Where do they come from, these images that rain down into the fantasy? Dante, justifiably, had a high opinion of himself, to the point of having no scruples about proclaiming the direct divine inspiration of his visions. Writers closer to us in time (with the exception of those few cases of prophetic vocation) establish their contacts through earthly transmitters, such as the individual or the collective conscious; the time regained in feelings that spot or point of time. In short, it is a question of processes that, even if they do not originate in the heavens, certainly go beyond our intentions and our control, acquiring- with respect to the individual- a kind of transcendence…..Italo Calvino

like walking into the mind, we write our dreams in subtle and sublime ways….this is a kind of remembering, an edge we can’t quite see, a feeling not understood….yes, going deep can be lonely and deeply beautiful, like being windswept on the windy moors….may your life create moments of invisible poetry….

Evening is kind to Sussex, for Sussex is no longer young, and she is grateful for the veil of evening as an elderly woman is glad when a shade is drawn over a lamp, and only the outline of her face remains. The outline of Sussex is still very fine. The cliffs stand out to sea, one behind another. All Eastbourne, their bead shops and their sweet shops and their placards and their invalids and ‘chars-a-bancs’ are all obliterated. What remains is what there was when William came over from France ten centuries ago: a line of cliffs running out to sea. Also the fields are redeemed. The freckle of red villas on the coast is washed over by a thin lucid lake of brown air, in which they and their redness are drowned. It was still too early for lamps; and too early for stars. But, I thought, there is always some sediment of irritation when the moment is as beautiful as it is now. The psychologists must explain; one looks up, one is overcome by beauty extravagantly greater than one could expect- there are now pink clouds over Battle; the fields are mottled, marbled-one’s perceptions blow out rapidly like air balls expanded by some rush of air, and then, when all seems blown to its fullest and tautest, with beauty and beauty and beauty, a pin pricks; it collapses. But what is the pin? So far as I could tell, the pin had something to do with one’s own impotency. I cannot hold this- I cannot express this- I am overcome by it- I am mastered. Somewhere in that region one’s discontent lay; and it was allied with the idea that one’s nature demands mastery over all that is receives; and mastery here meant the power to convey what one saw now over Sussex so that another person could have it. And further, there was another prick of the pin; one was waiting one’s chance for beauty spread at one’s right hand, at one’s left; at one’s back too; it was escaping all the time; one could only offer a thimble to a torrent that could fill baths, lakes….Virginia Woolf

falling into shadows….

Oftentimes we miss the subtle shadows and reflections of light in a scene when we are looking for dominant features. Practice looking at the shapes created by light and shadows. Learn to see what exists outside consciousness. Sit in a sunny room and seek out subtle qualities that you normally do not see. Look for the sharp lines and shapes created by the interplay between light and shadow. Reflect upon the wavy reflections on glass surfaces, the patterns created on wood by light and shadow, the spaces between objects, the images reflected on hard and shiny planes. The experience of an essence may be enhanced by a proliferation of things. One state gives rise to the other. Complicated and dense configurations, packed with details, may be more helpful to your meditation on essential elements than minimalistic scenes. The many choices offered to your senses in every situation require concentration and intensification of your relationship with a particular quality of the environment What I am describing as distillation is nothing more than a heightened and focused relationship between ourselves and something that was previously unseen…..Shaun McNiff