Author Archives: urthonamag

Paul Hart is an exceptionally fine English nature photographer. He finds haunting, poetic images in neglected corners of small towns and the countryside. Many of the images convey a sense of desolation and paralysis, and the partial capture of nature in industrial farm landscapes.

Buddhist choral music Sarvadarsin introduces a new web resource of Buddhist choral music: In recent years, Buddhism has spread to the West, becoming the fastest growing religion in some countries, its teachings and practices striking a chord with individuals seeking spiritual growth and inner peace. Previously, as it reached new parts of the world, BuddhismContinue reading “Buddhist choral music – web resource page”

Although he is now settled in Cambridge, landscape painter Jonny Church grew up on the Welsh borders and studied at Aberystwyth School of Art, surrounded by mountains and wild seascapes. His evocative semi-abstract works seek to convey intangible atmospheres in nature while referring always to the actual physical presence of mountains, fells and fields inContinue reading “Jonny Church landscapes of vision”

Two Rivers Poetry by Simon Millward – Mudlark Press, £12, pb, pp 68 Cover painting by Ruth Bateman To purchase e-mail s.d.millward@googlemail.com Two Rivers is a new book of poems by Simon Millward – a long time Buddhist meditator based in North Devon. Simon Millward is a predominantly a poet of nature, pure and simple,Continue reading “Two Rivers”

TANIA RUTLAND is based in the South Downs where she paints evocative landscapes of mists and contours. These magical works are dreamy yet rooted in the actual appearance of the Downs at certain times of day. She is currently (July 2023) exhibiting at the Stapleford Granary rural arts centre in South Cambridgeshire, where the coffeeContinue reading “luminous landscapes”

Urthona Issue 36 ‘Unknown Landscapes’ is OUT NOW. 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.

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. 

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.

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”