Category: Education, Art & Writing

A love poem to Geoff to get us through dark days of illness. Based on Geoff’s beloved poem by Walt Whitman [below]

November 20, 2024

My husband lies in bed, breathlessNot with excitement but wonderingFrom where the next breath will ariseTo quell his mortal fear.Thinking of him, I recall a poem he loves:Where dreaming stands for Whitman’s needTo believe in lawless love ‘tween boys.Boys who will be men pose momentlyTo model men who still desire toBe boys, who as they … More A love poem to Geoff to get us through dark days of illness. Based on Geoff’s beloved poem by Walt Whitman [below]

Refusing to be just the label means redefining your worth beyond any one label! Or is that only true for the privileged classes? A blog informed by Madian Al Jazerah ‘Are You This? Or Are You This?: A Story of Identity and Worth’.

November 19, 2024

What a choppy sea of a world we live in when such a question as this prompt makes sense, if it does, to anyone? I have difficulties with the idea of ‘favourite’ as a descriptor of ‘people’, especially given the plural form of the thing favoured. Are we asked to list individuals or nominate a … More Refusing to be just the label means redefining your worth beyond any one label! Or is that only true for the privileged classes? A blog informed by Madian Al Jazerah ‘Are You This? Or Are You This?: A Story of Identity and Worth’.

We need to defend ourselves, not peevishly from others, but from our ‘pet peeves’.

November 18, 2024

The Parade website contains a page (use that link to see it yourself) listing 75 potential ‘pet peeves’/ It defines this strange concept thus: “What is a “pet peeve”?  Dictionary.com defines a pet peeve as “a particular and often continual annoyance; personal bugbear: This train service is one of my pet peeves.” They tend to be behaviours … More We need to defend ourselves, not peevishly from others, but from our ‘pet peeves’.

If I didn’t sleep, and sleep off unregulated fantasy and vision, I might create. I might!!!!!!! But that is not for many: so I enjoy my sleep instead.

November 17, 2024

The Sleep Foundation (at this link and not related to the commercial ‘infographic’ above) gives seven reasons why we need sleep. They are given below without the trusted sources of information that their web page does have (I have given a link above) to the scientific evidence behind some of these claims. Sleep is needed, … More If I didn’t sleep, and sleep off unregulated fantasy and vision, I might create. I might!!!!!!! But that is not for many: so I enjoy my sleep instead.

… to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! (‘Hamlet’, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73) – and a prompt question!

November 15, 2024

What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can? … to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73). [1] Iris Murdoch had long before written her wonderful novel based on the model of Hamlet, The Black Prince, … More … to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! (‘Hamlet’, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73) – and a prompt question!

‘So cool that it was mint’ but you can’t EVER keep it.

November 14, 2024

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)? So cool that it was mintWhen found, my hand lost warmth,Until in sharing heatThe feel of it was hot.Nothing ever will keepIts cool so long withoutSome cold sad heart to seepIts freezing thought intoMutual desire,andLeave it at last alone. The temperature of loveWill never be its … More ‘So cool that it was mint’ but you can’t EVER keep it.

In honour of MacDiarmid’s standing on a Raised Beach on Raasay. (1)

November 13, 2024

A beach is but a plateau on the edgeOf mountains in the sea, whose base extendsDown falling slowly through the upward forceOf water into deep chasms of time.A poet praised raised beaches because theyStood up to mark an earlier surfaceOf time’s causation of interactiveTardy play between dry solid ground and wetFluidity of chance and Change. … More In honour of MacDiarmid’s standing on a Raised Beach on Raasay. (1)

‘Krapp’s  Last Podcast’, with apologies to Samuel Beckett.

November 12, 2024

What podcasts are you listening to? I desperately want to see this production A late evening in the future.THUS THE STAGE DIRECTION READS.To show you that the podcast to which IListen is probably that I’m making,Is probably that I hear in my playIn that future, where the true present lies. Krapp listens hard in the … More ‘Krapp’s  Last Podcast’, with apologies to Samuel Beckett.

All the benefits of Daisy, so much more than ‘a pet’, come from ‘being with’ and relating to her; not to possessing her.

November 11, 2024

What is good about having a pet? The NIH (National Institute of Heath) USA wheel graphic on the benefits of having a pet Here I go again – harping on about the reification and commodification of everything  that matters in life. Basically, I do  it because the culture out of which WordPress prompts arise is … More All the benefits of Daisy, so much more than ‘a pet’, come from ‘being with’ and relating to her; not to possessing her.

Why do we define the personal by the items that you considerable yourself capable of financing? It is a pernicious way of reducing the person to the status of a commodity.

November 10, 2024

Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car). Now the prompts from WordPress recycle and fresh questions do not appear, I have to answer the ones I rejected answering the first time round. Times like now when I have no project blogs ready to go, I pick apart the … More Why do we define the personal by the items that you considerable yourself capable of financing? It is a pernicious way of reducing the person to the status of a commodity.

Bridging Gaps in Personal Learning No. 3: The Bacon portraits at the National Portrait Gallery as acts of love & beauty.

November 9, 2024

Bridging Gaps in Personal Learning No. 3: Bacon claimed that the role of art was not to create a ‘likeness’ of what meets the eye in looking at his sitter but to discover ‘a deeper sense of the reality of the image; by finding a way to ‘unlock the areas of feeling’ that lead to … More Bridging Gaps in Personal Learning No. 3: The Bacon portraits at the National Portrait Gallery as acts of love & beauty.