A Lifetime's Literature

I want to say a little more about the incorporation of my blogs Turnstone and Words and Silence within my main blog The Solitary Walker.

Turnstone was a repository for all sorts of extracts and quotations I came across, found memorable, and wanted to record. As I stated in the blog's strapline, it was a home for Shards, Sweepings, Stealings, Sayings, Secrets. Sometimes I would add a short commentary, or a few words of expansion or explanation from my own viewpoint.

Words and Silence was more of a personal and introspective blog, covering subjects such as mysticism, music, the emotional life and . . . dieting! The strapline, rather grandly, was A Journey towards Ecstatic Truth.

Bringing everything back together under the one roof I find an exciting and liberating prospect. And one of my great desires is to widen, deepen and enrich the vein I'd already started to mine in these two satellite blogs. Walking, hiking, pilgrimage, photography, music and my other passions will still predominate. But I want to add another theme, a theme which is the theme of a lifetime, or many lifetimes: the exploration of literature, literature in its widest sense.

The books I choose may be novels or short stories, poetry or play collections, biographies, essays, books on history, natural history, travel, popular science, philosophy, myth or religion. Or whatever I feel like reading, in fact. I'll be led in my choices by a lot of whim and serendipity, but certain sub-themes and connections should emerge.

Why don't you travel along with me? Related posts will necessarily be erratic, but I hope they will be a mainstay of this blog for many years to come. This will be a personal journey of discovery for me, and if it becomes a journey of discovery for others too, then it will be twice-worthwhile.

Pointers towards future posts: I've just finished reading Henry Miller's Stand Still like the Hummingbird and Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross. I'm now looking at The Interior Castle by St Teresa of Ávila and Karen Armstrong's A History of God. If anyone wishes to read any of these texts alongside me, then that would be an added bonus.    

Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose

I've been tweaking the layout of my blog slightly. I hope you think it's an improvement. I've simplified things by adding a bullet-point menu near the top of the sidebar. Do check out the 'About' page, though I've still to complete the 'Links' and 'Camino' pages. I've also decided to incorporate my blogs Turnstone and Words and Silence into my main blog, The Solitary Walker. After all, this is the blog most people read. So in future there'll be more literary and personal stuff on TSW, but it will still keep its main focus of walking. That's walking in the widest possible sense, of course: walking through landscapes, walking in words, walking in the mind . . . 

Internet Activity

I thought it might be useful to give a summary of my relevant Internet activity — it covers my four blogs, my poetry journal and my two Facebook pages.

My main blog, The Solitary Walker. This summer it will have been online for six years. Yes, it's about walking — but many other things too, such as music, books, poetry, philosophy, Buddhism, landscape, natural history, photography, cookery, Marmite and country dancing (only joking about the country dancing). I am always delighted to receive comments on this and on all my other blogs. 

My blog Turnstone features quotations from and thoughts about the books I've been reading, and other odd snippets besides, or as the subtitle defines it: 'Shards, Sweepings, Stealings, Sayings, Secrets'. 

Words and silence is an intimate and highly personal blog concerned with self-discovery. You might call it 'a journey towards ecstatic truth'.

You will find an archive of all my poems at walking in words.

This is the site of my poetry magazine, The Passionate Transitory. It comes out quarterly, and submissions are most welcome. The Passionate Transitory's Facebook page is here. Why don't you pay a visit? More 'Likes' are always appreciated!

Finally this is my own personal Facebook page. If I've known you a while as a regular blog reader and commenter, why don't you call in and become a Facebook Friend?

Citations Quotidiennes

Every day I like ideally to walk a little, read a little, write a little, blog a little, cook a little, garden a little, meditate a little, love a little and eat a little Marmite. Oh, and learn a new word in French. It helps me keep sane and focused in an increasingly mad world.

Turnstone seeking sustenance in a shell.

A new month, a new beginning. A fresh intention is to enter on my Turnstone blog any striking, meaningful, illuminating, witty or inspiring phrase, line, poem or passage I've come across in my daily reading. Or perhaps something I've heard on the radio or eavesdropped in the street. You can click here for these small revelations.

Definition of 'turnstone': a migratory shorebird of the plover family that turns over stones in search of food.

Blog Mania

To have one blog is exemplary; to have two is stretching the limits; but to have three, God forbid four, my dear reclusive writer, is utter madness. OSCAR WILDE

See what's happening musically on Turnstone ...

Click the pic

... and emotionally on words and silence ...

Click the pic

Words And Silence

The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both. THOMAS MERTON

I'm experimenting with a new blog which will run in conjunction with this one. You might call it a 'soul journey' blog: a tentative, personal odyssey towards 'ecstatic truth' (or the illumination of something that is beyond sheer facts, as Werner Herzog described the aim of his films). It's called words and silence, and you can find it here or linked from my sidebar. (There's a 'Followers' widget if you wish to subscribe.) I won't be posting as frequently as I do for this blog, but the posts will be longer and more 'in depth'. My intention is to map the interior rather than the exterior journey, using literature, poetry, myth, religion and philosophy as signposts along the way. At least, that's my rather grand intention! We'll see how things develop ...

Words are all we have. SAMUEL BECKETT

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

No Comment

I've been composing and trying to send many long and beautifully wrought comments of late, comments full of pith and moment, comments as sparkling as dew on early morning grass, comments worthy of Blogger Comment Awards if not the very Nobel Prize for Comments ... but sadly, and frustratingly, they've all been lost in cyberspace because of IE and Blogger hitches and glitches. I thought I'd sorted the problem out, but now realise I haven't. As I don't want to go insane, I'm going to leave things for a while, and perhaps pray for help to the Great God Google. In the meantime, rest assured I'm still quietly reading all your blogs with enormous pleasure ... 

The Road Forward



Camino, Spain



A night full of talking that hurts, / my worst held-back secrets. Everything / has to do with loving and not loving. / This night will pass. / Then we have work to do. RUMI

I have a dose of blogger's block. But I'm not worried. Like an attack of mild depression, I know it will pass. I've been blogging regularly and intensively for several months. Now something's telling me to stand back a little and reflect on 'Life, the Universe and Everything.'  Besides, there's not a lot of point in blogging unless one has something to say and is eager to communicate it. Blogging is not a duty or an obligation. From my own point of view, blogging is an act of love and joy, a release of the self and from the self, a reciprocal process of giving and receiving, a freedom of expression, a glorious anarchy, a mysterious alchemy. A blog is not art, nor is it a journal or a column or a letter or a commonplace book; it's not a prose poem, nor a stream of consciousness, nor a means of therapy  - though it can contain elements of all these. But it can't be any of these things successfully if it's not done enthusiastically and fairly spontaneously. Blogs which are forced, or have ulterior motives, or want to sell you something, or don't tell the truth, or don't come from the heart, stick out a mile as not genuine, and no one wants to read them. 

Truth to tell, after several difficult and turbulent years - which saw the death of both my parents - this is a watershed year for my wife and I. Changes are happening and we want to embrace them. It's a year when we're making decisions rather than postponing them, when we're putting down roots rather than being blown about in the wind. After endless debates about whether to move house or not, and whether to go and live in France or Spain, we've decided to stay where we are. It's good here in the village. We're lucky to have a nice house and garden with the mortgage paid off. So why move? I think you have to have a compelling reason to do so. It can also be very expensive and stressful. So now we've plans to do stuff to our existing house and garden - to create a bigger and better vegetable plot for one thing, and to try and be more self-sufficient. I've embarked on a new career too. I'm starting a proofreading and copy-editing course soon, which will hopefully lead to plenty of freelance work. I've also got a new Roland keyboard, so I'm playing again. And, of course, all the great pleasures in my life - reading, writing, walking, blogging, eating Marmite - will continue. 

Looks like my blogger's block has been broken, doesn't it? Seems like I just can't keep quiet for long..!

Boblo Picasso: Two Teachers In One

For a post which blends photography, Bob Dylan, Pablo Picasso, the personal, the subliminal - and fish trucks (!) - in such a satisfying way, and all within the context of a walk, try reading this from the blog Talking 37th Dream With Rainbow (Rumors Of Peace). I've been following this blog of Amanda Wald Rachie's for a long time now - indeed it's one of my favourites - and I rarely find anything in there that's not illuminating or of value. I'd like to write further about this blog - and a few others I read regularly - in more detail in a later post.

Art is a lie that tells the truth. PICASSO

It takes a long time to become young. PICASSO

Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now. BOB DYLAN

Turnstone

I have a new blog. It's called TURNSTONE: Shards, Sweepings, Stealings, Sayings, Secrets. You can find it here.

I've been uncovering lots of quotations, ideas, thoughts, poems, jewels which there isn't room for on this blog. So I'm putting them on the new one. The posts will be short and frequently updated. Please take a look if you have a moment. I hope you enjoy and will revisit! Do tell me what you think, and feel free to comment.

The turnstone is a shoreline wading bird with black, white and chestnut plumage. As its name implies, it turns over stones - in a ceaseless quest for food.

500th Post

It seems incredible, but this is the 500th post since I began blogging nearly 2 years back. I started on 23 June 2007, to be exact. This was my very 1st post all those bits and bytes ago. I see that I set the 'literary walking' tone there and then! I don't want to make a big song and dance about it, but I'm quietly pleased I've got this far. I've enjoyed and continue to enjoy the whole cyber-journey.

I'm staying once more at my father's house, my old family home, and preparing it for sale. It stands in quite an isolated position, deep in the country, a mile from the nearest village, in a remote part of north-west Lincolnshire called The Isle of Axholme. It's deliciously lonely.

The picture was taken, looking westward from this house, one evening a few weeks ago.

I'd like to end with a quote I've been eyeing, magpie-like, on Graceful Yoga's excellent blog:

The church says: The body is a sin
Science says: The body is a machine
Advertising says: The body is a business
The body says: I am a fiesta

Eduardo Galeano

(Do check out the Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano - he sounds really interesting, especially if you're already into South American authors like Llosa and Márquez. I must admit I'd never heard of him until encountering his name on Graceful Yoga's blog.)

Wasn't Born To Follow

She may beg and she may plead and she may argue with her logic/Mention all the things I’ll lose that really have no value/Tho’ I doubt that she will ever come to understand my meaning/In the end she’ll surely know I wasn't born to follow. Wasn't Born To Follow. GOFFIN & KING.

The legendary Carole King is over in the UK at the minute promoting her Tapestry: The Legacy Edition release. I remember that record was never far away from my turntable in the early 1970s - along with James Taylor's Sweet Baby James, John Lennon's Imagine and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Yeah, I know, maverick bolshie bloggers that we are, we 'wasn't born to follow', right? Nevertheless -I finally got round to putting up the 'Followers' widget on my blog.

So I suppose that's OK, then. Blogs is different. You know they are! We can now follow (at least a little bit). Without a trace of guilt or the tiniest compromise to our rebellious individualism!

I'm quite overwhelmed by the steady stream of visitors to my blog - both the one-offs and occasionals, and the loyal core who come back time and again. Thanks so much for reading - and commenting. I do appreciate it.

Things Change, Things Stay The Same

Although it may look fanciful, this is a real garden (probably with real toads in it). It's the garden at Blickling Hall, a Jacobean house in North Norfolk open to the public.

Near Blickling Hall lies Pensthorpe Nature Reserve and Gardens, where this picture of avocets was taken. Although they may look wild, these particular birds were fairly tame and mildly captive.

Sometimes things look imaginary that are real; sometimes things look real that are fake.

Sometimes you have to get out of the garden; sometimes you have to get out of the birdhouse.

As I predicted in December at the end of my last Camino walk, changes are on the way this year. But that's fine. I try to welcome change. I think change is something to be embraced not feared, if possible. I'm starting a new job very soon - and this job will take me away from the house more, and will involve long, sometimes bizarre hours (no, I'm not going to be a cat burglar).

But I intend to carry on blogging, and enjoying my favourite blogs, and to keep on walking and reading and thinking and doing all the things I love doing. It's just that my posts, and my comments on others' posts, may be a little more sporadic. But please do continue to visit. I will blog when I can, and when I feel I have something to say.

(Both photos were taken by myself on a trip to North Norfolk last year. A trip I didn't blog about at the time. But we don't blog about every single thing that happens us. Or do we?)

What A Morning!!!

Exclams are for hysterics. Ellipses are for sensitives. Colons are for bullies. Please: can we have all the punctuation, or none...

No email for an hour. The bastards.

Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head. My Dearly Beloved was still snoring away, so I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. To be faced with A NEAT PILE OF VOMIT NEXT TO THE COOKER!!! The cat had been sick again... Omigod... I cleaned it up WITH THE DISHCLOTH!!! as I couldn't find another cloth... What WILL my DB say? Cooked breakfast... Specially for all my non-UK readers, this was my English breakfast... commonly known over here as "a heart attack on a plate":

Mmmm... Now, doesn't that look good?!!! (Tho' sadly no black pudding...) I was still a little hungry after the fry-up so I popped some bread into the toaster. Unfortunately it was BURNT TO A CINDER as I had the setting up WAY too high!!! Luckily there were a few more slices left of the loaf, so I popped in another couple (after turning down the heat setting, natch!!!) and this time they were TOASTED TO A TREAT!!! Here's a pic of our toaster (£7.50 from Tescos - not bad, huh?!!!):

Gastronomically satisfied, I checked for comments on my blog. NONE AT ALL!!! Where ARE the buggers? Surely SOME of them were awake all night reading this stuff?!!! Switched on the TV. More death and destruction in the Middle East - and a cat squashed by a motorbike in Stoke-on-Trent. How insensitive to broadcast such CARNAGE so EARLY in the MORNING... (The CAT I mean...) DISGUSTING... Feel my stomach churning now... Tho' perhaps it's the effect of that fatty sausage and fried bread?!!! Checked the blog again. Still no comments. BASTARDS!!! Thought about putting the burnt toast on the bird table (waste not want not!!!) but didn't because I seemed to remember I'd read somewhere that BURNT FOOD is CARCINOGENIC!!! Checked the bird table. Not a bird in sight!!! Hope things improve by NATIONAL BIRDWATCH DAY! It would be so embarrassing to record NO BIRDS AT ALL! Here's a pic of my bird table... err... with no birds on it... However you can just make out a solid slab of suet in the foreground!:

Don't you think that it's an an absolutely SWEET little bird table? (Bought half-price at the Garden Centre!) Checked blog. A COMMENT AT LAST!!! YIPPEE!!! But hold on: it's just a SMILEY FACE! Does that mean the post was KINDA AVERAGE but "I STILL LIKE YOU ANYWAY???" Or does it just mean: someone HADN'T MUCH TIME TO COMMENT because they had to CATCH A BUS IN A FEW MINUTES??? Jesus, I really don't know...

Must publish this now as CASH IN THE ATTIC is just about to start. (Will blog about it later!!!) So much has happened already! And it's only half-way through the morning!!! TTFN fellow bloggers and bloggerettes!!!

;-)

(The quotations cited above were stolen shamelessly from the latest post by Rachel Fox - which in turn were taken from Don Paterson's book of aphorisms The Book Of Shadows.)

Miracles, And The Glory Of The Commonplace

In 1855 an unknown American journalist, Walt Whitman, printed himself by hand (he couldn't find a publisher) a little book of 12 poems entitled Leaves Of Grass. It took America by storm. Some readers, like the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, loved it; others loathed it. Its form, its subject matter, its language - every aspect was quite unlike any other poetry that had gone before. Free verse had arrived and come to stay. Each new edition of Leaves Of Grass contained new poems until there were nearly 400 in the collection. This poem from Leaves Of Grass called Miracles is also contained in The Golden Treasury Of Poetry:

Miracles

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim - the rocks - the motion of the waves - the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

For Whitman nothing was insignificant. In his poetry he witnessed and celebrated what he termed the glory of the commonplace. Some of my favourite blogs - such as Beating The Bounds, The Weaver Of Grass and Riverdaze - also attempt to do this; that is, they document and celebrate the "everyday" details of life in their own backyards (though what backyards - Morecambe Bay, the Yorkshire Dales and a river in Ohio!) Somehow, in describing day by day these local, backyard "miracles", these "miracles" are constantly being refreshed and renewed. The magical acts of writing about (and photographing) these daily "miracles" ensure they are remembered; in some miraculous way they become part of a world consciousness.

There are miracles all around us. We only have to step back occasionally from our busy, humdrum lives of deadline and routine, slow down for just a few minutes, control our breathing so that our breath is regular and even, and look...

400th Post

I've been wondering what to write about in this, my 400th post. I see I began blogging one and a half years ago, on 23 June 2007. Perhaps it's a good time to look back a little and remind myself of some of the thoughts I've had and the subjects I've covered?

H - itchhiking

A - uvergne

P - ennine Way

P - yrenees

Y - eats

C - amino

H - uw Warren

R - S Thomas

I - ngmar Bergman

S - hirley MacLaine

T - homas Merton

M - ilosz

A - ligot

S - toats

I still can't think what to write about. Oh, well, perhaps inspiration will descend tomorrow!

An Apologia

Maybe they'll get me and maybe they won't/But not tonight and it won't be here/There are things I could say but I don't/I know the mercy of God must be near Standing In The Doorway from Time Out Of Mind BOB DYLAN

I'm beginning to hear voices and there's no one around Cold Irons Bound from Time Out Of Mind BOB DYLAN

Everything has its downside. We fall in love; we fall out of love. We go on holiday - and catch a virus on the plane coming home. We climb a mountain - and on reaching the summit realise it's the wrong mountain. Likewise there's blogging heaven, and there's blogging hell.

A few weeks ago I descended for a time into blogging hell. A unique set of personal circumstances - which I won't go into - tipped me over the edge for a while. Believe me, given the conditions, we can all go there more easily than you may think. It's not a happy place. I experienced very quickly a kind of madness, insanity, unreason - call it what you will - spiced with an unpleasant dose of paranoia. It took about a week to crawl slowly out of the abyss and regain a more balanced viewpoint. Now I can hardly identify myself as the person I was then.

Scary, or what? Well, perhaps not so scary. Best to talk about it, not conceal it. Admit that all of us are sometimes nearer the brink than we care to believe. The inherent dangers in blogging are misinterpretation and drawing connections where non exist. Mistaking virtual reality for reality and vice versa. We have only the written word to go on, often spontaneously given - and the written word acquires a primary and exaggerated importance in a blogworld lacking facial expressions, body language, spoken intonation.

So if at any point during this time I unwittingly offended, confused or upset any one, I'm sorry. It was not intentional.

Mea culpa.

Altered Quotations

Every blogger or bloggette goes through a blogentity crisis from time to time. Does my blog have anything to do with the real world? What is the real world anyway? How much of the self that is revealed in my blog my real self or a persona? What is my real self? I doubt if there are any real answers to these real questions. Or virtually none.

Why do we blog? A need for self expression? To be noticed by others? To freeze moments of our life, as in a diary - giving the illusion of something permanent? To play intellectual games? To record for posterity? To fill in the time if we have time on our hands? To create something we would like to consider akin to art? To impart factual information? It's a strange business, isn't it?

Blogging, like life, like the Camino, is an endless journey, a journey of flux, change and constant renewal. I am taking a short time out from the blogworld. But I shall be back at some point to continue my journey. Many thanks to all my loyal readers without whom this blog would be only half complete. And watch this space.

I leave you for the moment with some Altered Quotations. The proper words are listed in their correct sequence at the end.

To blog or not to blog - that is the question. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

It is solved by blogging. ST AUGUSTINE.

Blogging is a pathless land. KRISHNAMURTI.

A blog can only be understood backwards, but it must be written forwards. SOREN KIERKEGAARD.

You may drive out a blog with a pitchfork, yet she will always hurry back. HORACE.

Blogging consists in sharing the hallucinations of our fellow bloggers. EVELYN UNDERHILL.

Those who refuse to reread are doomed to read the same blog everywhere. ROLAND BARTHES.

Any lived minute is immensely more than its most subtle blog evocation. JEREMY HOOKER.

No matter. Blog again. Fail again. Fail better. SAMUEL BECKETT.

A blog should seem to offer itself to the reader's completion, not to the writer's. JAMES WOOD.

We exist not in ourselves, but in terms of each other's blogs. E. M. FORSTER.

Blogging is the last refuge of the scoundrel. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

A blog ought to be a festival of the intellect, that is, a game, but a solemn, ordered and significant game. PAUL VALÉRY.

A blog is never finished; it is only abandoned. PAUL VALÉRY.

Read blogs are sweet, but those unread /Are sweeter... JOHN KEATS.

[Blogs are] imaginary gardens with real toads in them. MARIANNE MOORE.

Now a blog lives as long as it is unfathomed. Once it is fathomed... once it is known and its meaning is fixed or established, it is dead. D. H. LAWRENCE.

Blogging is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.

be, be, walking, truth, life, lived, nature, sanity, neighbours, text, verbal, try, fiction, minds, patriotism, poem, poem, heard melodies, unheard, poems, book, language

Blogging Is Not Life

Blogging is not life. Life is life.

I saw this on someone's blog.

I think I'll take a walk.

Then not blog about it.

I'll let you know if I managed it.

Or perhaps not.

Sucked Into A Vortex Of Blogs

OK, it's confession time. I've never used this blog before as a platform to air personal problems. I've never given a blogworld exclusive on my hamster's latest digestive ailment. I've never blogged about my last visit to Tesco's, that shop-cathedral of our consumer culture - it's no accident the trolleyways are called aisles. (Bloody awful, if you really want to know - it was jam-packed with screaming kids and I left in a suicidal mood!) I've never yet talked about my dysfunctional family, personal angsts and phobias, my 50th birthday party. But the time has come. To come clean. To get something off my chest I've been suppressing far too long. I must admit it now. I'm sure I'll feel better afterwards. It'll be a relief, I'm sure, to release this news to the anonymous yet surprisingly intimate virtual world. The truth is: I'm blog-addicted.

Beating The Bounds summed it up nicely: ...after about 5 minutes of surfing and blogreading... in the non-virtual world several hours have passed.

You could say that, working from home, it's too easy for me to get distracted from professional humdrum computer work and sink into the mad, opinionated, anarchic, strangely beautiful blogworld. Perhaps I need to get right away again - and do another 1000 mile trip through the wilds of nowhere. But even on the Camino I found I was blogchecking on some dusty, superannuated computer in a bar in the middle of a Spanish cornfield.

I fear I must limit myself to just a few blogs a day, wean myself off gradually like a druggie on methadone substitute. Just visit the blogs I really, really like. I confess: I'm a blogaholic. And I can't blame genetics, because blogs didn't exist for my parents. But could I pass this condition on to my children? Have I set in motion a catastrophic change in my DNA?

Gosh, I feel so much better for that. But I've got to go now. Must follow that link...