When April became May
Welcome! This newsletter comes to you direct from Salt Spring Island in Canada.
Today’s just a brief catch-up on April as I peek ahead to the promise of a Merrie May! All good wishes to you!
Naturally, I was captivated by this image taken from one of the Indo-British textile labels in an exhibition from the Museum of Art & Photography.
May isn’t all hearts and flowers though, look at these primal figures:
I came across this French festival card on wikipedia while looking up all the ‘Obby ‘Oss lore for May Day. Here he is in another version, in Padstow, Cornwall.
Plato Study: Absorb, rebalance, recalibrate
Until mid-April I was absorbed in two Platonic study courses, one on Plato’s Phaedrus, the other, Proclus’ 10 Doubts Concerning Providence. As happens with every Platonic course run by the wonderful Prometheus Trust, my life seems to go along the lines of the material being studied, and I contend with addressing these strong echoes as the sessions progress. It’s education, the drawing out of the soul’s remembrance. I’ve been absorbed as life rebalances and I recalibrate. Here’s a poetic reflection after reading from Phaedrus.
The scratches of letters onto the page, the grasshoppers singing all day long. They spit their tobacco ink into a child's palm remember? Barefoot Socrates just told a vision of the gods and grasshoppers sang along, sending through their observant eyes transmissions to their guiding beings. Intellectual wonder. But words on a page? Just letters made of flattened grasshoppers dead in the books folded and crushed angles lined in formation gone brown from preservation. Where's their song? Is that ever to be heard again?
Books and writings …
After winter’s incubation time, here’s a book project check-in.
I’m still working on republishing Shamcher Beorse’s book on China, A State of Almost Happiness. Happy to say it is nearly ready to go. More details here.
Get out and write. Since January I’ve been at the Salt Spring Island Public Library on Saturday mornings for a focused write-in. You know … with others! We set intention at the beginning, and wrap up at the end, but no reading, no critique, just doing the darn thing. Just sit and write for 40 minutes, take a short break and then go back for another 40. I’m using that time to work on my still unwieldy Wunderkabinett project.
Whew! Has it now turned the corner with a new draft in sight? Just around the next bend, or the one after that?
Moose Migration
I love slow TV. Along with many others around the world, I’ve been tuning in to the live moose migration feed for the past several weeks. This is a soothing real time nature connection to a Swedish landscape that is so similar to ours. Listening to the flowing water, Swedish birdsong and wind in the trees was a perfect counterpoint to getting the taxes done.
Click below to link to the live feed now - it will soon be over until next year.
I wanted to end this post with a reflection from a past year. Substack offered me a suggestion - and may have sent it automagically - apologies if you get this more than once:
(You might notice I haven’t mentioned the daily and hourly news churn that we’re all watching and reading. It’s a lot to keep up with and this is a slow newsletter. Smart commentators and others in the know seem to handle all that perfectly well.)
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I love thei idea of that Library "write in"
Thank you, Carol.