Urthona Issue 36 ‘Unknown Landscapes’ will be out just after Xmas. Landscapes move and uplift us in ways that are hard to pin down. Artists explore such emotional responses and bring clarity, awareness and transformational depth to the process. They help us to make the appreciation of landscape more conscious and meaningful. As Christopher NeveContinue reading “New Issue: Unknown Landscapes”
Author Archives: urthonamag
the Buddha meets Plato…
The encounter of Buddhism and Platonism – what can modern Buddhists and others learn from Plato? A philosophical essay by Ratnagarbha I have been interested in Platonism for as long as I have been a Buddhist. The two have always gone hand in hand for me. I find in Platonism a wonderfully articulated view ofContinue reading “the Buddha meets Plato…”
Two Buddhist Novels
A brief review of two very contrasting novels written by ordained Buddhists. Neither of these writers has their work marketed as anything to do with Buddhism. Nevertheless they they both show awareness and imagination deriving from their practice of mindful engagement with the breadth of human experience.
GroundWork Gallery
Yesterday I was privileged to visit GroundWork, in Kings Lynn a wonderful gallery space by the Kings Lynn historic waterfront that focuses on environmental art. The current exhibition is ‘Extraction: Loss and Restoration’ – looking at the effect of large-scale mining and quarrying on the landscape.
Shades of the sublime
Kate Boucher uses charcoal to evoke liminal transition zones, skies at dawn and dusk, coasts and mountains in shifting atmospheres of wind and cloudscape. Each of her landscapes is an intense study of a particular mood, not a portrait of one moment or scene, but a response to the essential qualities inherent in a timeContinue reading “Shades of the sublime”
Waterlight – portrait of a chalk stream in winter
Waterlight is a film project inspired by a chalk stream in Cambridgeshire, the Mel, which runs between the villages of Melbourn and Shepreth. Waterlight began as a collaboration between poet and writer Clare Crossman and James Murray-White. The project team grew to include local expert Bruce Huett and filmmaker Nigel Kinnings.
Blade of January sun
Zen and AI
A fascinating book we previous reviewed ‘Zen and Artificial Intelligence’ by Paul Powell is now out in paperback, for half the price of the hardback –25.99 from Cambridge Scholars Publishing: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-3704-0 Urthona and other reviews mentioned by CSP highlight the playful quality of this volume, in which deep ideas about Zen, Literature (including the LordContinue reading “Zen and AI”
Waterlight – the story of an Enligish chalk stream
Waterlight, is a film project inspired by a chalk stream in Cambridgeshire. Waterlight began as a collaboration between poet and writer Clare Crossman and filmmaker James Murray-White, and the project team has now grew to include local expert Bruce Huett and filmmaker Nigel Kinnings.
Cowboy Zen
Cowboy Meditation Primer – poetry sequence by Mary McCray (Taster from Urthona issue 35 ‘American Zen’ – order from Urthona Shop above) A unique sequence of poems in which the hard lives and gritty adventures of cowboys on the trails of 19th Century New Mexico are combined with Buddhist Wisdom.