ART 'N' AB ART - Sea State - Wolterton Hall Exhibition

An exhibition featuring work by

Maggie Hambling & Ro Robertson

Wolterton Hall

Summer in North Norfolk is the time for top end art exhibitions. This year a new place Wolterton Hall has opened up as an art and culture venue from June through to December. Its a beautifully restored Palladian inspired late picturesque building and landscaped grounds, heavily restored after a fire in the late 1950's.Its now a wedding and holiday venue, with dining evenings, special events and workshops, To which they can now add Art Exhibitions.

One of the Nightwaves paintings

Time

This inaugural exhibition features the work of Maggie Hambling and Ro Robertson, brought together for the first time. The Portrait Room, stripped bare of its paneling, now displays a sequence of small studies entitled Nightwaves painted on an indigo blue background. Each capturing the raging changeable emotional sea in all its force and furious variety. Broken by a larger painting, sea influenced, in a scrabble and dribble of paint, with an dream portrait of Hambling's partner in bed emerging from it  Collectively these smaller paintings form a band around the room. These have a strong, almost protective impact, with the feel of snap shots or stills from an animation, circling around the portrait and you in the room. Emphasising just how much this sense for the sea is as an archetype, that is constantly returned to in her work, as though through this alone can paint really speak for her. This room is a celebration of her partner Tory who died last year. 

The central room features two striking Hambling paintings- Summer Wave Breaking 11- Wall of Water XXX1  hung above the fire places. And two delicately executed paintings in gouache on paper by Robertson. In the centre of the room an captivating three dimensional metal sculpture called The Swell by Ro Robetson, carries associations with surf boards and sailing yachts splattered with paint. This is in conversation with the similarly expressive paint strokes of the Hamblings on the walls. Both artist's work use the sea abstractly as a channel for a swell of feeling. Set in elegant juxtaposition with the refined setting of a classically paneled room with a crystal chandelier.

This is a very fine opening exhibition, which is free, there is no entrance fee. You just have to book online in advance to say you are coming. One hopes to see further developments over the coming years.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

200 WORDS ON - Cultural Christianity

Christianity slipped into Britain during the Roman occupation in the 1st to 2nd century CE. Since then, for nigh on two millennia, it had a distinct influence upon our beliefs, morality, economics and culture, not always exemplary. Many Christian concepts, have since become commonly held secular beliefs. A sense for fairness, tolerance of difference, helping the poor and disadvantaged, equitable distribution of wealth, the equality of individuals, liberal democracy even, are just a few legacies. Regardless of our current personal belief system, we benefit from these inheritances.

This does not mean we are all automatically Christian practitioners, nor that it magically works better if we all attend church. No one asks to be culturally Christian, you become it simply by being born here. Cultural Christianity above all is the most passive of non-actions. You don't have to do anything. You don’t choose to be that. Becoming a Christian, however, requires an individual choosing to commit to being a practitioner. Its an active decision. It is disingenuous of modern political and religious commentators to make cultural Christianity out to be anything more than the leftover background radiation of our history. One suspects they have an agenda not particularly Christian in intent.

 

ART 'N' AB ART - Wighton 25 Exhibition - Site/Sight

There is precious little contemporary art exhibited in North Norfolk. So you have got to admire and support any show by the North Norfolk Exhibition Project. They hold a yearly open show in Wighton Parish Church. So the Wighton 25 show is called Site/Sight, - Contemporary art in the spirit of exploration. Which leaves you with a vague impression that the work was unfinished or merely preparatory in some way, and some of it did indeed look like an after thought..

I have grown accustomed to the presentation quality of exhibitions in Salthouse Church, which are always very carefully hung and curated. This one was a much more haphazardly arranged affair. With work unflatteringly presented halfway up a pillar, hung between pillars like a crucifixion, or, placed on pokey out of the way window ledges, as though exiled because it was a left over secondary piece. Not to mention interesting little assemblages placed so low down on tabletops and across pews so you'd hardly notice them. Some of the work here on show was frankly the sort of thing you do in an art foundation year. 

Anne Lise Horsley

The problem in a church setting is displaying work well. Because not everyone's work is suited to the size and space of a lofty church interior. Quite often interesting work here just got dwarfed. Far too small they would probably worked better in a more intimate location or gallery venue, but not here. But careful grouping and display would have helped. Instead there appeared to be a randomly scattered approach. If there was a coherent overall theme, I saw little of it. 

Helen Breach

Of the larger pieces, one was made from perspex and consisted of two large eyes, which peered out over the art assembled across the church beneath. Ahead of this swung delicately in the nave, was whar looked like a swan made of tissue paper, that looked like it had been ritually shot at dawn and hung on a hook like a trophy. Now, these may or may not be filled with 'the spirit of exploration' but some of the artwork here was the very definition of half baked ideas procured from, Duchamp, Beuys and Art Povera. 

The best work was by the textile artists whose work we've seen and admired in Salthouse quite recently, Nicki Chandler, Cherri Vernon- Harcourt. Heidi McEvoy Swift. One fine piece by the ever consistent Debbie Lyddon.  Some interesting use of found object assemblages by Viky Fenn and Richard Mills. 

Debbie Lyddon

Ros Copping & Jessica Loveday

A evocative installation by Ros Copping & Jessica Loveday of prints and cut out paper shapes, onto which a film taken on the North Norfilk coast was projected. You saw some of shapes in film echoed in the hanging cards. It was a piece about childhood memory and their Mothers, which was quietly affecting. 

One large paper hanging was of a very poorly drawn female figure with wide Earth Mother type hips, and extra large circular breasts with the neck and head of a swan emerging out of its shoulders. My first response was to laugh uproariously at this BoobySwan, I was in church so quietly on the inside of course. But it was just the most ridiculous and clumsily executed monstrosity.

Elizabeth Merman

 Too much of the artwork here was either flippant novelty, aesthetically old hat or intellectually flimsy work, which was a real shame.

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

MY OWN WALKING - Second July Journal 2025

The spiritual life can often throw you curve balls, asking you to respond creatively to them, and not just hit them back out of the proverbial ballpark. In many ways this journal's whole point has been to explore what comes up. To provide what arises with context if needed, and attempt at least to do so kindly, and not just descend into a self lacerating analysis. One that extirpates or expels something, but not in an entirely healthy manner. So I had this question come up for me this week, that particularly confronts my current modus operandi as a spiritual practitioner. one that I wasn't sure I had a coherent answer to. So I thought I'd try to write about it, just to see if it might become clearer in the process. 

Can one really practice the spiritual life on one's own? 

There are days when I wake up and say to myself  'what the fuck do you think you're doing'. I'm starting to write this journal post in the early morning. I didn't have a very settled nights sleep, so I can sense I'm a bit cantankerous, plus slightly self pitying and morose around its brittle edges. Which is a bit like me saying to myself - beware there are spirits of chaos loitering in this area. At such times I'm probably at my most fragile and reactive emotionally. But, hey, that maybe the territory, but let's proceed, moderating and adjusting the tone as we go along.

Since resigning as an Order member, I have undoubtedly benefited from being in better touch with my own walking of the spiritual path. Let's just say that, before we move on. Let's also briefly acknowledge what brought this about. I'd reached a point when actively working inside a religious institution, where it can become like you are no longer able to separate yourself from it. Impossible to have a good clear sight of yourself without its teachings, habits and forms automatically photo shopping your perceptions. Everything filtered through its own particular lens on the world. Its not that the latter is bad, or even needs to be seen as a problem. Religious institutions are there principally to support and guide you, that's one of their functions. As one's lived experience fades over time, you're brought back to your naivety so you can even start imagining yourself returning. 

I have, so to speak, gone freelance. I've spent the last seven years walking the spiritual path independent of institutions and alone. And I've done my fair share of 'picnicking on the lawns' of other traditions along the way, some Buddhist, some not. I'm currently taking part in a 90 day Commit to Sit with  The New York Zen Center, and finding that beneficial. To be part of a Sangha community, albeit at one technological remove online. All this has been mostly beneficial and often enlightening on what it is I believe, on what it is I think I need, and on my future direction of travel. I'm more attuned and alive to what I believe now, than I was even a few years ago. It feels like this has become a truer and more heartfelt voyage of discovery over the last year. If you were to ask me was I, even subliminally, still on the lookout for somewhere to lay my hat and belong. I would not flatly deny it. But I would say I'm far from ready to embrace that right now. I don't know what change might be needed to significantly shift the dial on that one.

Yet, on another rough cut early morning, my position can feel like I'm reinventing the wheel in order to accommodate all my particular nitpicks, bumps, dislikes and idiosyncrasies. And in my position as this freewheeling Buddhist, where I find it can be a little too easy to gloss over those glaring inconsistencies in my position, by attempting to turn them into a considered virtues. You'll find me attempting to do that to a degree in the very next paragraph. But I'll take such criticism proudly on the chin, as a declaration that I am human, and hence contrary. And yet, and yet, since the HA! last year I do have cause to wonder whether I really should be devoting so much time to my self filtering preciousness. It is always best to just practice whatever you practice, and to do that with the utmost depth of sincerity and faith that you can muster. And perhaps not spend too much time pondering upon the helpfulness or otherwise of the context you are in. Work to the best of your ability with wherever you are.

The one thing I found from reading about Gnosticism that felt remotely useful, was its belief that the spiritual life was all about the individual pursuit of 'gnosis', of seeking out the answers to the spiritual mysteries.  Because basically that is what everyone who takes up a religion does, whether inside or outside of a formal institution. Its what the Buddha did. The journey we are all on, can always benefit from having fellow travelers, though our spiritual paths remain individually unique to us. I try to hold whatever route I'm on in as wide, wise and helpful a perspective as possible, with as much humility as I can garner. Trying to integrate any contradictions I encounter. Which doesn't mean I resolve them, Just not actively trying to eradicate them because they appear to be antithetical to other viewpoints I may hold. It maybe that there is something in them, beyond their inconsistency, that may make them worth sticking around for at some point.

And whilst I'll acjnowledge that I know myself much better these days, I'm also perfectly willing to admit there will be blind spots, things in my experience and views on life that I still don't wish to acknowledge or see. Which is where other people do come in useful. Husbands, close spiritual friends, a religious community, more experienced spiritual teachers, are all helpful in causing you to pause, to think further, to point out your assumptions or the things you are deluded about or perhaps are taking for granted. Or simply be there to offer a bit of fellow support and encouragement. Now, I'll admit, my current spiritual path, has little to none of this. Its sort of inherent to it. I pick up advice or insights through what I read and watch, but that is general, and not personally focused. On the level of spiritual friendship its far from great. I learn from my missteps mainly, if I notice them that is. I do have cause to yearn for the compassionate nudge in the right direction from a person who knows me well. So If I ask myself:-

Can one really practice the spiritual life on one's own?

Well, of course you can do that, we all do that all the time.even when one is part of a community. But like anything its not without its downsides, and the lack of camaraderie, a like minded community and wise counsel are certainly three things it can lack. Another variation on that question might be:-

Can one effectively practice the spiritual life on one's own?

And this is a 'perhaps- yes' answer. Its dependent upon you, your ability to work with yourself, your particular context and perceptions. Its effectiveness? Well, no one can answer that one. Buddhism only ever gives you significant pointers, and the rest is up to you. What makes your practice effective? Would you recognise when it was? Do you know how that came about/? Well, awareness really, just ever expanding awareness, he says truthfully but glibly. Though there really is no one size fits all answer to how that happens. Ideally, we continue to practice with sincerity and faith, with a whatever fluctuating level of devotion we can bring forth. Travelling in the hope that what we do will be sufficient. 

I once took to the spiritual path of marathon meditation sessions, prostrating till my knees were bruised. I know there is an appeal, particularly to men, in this sort of spiritual machismo of pitting yourself insensibly against your practice. I'm certainly of the opinion these days, that in most people's circumstances, quality of practice will be more important than quantity.That stability of faith is a much better foundation for making practice effective, than any amount of ardent willpower. We can turn practice, if we are not careful, into some truly perverse form of self flagellation. In the mistaken view that this will make it more spiritually effective. Sometimes you just have to go with that in order to discover what a dead end looks like. Can you do all of that and still remain a kinder, more loving and wiser person?

My last years within a Buddhist institution fell very short of what I expected of myself as an Order member, the effectiveness of my practice seemed set along a trajectory of terminal decline. Though I'll freely admit that had not always been the case. I'm fully aware that my current spiritual path through being traveled alone, means it cannot for the time being exist,within a community of the like minded. That doesn't mean it cannot be effective to some degree, even though this can feel isolating early in rough cut of the morning, before the sun has not yet fully cracked open the new day.  

WATCHED - Chernobyl

On the 26th April 1986 the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine experienced a catastrophic explosion in one of its four reactors.  It was the world's worst nuclear accident, and over 31 people died from the immediate explosion. Yet modern estimates of those who died subsequently as a result of being exposed to the radiation from it, vary from 4,000 to over 60,000+ across Europe. These figures may be serious underestimations.

This five part mini series by HBO, painstakingly recreates the disaster and its calamitous aftermath. It is done with great realism, that you almost feel the radiated dust coming towards you as you watch. The out of control nuclear reactor burns with an intense glow as firefighters battle it.. You see the process by which someone who has been exposed to such huge levels of radiation, what horrific and painful things that does to the human body.   

What makes this tragedy still more horrific is how the people in charge of running Chernobyl try to downplay the severity of what's happened. They have radiation scanners many of which are faulty, though they can't read beyond a certain level anyway, but they blithely promulgate a lower manageable figure that they know to be incorrect. The true radiation level at Chernobyl was hundred's and hundred's of times more. The male Soviet hierarchy seemed to be all about pretending to be competent in order to gain further career advancement. People below a certain level of responsibility who had crticisms, were either ignored, ridiculed or told they didn't know what they were talking about. All of which meant the initial response to the disaster, was to deny that it was an explosion in the core at all, to treat it as a fire on a roof that could easily be controlled.

As an expert in atomic energy Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) is brought in by the government to advise them what to do. Initially he too has to fight against a level of leaden bureaucracy that really doesn't want to hear what he has to say. They don't want the world to know the Soviet Union has nuclear facilities that are incompetently managed and dangerous. He is sent to Chernobyl with Boris Cherbina ( Stellan Skarsgard ) to assess and make recommendations. Ulana Khomyuk ( Emily Watson ) a nuclear physicist from the Minsk, tells Valery that the reactor is at a critical stage and could well generate a thermo-nuclear explosion of massive proportions and millions of deaths across Europe. 

Just one of many crises they have to overcome, but each time they are overcome at the sacrificial cost of human lives. Men who heroically take the risk of going into the plant to open water gates or miners who spend days and days digging a critical tunnel under the reactor. The weight of this moral burden weighs heavy on all those responsible who are taking those decisions. Once the reactor is stablised, then they have to create an exclusion zone, including lots of critical clinical care and mopping up operations. The horror never seems to stop.

As it reaches the penultimate and final episodes, still more human lives are ruined. In preparing the reactor to be housed in a secure facility,  robotic removal of radioactive matter from the roofs around the reactor fails, so in the end humans have to do it. Women exposed to radiation through their fireman husbands, give birth to babies that cannot survive more than a few hours of life. Legasov is sent to tell the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna what happened, and is compelled by the government to lie by omission, to not tell them about the role structural flaws played in disaster. But later at the trial of the three engineers in charge on the night of the explosion, Legasov does expose the real truth. He loses his job and two years later kills himself, an act which itself ensured the world would now know what really happened on the 26th April 1986. His words 'Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth' resonating strongly with the shallow zeitgeist of our present time.

This series was compelling to watch, but I found it deeply deeply disturbing. My sleep was affected considerably as I tossed and turned restlessly through out the nights afterwards. There are a number of things which make it dangerous to see this as a completely verbatim account of what happened. Some of it draws on a collection of accounts Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, which she has been accused of inserting her own views and analysis into. The script created the fictional character of Ulana Kmoyuk as a conduit for the work of numerous scientists who worked to support Lagasov. most of whom were male and are unsung by this production. However, the effect of the drama upon the empathy of one's soul remains undiluted. The graphic truth with which they have tried to portray what happened, makes this worthy of being lauded with the highest praise indeed.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

RISING UP MY BOOK PILE - July 2025

It was my birthday at the end of June, so I was generously gifted quite a few books from my birthday book list. Hence my Book Pile has grown substantially larger, with some quite hefty old tomes in terms of the subject matter. Most of them are non-fiction of varying sorts. I intend on borrowing fiction books from the library. It's an effective way of trimming my book spending. I rarely re-read fiction, so my keeping them seems a bit superfluous. I did finish reading five books in the last eight weeks which is quite good for me. Anyway, to the Book Pile.

Fractured - Jon Yates

I saw Jon Yates being interviewed on The Sacred podcast, and the guy has a decent assessment of what is happening to out society and how we might mend its parlous state.
A Birthday Present

Migration.- W S Merwin 
Its a compendium of Merwin's poetry who is almost unknown in the UK, but a much lauded man of US literature. Not made much further progress with it yet, maybe writing about its state every month might reignite my interest,
Ordered from Holt Bookshop
Currently Reading

The Mystical Thought Of Master Eckhart - Bernard McGinn
In my reading of Christian history and literature  I've been meaning to investigate the mystic traditon, of which Eckhart seems pretty central. This book has a favourable reputation as a broad introduction to his thought.
A Birthday Present

Zombies In Western Culture - Vervaeke, Mastropietro & Miscevic

A slim volume of what I suspect is more an academic outline than a fully fledged book. But I've heard John Vervaeke talking about this and its seems an interesting suggestion. That the dominant presence of zombies in our popular culture is a reflection our unease with our cultures loss of meaning. 
A Birthday Present
Currently Reading

Poetic Diction - Owen Barfield
Subtitled -A Study In Meaning, Barfield was one of the 'Inklings' along with Tolkein & Lewis. An influential thinker whose ideas and theories about poetry and language are probably more wide ranging than I realise. Want to read this to see if I can get a grasp of what the fuss is about.
A Birthday Present

On Reflection - Richard Holloway 
I've read quite a few books by Richard Holloway and often found them helpful in putting some much needed perspective around the religiously non-aligned viewpoint I have felt myself in over recent years. 

Stumbled across this in Book Hive, Aylsham
Currently Reading

Ceilings - Zuzana Brabcova
I was in my favourite independent bookshop, I got to a point where I'd quickly reached choice fatigue. Husband found this book and thrust it before me, saying I think you might like this. I read the synopsis and thought, he may well be right.
A Book Hive Norwich purchase.

At Work In The Ruins - Dougald Hine
Saw this guy on The Sacred podcast and he has some brilliant ideas. He takes the view we are already done for,so its now more important to work out what we save and work with in the ruins of our civilisation. Its more hopeful than you'd expect.
A Birthday Present

The Devil You Know by Dr Gwen Adshead & Eileen Horne
Again someone I've seen being interviewed on The Sacred podcast.  I'm always fascinated by people whose job is to interact with the darker vile and unacceptable people in our society. Adshead is a forensic Psychiatrist whose patients are serial killers, arsonists, stalkers. Basicly the sort of folk the tabloids would label 'monsters'.
A Birthday Present

Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
I read Baldwin's first novel Go Tell It On The Mountain a couple of years ago. I thought maybe it was time to read Goivanni's Room his famously ground breaking 'gay' novel. I find Baldwin, as a writer really deep and compassionate, as an activist, well, what an orator, what a fluent intelligence. But boy is he an intimidating figure. 

Purchased from Waterstones in Norwich, a freeby on my loyalty card.

Devoured - Anna Mackimin
I saw the stylish cover of this book, and read the synopsis. Its set in a Norfolk commune and is a black satire on an idealistically driven style of living and how it can all go terribly wrong very quickly. 

Bought from Book Hive, Aylsham
Currently Reading

BOOKSHOPS

Book Hive, Norwich

Book Hive, Aylsham

Holt Bookshop

SCREEN SHOT - The Amateur

Charles Heller ( Rami Malek) is a brilliant cryptographer, who spends far too many hours in dark soundproofed rooms scrolling through code looking for significant discrepancies. His wife Sarah ( Rachel Brosnahan ) is away at a conference in London. So he stays at work delving deep into a complex piece of data. He discovers that an operation previously slated as the work of a suicide bomber, was in fact a CIA black operation, and a deliberately focused unsanctioned drone attack. Instantly he realises he's stumbled upon something that is dangerous for him to know. The next day, when he arrives at work, he's called into the CIA Director's office. Suspecting his previous nights discovery may have already been exposed. But in fact she informs him that his wife has been killed in a terrorist attack on her hotel in London. 

Devastated, Charles starts to use all his own skills to investigate what happened, identifying three individuals responsible. In a discussion with Agent Moore (Holt McCallaney) he realises that they intend to do nothing to capture the folk responsible, saying they want to get the whole operation. Charles decides to tell them he knows about the Black Ops, and blackmails them into training him up to go in pursuit of his wife's murderers. It turns out in his training with Hendo ( Laurence Fishburne) that he's a hopeless shot with a gun. So he will need to use all his personal resourcefulness to develop an innovative approach to his mission. A mission no one seems to wants him to succeed in.

Though the essential premise of the movies set up is a tad unrealistic, the film does stick to its guns and does not pull any unbelievable punches in order to make it more dramatic. Malek is very good as the man that finds he's more than a little bit out of his depth, but remains driven by his own psychological compulsion to see this through. His facial expression shifts effortlessly from despair, desperation and deliberation, that feed into lightening responses in the moment. You are never allowed to forget this man is grieving and is seeking his wife's murders in order to have closure. When he does eventually find the gangs leader he asks him why his wife had to die. It was necessary in order for them to escape,he says, it was decided spontaneously, whereas Charles's revenge killings, well they are deliberate and remorselessly executed. Which is worse? Pointing out what his wife's death has driven him to do.The Amateur is a well paced thriller, that is never tempted to stray from the conceit within which it is set to operate. They carry it all off cleanly and with all the ruthless efficiency necessary.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

SCREEN SHOT - Oppenheimer

 

Though its running time might seem a bit of an ask when pinned to a cinema seat, Oppenheimer more than justifies its three hours dramatically. It is a visual tour de force from Christopher Nolan, maintained with consistency and flare. He has also assembled here some of the greats of modern day cinema. Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) that most chameleon of actors is superb. As are Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt as his two unconventional wives, who both make the most of their limited screen time. Blunt in particular seems on fire playing the ever morally indignant Kitty.

The story arc of Oppenheimer is structured over the lamentable bones of a committee, trying to assess whether Oppenheimer should have his security clearance renewed.  This entails interviews of friends and work colleagues, secret documents, passed surveillance, all his passed actions trawled over in order to establish whether he was really a 'commie' or not. For the committee is really a set up, a kangaroo court, organised covertly by Lewis Strauss ( Robert Downey Jnr) to basically trash Oppenheimer's public image and reputation post war. In the process it tells the story of how the famous theoretical physicist took over the management of The Manhatten Project that devised the atomic bomb, in a nail biting aim to beat the Nazi's in developing it. Then to make the bomb in order to launch it against the Japanese and bring the war to a end.  Followed by his own guilt over the mass casualties and his part in that, and the public slandering of him and his reputation.

This story has everything going for it treachery, betrayal, sex, communism, rivalry, scientific break throughs, acclaim and infamy. And Nolan gives it all the punch and propulsion it needs to keep you with it. It is no wonder this has won so many awards, particularly for its leads. Whilst in the background you have notable cameos from the likes of Kenneth Branagh as Niels Boher and Gary Oldman as President Truman, who both give restrained toned down performances, for a change. At a few years distance I cannot for the life of me envisage why you would want to do a Barbenheimer and see Barbie and Oppenheimer back to back. Were they completely mad?

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

FINISHED READING - The Gnostics by Sean Martin

Hubby found this book on the charity table in Tesco.So it cost all of a pound. However, if you are looking for a basic, yet clear exposition of what Gnosticism is and how this has manifested through out human history, then you could do no worse than read Sean Martin's book. It begins in the early centuries of the Christian era. What was to become Roman Catholicism was only one of many ways of interpreting the message of Jesus. Martin believes what became Gnosticism originated in the cross fertilisation between the message of Jesus and the Jewish Kabbala. Many early teachers such as Basilides and Marcion. and movements such as the Valentinians, Mandaens and Manichaeism arose and surged in popularity until they were declared heretical and suppressed. The eradication of The Cathars being just one example in history where alternative beliefs on the nature of Jesus's message, were so to speak 'taken out' by order of the Pope.

In recent years there has been a good deal of academic push back on the whole notion that anything as coherent as a 'Gnostic faith' ever existed. And its clear from reading this book, that it was really a multiplicity of diverse approaches that had a shared theme of the personal pursuit of 'gnosis'. The search for spiritual knowledge largely seen as an individual endeavour. There was also a distinctly non-hierarchical structure to its institutions, and a belief that the search for 'gnosis', and the offering of religious leadership, should be open to both men and women. Though it is true that what we refer to today as Gnosticism, was a real rag bag of cults and anti-establishment, reactionary movements. Ranging from belief systems that are frankly barking when viewed individually, to an unbelievably radical alternative lifestyle.

Though 'Gnosticism' was mostly eradicated by medieval times, its basic principles lingered on in a wide variety of individuals and movements. So 'gnosis' can be detected in early alchemy and more broadly Hermeticism. It was very definitely foundational to the work of William Blake, Goethe and the writings of Madam Blavatsky. As we move into the 20th century and the rediscovery of many 'Gnostic' texts in 1945 in Nag Hammadhi, it began seeping into pop culture through the writings of Carl Jung, Philip K Dick, and films such as The Matrix. As a consequence its gained quite a lot of undeserving 'alternative' kudos.

Martin's assertion at the end of this book that Gnosticism's re-emergence pre-war was in order to save the world from political and religious fundamentalism, is, to be frank, the most wishful of wishful thinking. It owes a lot of its present day appeal to it chiming in with modern prejudices - its trenchant individualism, anti-establishment non hierarchical nature, also its permissive and egalitarian, and also romanticised, by being seen as saintly for being martyred and violently suppressed. The problem so far as practicing Gnosticism goes, is that it lacks theological coherence, ranging vaguely across far too many wildly differing viewpoints to really be that useful as a complete philosophy for living. 

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

MY OWN WALKING - July Journal 2025

Have you ever walked into a space or a place, whether that be in nature, a church, a temple, a house or ancient site and could just instantly feel the energy of the place rest upon your being and says - Welcome? The sense of its sacredness hits you, the centuries of devotional practice inhabits and lingers on in its ground, its stones and in its very air. I have had such a feeling repeatedly in The Anglican Shrine at Walsingham. 

I've come to the conclusion that, though its been a Christian site of pilgrimage for several centuries, Walsingham's 'sacredness' is actually far far older than that. That the Christian faith is simply the latest religion to piggy back upon its ancient, perhaps multi-millennial mythic origins. Whenever I go to the Anglican Shrine I get the strongest sensation of this energy, that literally feels like a hand being gently placed upon my crown chakra.

So I have cause to ponder the human need for such sacred spaces. Places where we can find solitude and quiet, to commune and contemplate spiritually. More specifically my own need for that. Though I live in the countryside by the coast, and our house has a calm relaxed ambiance. Its also as full of all the various modern things one can be distracted by - Books, TV, Films, Mobile Phone, Laptop etc as any one else's house. These days I think you do have to completely leave your usual environs, in order to find such places. Because solitude and quiet, though requisite, are fleetingly rare commodities in our 24/7 world.

To mark the first anniversary of the HA!, I spent a day in Walsingham, walking between the various major shrines and chapels. I arrived at 9 am in time for the 9.30 am Mass at the Chapel of the Annunciation. I sat, along with a few other early birds, all of us men. Whilst I waited in the quiet of the chapel for the service to start, those usual sensations on the top of my head began manifesting. These stayed up until when the Mass actually began. At which point all sensations of the energy on the top of my head vanished like a popped bubble. It was my first ever experience of a Catholic Mass, which I must say felt quite spiritually deflating and sterile. I had exactly the same experience of a connection vanishing, later in the Anglican Chapel when Mass started being recited there. When I arrived at the Slipper Chapel the early morning Mass had already finished, so I could just sit in the quiet and commune with the space. In none of this sacred spaces was I completely alone at any time. Any greater depth of connection that can happen in solitude, did not occur. 

This is simply a notable experience I've had. From which I can draw my own conclusions. It matters not, to anyone else, what I call the sense of a presence I've felt on those occasions. Whether I deify it, call it some spiritual essence in the universe, or concoct a neat Buddhist reference to describe it. To really thoroughly 'Other' it. One can often feel the need to label and catagorise such things into oblivion. And, maybe through misdiagnosing the nature of it, stifle its purpose. Sometimes in the no doubt good natured desire to claim it as proof, for a specific belief system. I did inevitably begin to wonder whether this was God and was I really after all a Christian ? After my recent dalliance with Mass in Walsingham, I am far less inclined to support such an assertion. I feel as though one particular recent cycle of spiritual exploration maybe coming to a close. 

Now, what this is an experience of does need to be at least considered, even if that may ultimately prove inconclusive. These are just a few I've come up with to flesh out this paragraph - This experience may simply be a consequence of an increased openness and receptivity in myself. It could be that it is a quality of the universe, of 'something that is beyond me'. It maybe a combination of those two, of the individual and universal drawing closer. It maybe the crown chakra opening up like a light bulb being switched on. It maybe be the spiritual essence of a lost dead person. It maybe God. It maybe me getting altogether a little too spiritually carried away. I must also confess, I have recently written and been experimenting with reciting a prayer that asked for confirmation of the existence of 'something that is beyond me' . So that would make it confirmation bias - wouldn't it? Except this was happening long long before I even thought of trying that.

To me this intuitively feels like its suggestive of 'something that is beyond me', I've had similar experiences in Christian, Buddhist and Spiritualist contexts, and they'd certainly have their own particular interpretation of what such an experience might signify. But I think its best for me, to stop at 'something that is beyond me' to not get too imaginatively or spiritually speculative. Once you start that, its a somewhat slippery slope towards turning what was merely a suggestive experience into a incontrovertible fact. Worse still were your ego to attach some personal spiritual self aggrandisement onto it. Oh, boy is it best not to go there. 

Dogen once said ;- 'Realisation is the state of ambiguity itself'. Whatever we consider to be indescribable or ineffable, will when experienced through the lens of mundane reality - be ambiguous - and the more we attempt to pin down that ambiguity, the more incorrect our firm assertions and certainties will become. So, though 'something that is beyond me' sounds distinctly vague, that in my view, is perfectly appropriate. 

Religious buildings, can be sacred, because they are purpose built to uplift our hearts and our spiritual sensitivities, through awe and wonder. Often these spaces are exuberantly lofty, pierced with arrows of stained glass, decorated with elaborately patterned tiles or murals, with oodles of richness, bedecked in gold and jewels. Vaults reverberating with the sound of music, angelically swooping through the majesty of its caverns. They are evocations of something 'other' built in stone and glass and a bucketful of faith. 

And yet, this feeling of being touched by 'something that is beyond me' has also be encountered when I'm quiet and alone in nature too. Most frequently by the sea. In nature and religious sacred places I can be connected with 'something that is beyond me'. Whatever this is then, isn't the exclusive purview belonging to any particular religious building, because it can also be found outside of all of those spaces. I'm even starting to sense it, when I do rituals before my shrine at home, my crown chakra coming fizzing into life. For on a most basic level, perhaps I'm just that little bit less inhibited, a tad more open, and a degree of too more receptive - to the sense for 'otherness' within my ordinary being.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

'It's not that someone like me appears
once in several thousand years;
I appear only once in eternity....
That everyone should believe
that they are a once-in-eternity being
that its the same as living out the buddhadharma.' 

Uchiyama Roshi 
Taken from The Roots Of Goodness
Published by Shambahala 2025

 

FINISHED READING - The Roots Of Goodness by Eihei Dogen

 A commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, Translated by Daitsu Tom Wright

Uchiyama's commentary is derived from a series of talks he gave on the final essay from Dogen's Shobogenzo,- Hachi Dainin Gaku. This was during the last years of Uchiyama's life, where he found greater depths and resonance in this text, the more he examined and spoke in public about it. He felt it included everything you needed to practice, each quality interconnected with the others. The Japanese title roughly translates as The Eight Qualities of a Great Person. Dogen's essay was itself an exposition upon the Buddha's final teaching. So there is an air of the final summing up of  lifetimes of Buddhist practice, from all its past and present lineage of wise contributors, that has now ended up as this book. The Eight Qualities are :-

1 - Having Few Desires
2 - Knowing When One Has Enough
3 - Appreciating Serenity & Quiet
4 - Make Diligent Effort
5 - Do Not Lose Sight Of The True Dharma
6 - Concentrate On Settling Into Dhyana ( Meditation)
7 - Practice Wisdom
8 - Do Not Engage In Useless Argument

In The Roots Of Goodness the first discussion is on who the Great Person is. Whilst most of us might like think of ourselves as an adult, we are quite frequently still compulsively driven by childish, petty minded thinking and immature emotional responses. Letting desire run rampant as a motivating force for our life and relationships, and hence feel frustrated or despairing about how unfulfilled our life feels.. A Great Person is not such an impulsively driven individual, having learned to master these eight qualities they have become a True Adult.  Why did they need to do this? Why, indeed, would we? It all depends on what we believe is the true purpose of our life. 

'Anyone who asks who or what they're living for is mistakenly searching for a most fundamental value outside of their self. That I am living means that I myself am living right now......When I was born, I was born along with my world. When I die, my entire world will die with me. I am living right now - this is the foundation of all values. So if we ask what we're living for - I am alive, living for me, I'm living right now; that's it. living fully right now is what is of absolute value.'

So having a life has its own absolute value in the present moment. Desires exist as a perpetual fantasy of the not yet fully arrived future. Despair is the shadow side of those desires when unfulfilled. So the first and primary guideline to practice, is learning How to have few desires. And running in tandem with that Knowing when you have enough. 

Our society is compulsively obsessed with making money and progressively getting wealthier, to the point that multi-billionaires do not even conceive that they might have enough, and continue to want more and more. Whilst the poor never have the luxury of feeling like they have enough. And in-between these two extreme polarities lies the complete spectrum of lack and dissatisfaction, from people who really do have nothing to worry about financially. Its no wonder Uchiyama's primary urging with regard to knowing when you have enough is first - Just stop your whining! 

Those first two guidelines - Have few desires - Know when you have enough - these are the central guidelines from which the remaining six find their context and all grow out from. All eight guidelines run counter to the prevailing values of our late capitalist society. They also could help us steer our lives much better through the gathering storm of temptations in modern life. 

'It's winter, very cold, and you're walking along in noisy shoes clip,  clop, clip clop. Oh, You look down and spot something; it looks like a wallet that someone has dropped, and it seems to be filled with money! You look around, and luckily, no one is watching. You bend over to pick it up, but it's frozen in the ice. You can't move it. You pause, and then this genius idea pops into your head. You open your kimono and let rip a fountain of warm pee, melting the ice. You really are a genius, but as you bend over to pick up the wallet, you wake up from what was just a dream, The wallet filled with money was just a phantom! But that beautiful fountain of pee was no dream; it was a reality. And the result stays around to haunt you - now, you've got to wash the futon and set it out to dry.'

Uchiyama's style is often so colourful but dry. He is very straightforward, but doesn't get too caught up in the metaphysical complexities that some concepts imply. He gives quite practical, often humourous, and very down to earth examples, to relate too. I have read and studied several of his books, and each of them is a joy to read and find myself repeatedly being re-inspired by. Uchiyama is often translated by Daitso Tom Wright, as was my first introduction to Dogen, their book How To Cook Your Life, on Dogen's Instructions to the Tenzo. Probably the single most influential Buddhist book on my approach to the spiritual life. A book I've returned too to study countless times. And still I find more in it with each re-reading. The combination of Dogen, Uchiyama and Daitso Tom Wright is in my book, an unbeatable one. The Roots Of Goodness is another book I will look forward to re-reading again, more than likely quite soon.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

CARROT CAKE REVIEW NO 36 - The Tray Bake Equivalent Of Posh Totty

Folks Coffee Co, Holt, Norfolk

Probably the newest cafe in Holt, let alone North Norfolk, Folks is developing a small scale Norfolk chain of cafes. One in Norwich, Blakeney and Heydon, now joined by this one here. Clean minimalist layout, light coloured tables with rather lovely bent wood pale rattan chairs, olive green table light, warm grey and white crockery. Folks Holt effortlessly nails the brief for a sparsely styled modern cafe. 

It also produces a very fine Oat Latte. The cake range, though often limited, is always well made. So I could confidently order a Carrot Cake, which was really, as ever, the ubiquitous tray bake. But this being Holt, it wasn't considered acceptable to produce a passably fine tray bake, it had to do everything but put brass knobs on it. 

So where shall I start in describing this tray bake? Well, what first attracts your eye is the huge amount of foof, the confected froth of stuff they pile on top of it. Not just a Pecan nut, but also three small dimpled pools of a fruit compote, an extravagant scattering of lavender and wild flower petals, not to mention a handsomely generous thick cream cheese topping. All atop a small cube of dark coloured carrot cake that has heft, moistness, dried fruit, chopped nut, and more than enough grated carrot that it patently shows its strandy origins in the external texture of the cake. My God, this might just be the tray bake that ticks most of the fucking boxes I've ever conceived of, in my admittedly nitpicking pedantic imagination. Bar the one about tray bakes not being truly cakes, which remains true, whatever.

So glory alleluia! the darned thing tastes like a carrot cake ideally should. All the top stuff is not an unnecessary distraction of confetti, but genuinely complements the flavours of the tray bake beneath. A very good carrot cake like texture, not too weighty, not over cooked nor under cooked, not claggy nor doughy, not too mixed spicey or flavourless, not dominated by the taste of banana, not, for Christ's sake, a cake of blandly unidentifiable origin. Not any of these things I interminably criticise more grown up Carrot Cakes of actually being. This is probably the nearest a tray bake will ever come, to fulfilling my stringent recipe requirements for any Carrot Cake, whatever the species.  Yeah, always a shame about the tray bake. But maybe I'll just softly blur the edges a bit, and partially forgive that on this one occasion.
    

    CARROT TRAY BAKE SCORE - 7/8

WATCHED - Shogun

 

Gosh, this is a truly epic series, the scenery, the script, the fabulous costumes. Finally, Hiryuki Sanada ( Lord Yoshii Toronaga ) truly gets a meaty part to play in Japanese, rather than taking bit parts as Hollywood's go to oriental. Yeah, his face will already be familiar to you. Whereas Cosmos Jarvis (John Blackthorne) will be new to most of us, with that heavy set body swagger, the best theatrical pipes since Richard Burton, and more than a smidgen of raw sex appeal. And Anna Sawaii ( Lady Mariko ) plays this beautiful mysterious complex woman, she's the translator, the christian convert, but there is so much more going on behind that elegance and proper etiquette. In this series there is also a careful and judicious use of the really horrific, the bloodshed will come out of the blue at you, so be aware. Also quite a bit of seppuku, particularly by the end.

The story line, well, its too complicated to fully explain. Blackthorne turns up with his ship and crew, intent on kicking the Portuguese and their Catholicism out of Japan, and replacing it with a bit of good old English Protestant free trade. But all these plans go awry pretty quickly. He is given Lady Mariko to translate and introduce him to the bafflingly formal world of Japanese Court procedures, where no one says what they think, or really mean. In a way we see this exotic but uptight world entirely through Blackthorne's eyes.  

Toronaga is threatened with being impeached by his fellow Regency Council. But he knows how to fox them and plays many a cunning ploy. He is definitely someone who executes the long game, always with an eye set on where he wishes to end up. To do this he will manipulate both friend and foe if needs be. Blackthorne gets drawn into being used in this political intrigue and into a dangerous illicit affair with Mariko. For it turns out she is the daughter of a previous Shogun, who was wrongly assassinated for ultimately doing the right thing. And she has waited a lifetime for her moment of revenge. But really, none of this quite captures the tightly turned intricacy of this stories cat and mouse nature. The charming duplicity of Yorishige (Tadanobu Asano) is just one character in this series who is seemingly playing for both sides. And both sides know that.

Historically it takes some huge liberties, but it does very effectively capture the mood of internecine family conflict and often war, that the soon to be Edo period, Tokugawa Shogunate had to actively contain. Shogun was based on a novel of the same name from 1975 by James Clavell. It is set thirty plus years before the Portuguese and Roman Catholicism are thrown out of Japan, and subsequently closes its borders to the outside world for nearly four hundred years. 

There are just so many heart stopping moments in this series, of beauty. of tragedy, not to mention cinematography. Its no surprise this series has won 4 Golden Globes and a record breaking 18 Emmys, for its acting leads, as well as music and technical gongs. I was an emotional wreck by the end of it. A second series is promised, but just how they are going to top this one I do not know.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

PHOTO GALLERY - Potty Morris & Folk Music Festival 2025

When we lived in Cambridge, it was pretty much a certainty that we'd come up to Sheringham on the first day of the Potty Morris Festival. And now we live here its almost casual the amount of effort to watch it. We can be very selective, aren't forced to stay all day if we don't wanna. This year, for some reason it felt a bit low key. Certainly not quite the surging crowds. Maybe the weather stifled folks enthusiasm. Anyhow, here are a few photos from this years event.