A book “Lighthouse in Kettle’s Yard” – and a Dandelion

Posted on May 7, 2020 by janeadamsart

“My fascination with details will I hope never cease. Each object is a miracle.” (Jim Ede, “A Way of Life”, p.35)

Here is something for you to open on a rainy Lockdown afternoon …

I produced this book and basic website almost 18 months ago. Since then, there seemed to be no leisure time to develop the project or market it! And still there isn’t. It finds its natural course like the way it was written.

The website describes my book about what it was like to grow up “in the influence of Kettle’s Yard”. It contains a blog and some (rather lengthy) readers’ feedback to plough through; and a link for you to buy it.

Photo from “A Way of Life” p.75 (1984)

What is inside your own house that you treasure and got so used to, that perhaps you forgot to notice it?

Kettle’s Yard itself is for the time being closed along with everything else, but you can visit https://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/about/ and take a virtual tour around Jim’s house (look under “Collection” or scroll down to Resources and then “Take a Tour”).

Jim’s spiral at Kettle’s Yard

And a Dandelion clock for the time of now …
found this on facebook:

Love laughs at locksmiths and at little viruses. Love IS viral – a dandelion in a field of buttercups. My evolving Co-virus “insight” emerged from the beginning of the crisis, but continues to clarify: a movement towards adjusting overall balance in the bigger picture.

How can a caterpillar’s worldly dirge comprehend … the butterfly inside … which inexorably cracks the chrysalis?

The inner nature of the co-virus is its homeopathic antidote.

The condition is psychological; obsessive collective fear about covid19 causes many more people to fall ill and die of it than would otherwise. The amplified attention and media dirge weaken the physical system into habit-channels of expectation.

From what I have heard, the co-virus signature is an economic one – a depth change to the existing global Economy towards retrieving a real value-standard; a more equally distributed wealth, and the coming forth of our humanity to one another. This great Change initially generates fear, emotional insecurity and stress in relationships.

Then we must turn to face our music, we must reach above and below the pattern of the “fields we know” – reach deeper and higher, reach inward – for an information source which touches and activates our natural resilience.

For this, we are in a general agreement to slow down, value what we notice inside our houses, and take responsibility with our environment. “I” start to see “you” in a different way. In places where difficult issues are confined, this can be hard at first – almost unbearable. And it may take time and commitment to illumine those caverns often rocky and harsh – or confused and crowded. The walking and the lamp are love. What is love? A being-with. Create space for our Self and children to dance in, and respect the other’s. Give room to come and go; to breathe.

What is the antidote, the inmost nature of co-virus? Joy and the creative uplift of love for life and for others – a conscious choice. It is incredibly catching. The songs which keep coming and the way we hear our own – and turn to help each other in crisis – are doing just that.

Knock on door.
“Who’s there?”
“Me.”
“There is no room for two of us.”

Knock on door.
“Who’s there?”
“It is You.”
“Come. We are within.”

Jalal Al DinRumi

Dancer by Gaudier-Bzreska in Kettle’s Yard

My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom. See also Aquariel and Gene Keys Diary.

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2020. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

KY_bechstein_room1

The Desert Rose

Posted on April 1, 2014 by janeadamsart

Hermit, Arcanum 9

What is the desert? the innate way of unfoldment: truth.

In the Red Book, Jung journeyed and wrote: “Walking around in a circle I happen to return to myself and to him, the solitary one, who lives down in the depths hidden from the light, held securely by the warm bosom of the rock, above him the glowing desert and sharp resplendent skies.

“The solitary lives in endless desert full of awesome beauty. He looks at the whole and at inner meaning. He loathes manifold diversity if it is near him. He looks at it from afar in its totality. Consequently silvery splendour and joy and beauty cloak diversity for him. What is near him must be simple and innocent, since close at hand the manifold and complicated tear and break through the silvery splendour.”

There follows a long poem with expanded script, in which the magid, Philemon or Ammonius Sacca speaks: (see italics)

“The sun and its glow nourish him … the solitary loves the desert above all since it is a mother to him, giving him food and invigorating warmth at regular intervals.”

desert rose socotra/moffett/nationalgeographic.com

Thus also the interior sun of the soul. I have mist on my window. I am dull this morning, and out of relationship. I have nothing and am uneasy with what I have. Yet I know it is condensation on the window, which blurs life, and the sun – Great SOLomon – will clear it as he rises. The creatures and the histories of the soul wake up slowly, and give the prospect some positive meaning. The soul is a full engagement with everything. I think this defines the soul. With the waking up there is a deepening of the mirage, and some change of key.

Geode: “A Way of Life” by jim Ede

The thin Hermit in his hut with his book and the heat, wanders in an orchard of lush fruit and flowers, all reaching for his hand, his breath. He engages with the desert. “Fragrant resins drip from his trees, and under his feet, thrusting seed breaks open.”

I engage with North London. It is the poetry of life in whatever medium. Sometimes the poet over-reaches, fantasises and falters. The poet has an ethical task, to remain where it is real, and to question every surplus. The poet has an ethical task: to not invent. Invention turns to mist on the window.

desert roses by Alayn 1807, trekearth.com

I think for human default mode generally, “the horror of the desert and its withered evaporation …” permeates the conventional stress of livelihood, entertainment and mortgage. For the hermit in the Libyan desert or in North London … “he stammers when he speaks of the indescribable fullness, his eye rests on the garden, his ears listen to the source, his breath draws in sweet perfume from blossom rich trees.” …

desert rose from http://thoughtfulrandomness.wordpress.com

I see the hermit in the midday sun, in the deep shade of his tent or hut, with book and abundance: the ferocity of the dry heat, the ringing silence, his parched limbs, the rustlings. I see human security which seeks above all else to cover my head with a roof and a story. The stories in our souls are read to us at bedtime, to keep us covered and safe. The hermit falls into a place where he cannot write any story at all; there is no room for it. The sea in my face is a desert. From the desert all things come. In the desert is the well, and the camel drinks.

There are many sounds in the desert – of the soft mother, the wind; and of cracked insects and darting lizards. There is the endless sound of space. This is the fruit the Hermit hears. HERE.

Hear it through the trains, the passing cars, the songbirds in the budding trees. All of London is the sound in this corner of it which is silence: this window on which a Rune is drawn in the dew: my body’s unending kiss with gravity.

Gaudier’s Dancer – in ‘A Way of Life’ by Jim Ede

Are not lovers the gravity with each other? Is not the Hermit the gravity with God? In this mode the thought with the beloved is gravity. The Hermit’s daily dawn footprints through the silver dunes are blowing in the wind. Their edges soften, but he walks some more, and again next day. There is always the trace of his passing, and the wanderer finds it, follows the thread to the web’s gossamer centre, follows the Sun’s rays inwards, becomes still and is blessed. The Question is left open. The wanderer abandons the answer he or she seeks.

“He gives you a small insignificant fruit, which has just fallen at his feet. It appears worthless to you, but if you consider it, you will see that this fruit tastes like a sun which you could not have dreamt of. It gives off a perfume which confuses your senses and makes you dream of rose gardens and sweet wine and whispering palm trees. And you hold this one fruit in your hand dreaming, and you would like the tree from which it grows, the garden in which this tree stands, and the sun which brought forth this garden …

“And you yourself want to be that solitary who strolls with the sun in his garden, his gaze resting on pendant flowers, and his hand brushing a hundred fold of grain and his breath drinking the perfume from a thousand roses.

“Dull from the sun and drunk from fermenting wines, you lie down in ancient graves, whose walls resound with many voices and many colours of a thousand solar years.

“When you grow, then you see everything living again as it was. And when you sleep, you rest, like everything that was, and your dreams echo softly again from distant temple chants.

“You sleep down through the thousand solar years, and you wake up through the thousand solar years, and your dreams full of ancient lore adorn the walls of your bedchamber. You also see yourself in the totality.”

C.G.Jung, The Red Book

poppy pod in drinking-glass – from “A Way of Life” by Jim Ede

My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2014. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/