Alistair AppletonApr 212 minQuotesFinding AdonisA trip to A favourite London bookshop unearths one of the great poets I’d never heard of.
Alistair AppletonJun 11, 20214 minPsychologyYou are a child of the universeA blog piece refurbished from the archives. But no one tires of hearing about amazing teenagers and the vast sweep of the future that...
Alistair AppletonMay 27, 20215 minQuotesOn reading James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’This is another blog fished out of the annals. I probably wrote it about 10 years ago. I have subsequently read Joyce’s magnum opus for...
Alistair AppletonApr 23, 20214 minCultureThe Supersumptuous That voice is all wrong, really. It’s not formal, it’s not ‘correct’ but it gushes and it’s unstoppable. It IS supersumptous. And that’s wh
Alistair AppletonApr 3, 20201 minQuotesAltogether elsewhereThe final two quatrains of W.H. Auden’s Fall of Rome have been circling in my mind during this extraordinary time in lockdown. Especially...
Alistair AppletonMar 24, 20202 minQuotes“This is The Hour”My friend Jane posted this from a shut-down Manhattan. It’s a quote from an elder of the Hopi Nation. And it sends shivers down my spine....
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuotesgreatnessThe great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody’s life really consists of small things. Greatness is a...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuotesNo wiser than this…If you let go a little, you suffer a little less. If you let go a lot, then you suffer a lot less. If you let go completely, all...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuotesoh how beautifully the year begins / the blazing starts, the terror dimsSNOW The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was Spawning snow and pink roses against it Soundlessly collateral and...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20192 minQuotesHumani nihil a me alienum puto (I think myself estranged to nothing human)In the magical way of stumbling, I stumbled across the famous Zen writer Alan Watts. He was one of the first people to popularize Zen in...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuoteswith wings of drifted snow and eyes of flameThe degree of love we manifest determines the degree of spaciousness and freedom we can bring to life’s events. Imagine taking a very...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuotesHoward Zinn quoted by Noam ChomskyTo be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty,...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuotesstation to station: islandHeaney meets Joyce in a carpark, after a fast and pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s Purgatory in Lough Derg. The tall, older man on his...
Alistair AppletonApr 14, 20191 minQuotesthe translation of nirvana: phew!Alan Watts’ smoke-kippered and throaty laugh: & the perfect translation of nirvana – which means ‘blowing out’ at Sanskrit root – is not...
Alistair AppletonApr 10, 20191 minQuotesSMELLING SALTS #6: Carl Sagan“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time. When the United States is a service and information economy;...
Alistair AppletonFeb 13, 20192 minQuotesWordsworth’s Prelude: Stealing a Boat on Derwent WaterWordsworth is a key figure in Reggie’s understanding of dharma. Strange that a 19th Century Cumbrian poet should feature so strongly in a...
Alistair AppletonDec 7, 20181 minQuotesSMELLING SALTS #4: Viktor FranklBetween stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies all our growth...
Alistair AppletonDec 1, 20181 minQuotesSMELLING SALTS #3: James BaldwinPeople pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the...
Alistair AppletonNov 26, 20181 minQuotesSMELLING SALTS #2: Alice WalkerExpect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. ALICE WALKER I’d love to know your thoughts about Alice Walker. Drop me a message with any...
Alistair AppletonNov 21, 20181 minQuotesSMELLING SALTS #1: Elizabeth BishopHoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by. ELIZABETH BISHOP I’d love to know your...