Category: Uncategorized

URTHONA Issue 33 Launch Event

On By urthonamagIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Similar to last year’s excellent event at the West London Buddhist Centre (address below), on 1st July we have another issue launch of Urthona, the Buddhist Arts magazine. Introduced by its poetry editor, Dharmavadana. There will be readings from four poets featured in issue 33 – Caroline Maldonado, Cath Drake, Ian Marriott and Subhadassi – Satyadaka reading his brilliant new Rilke translations, editor Ratnagarbha with translations from Dante, plus music from the Bright Moments Duo: Jonathan Cohen (Piano), Francois Moreau (Double Bass) play jazz and Latin standards and originals, Music for Head, Heart and Feet. And some surprises! You’ll be able to purchase copies of the new Urthona on the night.

There will also be meditation in the main shrine room from 6 pm, introduced and guided for those who are new to it and would like a taster.

Booking is not necessary and the event is free but the West London Centre does appreciate donations.

Urthona # 33 launch  7 – 9 pm Saturday 1st July

 West London Buddhist Centre,

Royal Oak House,

45a Porchester Rd,

London W2 5DP.

020 7727 9382

http://westlondonbuddhistcentre.com/

More details here:

http://westlondonbuddhistcentre.com/urthona-launch-2/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisements

Cambridge on a winter afternoon

On By urthonamagIn Editor's Blog, Uncategorized1 Comment

A walk in Cambridge on a razor bright February afternoon. The market square below is in shadow with warm slumberous lights beginning to glow from the various stalls. Long furtive shadows from bicycles and pedestrians on the streets.  Even manhole covers seem scalded with an otherworldly radiance. Up above old bricks are etched with light as if they were made of some strange kind of opaque crystal. The sun melts mediaeval pinnacles into molten gold – everything is changed…. Continue reading “Cambridge on a winter afternoon” →

Two Psychogeography Podcasts

On By urthonamagIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Werner Herzog Talks about nature, art, and filmmaking. This has got to be podcast of the year. His advice to budding filmmakers read, read, read great literature. The book he wants to highlight: JA Baker’s great classic of English nature writing The Peregrine. Herzog finds here writing of a calibre that has not appeared since the short stories of Conrad – truthfulness, passion and ecstasy as the author seeks to become one with the bird he is tracking over the woods and fields of Essex.

Herzog on The Peregrine

Robert Harrison of KCSU Stamford, has an occasional and highly erudite podcast covering all aspects of the humanities, in this episode he talks with Professor Jean Marie Apostolides about Guy Debord, situationism, and psychogeography. In an earlier episode he goes into more detail about The Peregrine with Andrea Nightingale.

Harrison on Psychogeography

A Berkshire Wood in Spring

On By urthonamagIn Uncategorized1 Comment

The Berkshire Downs, not open country but deep woodland scaling the hillside. Just after rain, wandering through the heavy feast of rain soaked boughs, green shadows dripping all around me, festering silence, rich but a little sinister. Solitary dog walkers loom out of the stillness, a black labrador bounds up, then disappears into the resiny gloom beyond the gravel ride. There are adolescent Wellington firs, splayed at the base like rainforest trees, large ferns and parties of very young firs clustered at the edge of glades, eager for their share of the light. I lose myself in the rich resiny silence, an hour’s walk seems like a lifetime of tramping, the wood  goes on spreading upwards, there are freaks of golden light beyond the thickest trees in the distance, but this suggests the top of the hill not the end of the wood. There is no discernible end. Like Buddha saying that there is no discernible end to time or matter, so long as one continues to believe in them.

Berkshire Wood 1

gate half open

the gold eaves of the wood

beckon inwards Continue reading “A Berkshire Wood in Spring” →

A quest for contours in East Anglia

On By urthonamagIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
A Deacon Hill
Deacon Hill, at the east end of the Chilterns

It was spring and I wanted to climb a hill, but not too far away. Too much driving, surely, equals alienation. Best to stay within a day’s journey on horse or camel back. Let the crabbed soul come along for the ride. No more than one hour’s drive then. I would give in to contour lust, follow Ruskin, worshipper of the Alps, in my own humble quest for ascent.  Continue reading “A quest for contours in East Anglia” →

PROTASIS: The Cosmic Goddess

On By urthonamagIn Uncategorized2 Comments

image

An extract from the editorial for issue 32, due out November 2015, on the cosmic goddess

I believe that the modern goddess image is not primarily a figure to be worshipped, but a symbol that embodies a vision of the entire cosmos that is deeply, desperately needed in this age. In turning our hearts to the goddess, we are turning towards a sacred cosmos, in which each object and event is intimately connected to an interwoven Whole. This interwovenness, or interconnectedness, or ‘interbeing’ as Zen Master Tich Nat Hanh styles it, is a vision of life that in past ages was felt and known ‘in the blood’ without needing to be articulated. Continue reading “PROTASIS: The Cosmic Goddess” →