Part workbook, part guide and part creative journal, The Book That Takes Its Time, An Unhurried Adventure in Mindfulness is a hardcover containing paper-based goodies, such as booklets, postcards and whimsical little notes you can write to yourself. Written by Irene Smit and Astrid Van Der Hulst, the creative directors of cult creative magazine Flow, TheContinue reading “Book Review: The Book That Takes Its Time, An Unhurried Adventure in Mindfulness”
Tag Archives: words
Travel:The Berlin Wall Redux: A punk lady of leisure
In 2008 I lived in Berlin. It’s a vast adult playground of earthly delights, diversions and shiny, distracting baubles. Its maddeningly vibrant during the summer. It’s as though life is amplified to full volume and there is no dimmer switch. The sky sits very high up and the sun is beaming down with a warm,Continue reading “Travel:The Berlin Wall Redux: A punk lady of leisure “
Travel: A scooter swarm and the dance of life and death in Taiwan
Among the chaos and the streaming lights there are tiny rockets moving between buildings and jostling people out of the way as they walk into the street. In South Korea, Japan, Thailand and China these pocket rockets roam through the night, comandeered by a mixture of salarymen, young punks and mums with kids strapped toContinue reading “Travel: A scooter swarm and the dance of life and death in Taiwan”
Travel: The lost and hungry felines of Chefchaouen, Morocco
Seeing you sprawled on the ground in a doorway in Chefchaoen, Morocco, something broke inside of my heart. I found myself so immensely concerned for your safety. From your gaunt and shabby physique and milky, clouded eyes I worked out that you were severely malnourished. I attempted to pick you up gently but my MorocccanContinue reading “Travel: The lost and hungry felines of Chefchaouen, Morocco”
Nothing passes from rest to motion – unless you move it in hidden ways
You glide between the heart and its casing as tears glide from the eyelid. You dwell in my inwardness, in the depths of my heart, as souls dwell in bodies. Nothing passes from rest to motion unless you move it in hidden ways, O new moon. ~ Mansur al-Hallaj (Persia, 9th century)
Tilda Swinton recites Rumi’s 12th Century Poem: ‘Like This’
The beautiful and transcendental love poems of Sufi mystic Rumi meets the modern day artist Tilda Swinton in this evocative reading of the poem ‘Like this’. If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this. When someone mentions the gracefulness of theContinue reading “Tilda Swinton recites Rumi’s 12th Century Poem: ‘Like This’”
Love letters sent by the wind
Every day, priests minutely examine the Law And endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon. ~ Ikkyu (1394–1481, Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, saint and poet)
Book Review: Their Lips Talk of Mischief by Alan Warner
Scottish writer Alan Warner’s novel Their Lips Talk of Mischief is a boisterous, vigorous and energetic novel about two literary wannabes (Lou and Douglas) living in a glum 80’s Thatcherite slumland in Britain. The pair share an interest in Lou’s enigmatic and sexy girlfriend Aoife. Thus develops a complex menage a trois that follows. The yearContinue reading “Book Review: Their Lips Talk of Mischief by Alan Warner”
Book Review: Winterwood by Patrick McCabe
This was an unusual little book. I think many people will be familiar with McCabe from his other incredibly popular and critically acclaimed work of literally fiction, the Butcher Boy which was published back in 1992 and subsequently turned into a film. This was the story of a confused and wayward young boy who unwittinglyContinue reading “Book Review: Winterwood by Patrick McCabe”
Book Review: The Fahrenheit Twins by Michel Faber
I had the pleasure of meeting Michel Faber at the Auckland Writers Festival this autumn. He’s a reserved, humble and softly-spoken fellow who was gobbled up by the overly bold interviewer, someone far less important, whose name escapes me. Faber brought with him onto the stage a pair of dainty red women’s shoes and onlyContinue reading “Book Review: The Fahrenheit Twins by Michel Faber”
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