A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/12/merr...

My books of the year in two categories: The first published this year: Donald and his Seven Cows by Angus Peter Campbell ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/09/dona... The second a re-read of a novel published in the 1930s: Claude Houghton's Julian Grant Loses His Way ncolloff.blogspot.com/2020/04/half...

The very real and imagined world of Algernon Blackwood's weird tales. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/12/i-ca...

Everything demands of me: “Feel us!” Everyone begs of me: “See us!” God lend me Your eyes! I’ve come to sow seeing in the world. Abraham Joshua Herschel, “Intimate Hymn”

The Buddhist scholar tackles the great esoteric Christian (and scientist) by whom he was greatly influenced (and translated into Japanese).

On a Deserted Shore by Kathleen Raine, one of two poets that Eliot regretted not publishing. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-d...

On the River of Life, 1896, by Hugo Simberg.

Charles Williams’ Tarot inspired novel is, amongst many other things, a remarkable account of a realized stage cunningly disguised as your favorite aunt. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2014/08/aunt-s…

In the conference gaps re-reading Bede’s Return to the Centre. The first book’s of his I read and that led to correspondence, his mentorship and our friendship. One of the holiest people I have known.

A beautiful and poetic novel of what it means to belong to a place actually loved and known. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/09/dona... @luathpress.bsky.social

The author, J.B. Priestley, was born on this date in 1894, now principally known for An Inspector Calls (for being a set text in schools), he was a polymath, and under the guise of the bluff Yorkshireman, was a serious intellectual. Jung described him as his best lay interpreter!

The extraordinary subtlety of being simple. Without question the book I would recommend first as an introduction to Christianity (and worth reading by all as a remarkable reminder).

Gunn's 'mysticism' is tightly woven to his characters and - their hopes, loves, humours and struggles - such that the 'well at the world's end' is everywhere, for the world's ending is placed in every particular being, every person, as their birthright. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-...

Fifteen twentieth-century exponents of holiness and critics of modernity are introduced in graceful, thought-provoking essays by Harry Oldmeadow. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/08/spir...

A Fool collected, a gallery enjoyed and a saint acquired …

From the depths of Buddhist illumination to the charming surfaces of the folkloric appreciation of fisherfolk, Blofeld explores Kuan Yin, both goddess and Bodhisattva of Compassion, with grace, insight and humility.

Swirl, 1937 by Emily Carr

Even Song, 1930, by Agnes Pelton

Woman with a Leaping Cat, 1945 by Robert Colquhoun.

Landscape with Elements, 1975-76 by John Craxton.

George Herbert on Love …

Brahma in his pavilion in a Budapest garden.

Fascinating, having read this excellent account of the conquest of the indigenous in Argentina and its relation to the birth of evolutionary science, I was surprised to hear from a friend over the weekend that in Argentina, it had recently been described as 'an empty territory.'

Blue Vases, 1983 by Josef Czpaski An accomplished artist and one of the most attractive spirits of the last century, if only we all had lived so well, with such integrity and compassion. ncolloff.blogspot.com/.../creating....

Raven Stealing the Sun, 1978 by Ken Mowatt.

Fountain cleaning …

Undoubtedly worth waiting for …

When the world worn professor through the love of Iris and the remembrance of irises steps into the ‘other kingdom’ in the last of the stories here, you know Hesse caught a taste of perfection, rarely achieved in literature.

Masterly weird tales of shifts in time, disturbing illuminations, influenced by the Fourth Way and Jung, with glimmerings of social satire and comment.

Pentecost: Woodblock print by Sadao Watanabe 1913-1996

A Being of the Sea, 1945 by Cecil Collins

An anthropology of dreams rooted in contemporary Egypt and deeply respectively of people’s actual experience and their accompanying hermeneutical frameworks. Dreams as an inhabited landscape rather than unconsciously generated within a self.

The Ascension, 1963, by Peter Rogers for today’s feast (courtesy of the Methodist Church Art Collection).

An accomplished look at Darwin, the science of race, and its impact on the actual lives of indigenous people. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/05/darw... @hurstpublishers.bsky.social

C.S.Lewis called MacDonald his master, re-reading his first essay in ‘fantasy’ fiction - a remarkable if flawed act of imagination. I wish I had discussed him more with my friend Stephen Prickett whose book on Victorian Fantasy is wonderful.

Enjoying re-reading Gunn’s novel of the paranormal and of clashing cultures: of spirit and matter, of cultural/national identities, and of class and place.

"Silence Has Settled," 1890 by Nikolai Dubovsky.

Narcissus at Shoalhaven, 1979 by Arthur Boyd.

Happy Easter! The Resurrection,1465, by Piero della Francesca

Christ's Descent into Hell, 1468 by Andrea Mantegna. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2014/04/seek...

The Cruxifixion, 1954 by Tristram Hillier.

Mission Impossible - my attempt to summarise the great Martin Buber's I and Thou for Pari Center's Book A Month Club. Lovely questions in the second half. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDOb...

Where I will try brilliantly (I hope) to summarise one of the most valuable books of the C20th! paricenter.com/event/martin...

Palm Sunday. From Bamberger Psaler c. 1230, Fol. 61v.

“The First Kiss of the Sun", 1886 by Jean-Leon Gerome.

Sail by, see a valley, buy it, build a house and create a garden.

The Secret 1943 by Cecil Collins

Tenacious trees, stranded boat

Aquarium, 1930 by William Hentschel.

Reflections on the nature of gardens and gardening at a time of crisis (COVID in this case) seems continuing prescient! Beautifully written and illuminating.