, and be evaporated by the sun and recondensed by colder layers of air and charged with electrical energy and made… Continue reading Like water
Uncertainty
I published an elaborate post on Sunday and pulled it back later. Self-doubt, self-criticism, the most important instruments in the artist’s bag, and what is life, if not a work of art? A man walks down the street He says why am I soft in the middle now Why am I soft in the middle… Continue reading Uncertainty
Having no enemies
Many people supposedly educated don’t understand that the meaning of a word is in its use. Dictionary compilers know this of course, for their task consists in collecting usage as lepidopterists collect butterflies, pinning them to a board and labelling them. Dictionary compilers follow, not lead. So, as Alice learned, we are free to use… Continue reading Having no enemies
Spirit
I rediscovered this piece while writing my new post, “Money, health and wisdom are the three pillars of our existence,” says Alistair, whose blog, like Jim’s, often provokes me. My disagreement is immediate and vehement. He invites me to ride my bicycle in the tramlines, but I’m not going there. Instead, I’ll obey the impulse… Continue reading Spirit
Being ready
On Tim Boucher's blog someone says in a comment: The keys to spirituality could not be passed on from the individual revelation if not for what becomes known as religion. As the writer admits, spirituality begins with an individual revelation. Can the essence of that revelation be passed on? No, it has to be experienced… Continue reading Being ready
By their fruits
I will tell you how it seems to me. That should go without saying, for what else can I truthfully tell? Up to a certain time in childhood I was true to myself, because “I didn’t know any better”. Then I tried to learn the ways of my society, how to fit in, and was… Continue reading By their fruits
What is life?
I’ve lived long enough to see lots of changes: both in the world and in me. I’ve been astonished in recent months, especially on solitary walks through the countryside, letting memories flow as they please, to discover that in essence I am the same person as I always was. Same person? This is extraordinary. Had… Continue reading What is life?
Testament
Rain beats insistently against the windowpane. I look out at two instant rivers rushing down the sloping drive between this house and its neighbour. When I first put this computer in the corner of the room, it was to avoid the distraction of looking out through the windows on either side, but that seems foolish… Continue reading Testament
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
The Pope & the Koran
It being Sunday, I heard a Christian service on BBC Radio 4, broadcast from a Church of England cathedral, so that its congregation could endorse the standard prayer: “Good morning, God. It’s us again, you remember, the righteous ones. Others may fail you but not us!” The theme for the service was World Peace, the… Continue reading The Pope & the Koran
All we ever need to know
Reposted August 7th 2022, with the following addition: "Learning is not just about acquiring knowledge. More important than reading, writing and arithmetic is learning what (u)not(/u) to do." Written way back when everything seemed so simple and fresh, and messages came unbidden out of a clear sky: "All we ever need to know is what… Continue reading All we ever need to know
“Things I just know”
Rescued from a Blogspot post published in September 2006 Jim says “Some things I just ‘know’ and believe in as fact without any proof.” He touches on a topic I wanted to speak about because it is vital to the understanding of all human culture: How we know what we know. I’ve written elsewhere that… Continue reading “Things I just know”
Hurried post
"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 Hurried post
from Blogger 2
Thursday, October 25, 2007 An ordinary valley For some months now, I’ve been drawn to the ordinary. I can’t exactly explain why. Perhaps something has rubbed off from walking the streets in Babylon Town and in this narrow valley. I live not far from little river which sneaks behind factories, workshops and the common dwellings… Continue reading from Blogger 2
Two Vincents
There are a number of things puzzling me, and I don’t just mean how other people think and behave, and the consequences thereof in the visible world. I am puzzling to my own self. Siegfried commented on my last, à propos Vincent van Gogh, thus: He was being himself and being well-adjusted to society and… Continue reading Two Vincents
Pheasant
Where we live, there's a magnificent network of public footpaths and bridleways, allowing everyone to explore the Chiltern Hills. It would be be possible to roam even more widely, if it were not for various signs saying, “PRIVATE – please keep out”. These restrictions are to encourage the breeding of this creature—the pheasant. I found… Continue reading Pheasant
What is soul?
I have not been finding it easy to write about soul. I’m not interested in traditions, scriptures or beliefs. If I cannot know what soul is from direct experience, then why should I care about it? I liked what Jim wrote in his comment to Sunday’s blog: Soul is Pure desire for life. Even in… Continue reading What is soul?
Is Soul Poured into Flesh?
In everyday life I act as though there is a power beyond Nature, that brings luck, answers prayers and sometimes sends miracles. When catastrophe strikes, I assume that in some way it is all for the best, at least in my own life and the small circle of those I know well. I accept that… Continue reading Is Soul Poured into Flesh?
I am an animal
To be a specimen of homo sapiens sapiens is to be an animal. Charles Darwin put this challenge in the way of thinkers, not just a milestone but a great boulder in the pathway of knowledge, which till then had been directed towards the supremacy of God, whether as the great designer, or the goal… Continue reading I am an animal
Sent to boarding-school
From an unhappy household I was sent to boarding school at the age of 6, as it happens on the day that my half-sister was born. I'd been told nothing, just taken there Out of this time, I spent nearly eight weeks in hospital with my leg in plaster — not a fracture, but a… Continue reading Sent to boarding-school
Flat-Bottomed Clouds
What triggers the experience of magic I care not. For me it is immersion in Nature. Wild flowers, trees, caterpillars, hills, seashore, clouds. I had a guru who advised focusing on the breath as a way to enlightenment. It was boring, and though I did it for years and years, I can’t see what good… Continue reading Flat-Bottomed Clouds
Magic of day and night
Some years ago I had a vivid experience of the night world. The location was prosaic enough: Cherry Garden Lane in a leafy suburb of Folkestone, late November. But these labels apply to the ordered daytime world. At night, when I stumbled on it first, my footfalls echoed in the lamplit clearing of an archaic… Continue reading Magic of day and night
From a nest of terrorists (2)
The trouble caused by these terrorist plots goes on and on. While hand-cream is still used in this household without triggering major incident, something nasty nearly happened to me this morning. I was returning from the petrol station with a copy of the local paper. I learned that suspects have been arrested in every street… Continue reading From a nest of terrorists (2)
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
Blackberry jam
Karleen succumbed to a flu-like virus yesterday and stayed off work. As her resident physician I prescribed aspirin, white rum, limes and honey. Later, as a booster to these medications, I went to get chocolate. Walking by the scenic route to the supermarket — over the hill instead of round it — I took a… Continue reading Blackberry jam
An outsider
I glory in my sure-footedness, and the comfort of a buttoned cardigan†, on a chilly August day, walking through a stubble-field in a slow insistent drizzle. My path takes me behind a row of sturdy houses. Their backyards look untidy from the rear, with canvas chairs left outside to get wet, children’s toys left strewn… Continue reading An outsider
What makes me uneasy
Today I am following on from my previous post and the comments made by Darius and Rama. They felt that it did not really matter what someone believes. Perhaps they take the view that there is some inner Truth ready to be found which will put an end to all divisive dogmas. Perhaps. But we… Continue reading What makes me uneasy
Getting things done
I walked to town on a mission to get Karleen's gold chain fixed, and tried two jewellers: “Do you do repairs?” They consulted their price lists. The first said £15. The second said between £12 and £15. “The chain cost £14 new,” I explained. They shrugged. I could have tried a Pakistani jeweller. He might… Continue reading Getting things done
Back streets, oily hands
There is a conversation going on here and here, perhaps everywhere, about goodness. I’m aware that the discourse in the US is frequently about good and evil. Bush refers to evil terrorists not just as individuals but as an Axis of Evil. Meanwhile, America is considered evil, as Irish humorist Dylan Moran puts it, by “the… Continue reading Back streets, oily hands
Wake up!
Petrol costs more than gasoline but it's still too cheap. They are of course two names for the same thing. Gasoline (US) has always been cheaper than petrol (UK). We don't have our own oil-wells. When the price really goes up it will hurt, but life on Earth will improve. Communities will be restored, obesity… Continue reading Wake up!
Image and Ecstasy
Originally published on perpetual-lab.blogspot.com After the suicide of my old camera, now is the short period of mourning before the arrival of a new one. Meanwhile, I borrowed 6 books on painting in pastel from the public library, not in order to “learn how to do it properly”, but to see if there were any… Continue reading Image and Ecstasy
Responsibility
The Simpsons is hard on religion. Poor Ned Flanders thinks it his Christian duty to persist in loving-kindness to Homer, who’s unfailingly rude and never returns things he’s borrowed. His verbal tics (“Okely-dokely!” Home Sweet-diddly Home!”) are the only evidence of his suppressed urge to go berserk against such an unlovable next-door neighbour. What about… Continue reading Responsibility
Death of a camera
Yesterday I managed to upset a seagull. This morning my digital camera committed suicide. I dare say an electrician would have told me not to replace the batteries whilst it was connected to a 3-volt adaptor, but this is merely a rational explanation, and electricians are notoriously cautious. They are to be trusted as much… Continue reading Death of a camera
Bledlow Ridge
I'm just learning how to use these chalks (oil pastels), but was quite pleased at the result. We sat on a rug with a hedge behind us, and I peered over the ripening wheat field—in case you can't recognise it— to view this scene.
Seagull territory
I posted this in July 2006 . Since then the seagulls have got still more arrogant, the red kites wheel and mew in every sky, the crows and pigeons and magpies make love and war our fence-tops. You need only look out the window. And what is it with the magpies—and rats? Has the coronavirus… Continue reading Seagull territory
Sex Therapy book
I've no idea where this snippet came from, perhaps this book, which I've written about in another post Sexual problems are not necessarily a reflection of a relationship's quality. They may, however, affect this if the couple are unable to manage any resulting anxiety, shame or distress. Thus, the 'problem' may have been easily fixed,… Continue reading Sex Therapy book
Sex Therapy
The other day I called at a friend’s house to give her a book and she gave me one in return, by a sex therapist. Before you wonder the significance of this exchange, I hasten to add that the book’s co-author, a professional writer, is a friend of hers, and presumably had left her with… Continue reading Sex Therapy
Caterpillar
On a warm but overcast day, we went up Lodge Hill. With my box of pastels and a sketch pad, I felt like Vincent van Gogh going out to do a day’s work. Before I knew its real name, we (kids and I) used to call it Butterfly Hill, because in August particularly it was… Continue reading Caterpillar
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 Cosmic Ordering Service
Updated on August 28th, 2025, as Ottokar's is sadly no more I have written on this blog about how I’ve beamed out my needs to the Universe, and had them promptly delivered, like pizza to the doorstep. I was careful not to join the chorus of New Age coaches who proclaim, “You, too, can learn… Continue reading The Cosmic Ordering Service
A Grave Spot Unearthed
X marks the spot. PH: "public house" (Crown Inn) A few weeks ago, Karleen and I had taken a cross-country walk near the ancient Buckinghamshire village of Penn. The Penns of Penn were reputed to be closely connected to William Penn of Pennsylvania, but in any case many religious dissenters from these parts had emigrated… Continue reading A Grave Spot Unearthed
a wayfarer’s notes 