My very talented wife’s latest creation – a hand built (not thrown) porcelain teapot. I can’t wait to see it finished once it’s glazed and fired.

In my experience, religion and spiritual practices can serve as pretty good hiding places for people who are disinclined to consider the apparent emptiness and existential pointlessness of the human condition, but who would rather imagine goals and paths to those goals in a situation—this aliveness—that may actually have no meaning. So perhaps spiritual practice works against awakening as much as or even more than it does to foster it.

– Robert Saltzman

Who remembers the Dark Enlightenment? Back in 2007/08 it was little more than a sinister, niche internet meme.

The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement (sometimes abbreviated to NRx), is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian,[1]reactionary philosophical and political movement.[2] The term “Dark Enlightenment” is a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment and apologia for the public view of the “Dark Ages”.

The ideology generally rejects Whig historiography[3]—the concept that history shows an inevitable progression towards greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy[3]—in favor of a return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government, including absolute monarchism and other older forms of leadership such as cameralism.[4]

– Wikipedia

Now in 2024/25 it is close to becoming a reality.

Trump wants to get rid of the current government so that he can enrich himself, do whatever he wants to his enemies, and avoid answering to the law. The Christian nationalists who wrote Project 2025 want to destroy the federal government so they can put in place an authoritarian who will force Americans to live under religious rule. Tech elites like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want to get rid of the federal government so they can control the future without having to worry about regulations.

– Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

I made it in to work today. Second time lucky. Roads still officially closed and strewn with abandoned cars but the water has finally receded off the roads leaving the surrounding fields looking like lakes.

I’m fascinated by the visual tropes of spiritual materialism which almost always accompany or illustrate books, blogs, talks, retreats etc.

The visual language employed is mostly confined to some variation of pristine nature, evoking purity, clarity, beauty, colour and, above all, light. Lots of light. Sunrises, sunsets, the colour spectrum refracted through drops of dew, perfectly smooth polished stones, light reflected off mill pond still water.

All this beauty and perfection seems to perpetuate the myth of the spiritual goal as some eternally bright place out there somewhere in which we can dwell if we just follow this or that method.

Anyone who has really practiced any form of spiritual meditation, inquiry or contemplation for a significant period of time can attest to the vast spectrum of experience that constitutes one’s ongoing practice. To deny or avoid the inevitable and necessary murk and darkness is to deceive oneself and others. It is literally the case that without the dark there is no light.

Of all the traditions, I have always found myself drawn to Zen and its associated art seems entirely appropriate. Simple, ordinary and modest. Promising nothing yet evoking the inevitability of the present moment – whatever, however that may be.

This refreshing book cover avoids most of the usual clichés.

Peter Brown’s Dirty Enlightenment.

I love the title for a start. The only gaffe is the circular rainbow motif but I appreciate the rest of the image – ordinary, everyday, and relatable.

Practice includes everything, nothing left out. If we are honest we can come to accept the entirety of our life which, if we’re being truthful, rarely features an impossibly radiant sunset or mirror still water, even metaphorically.

Lao-tzu is the example of a man with superior insight who has seen and experienced worth and worthlessness, and who at the end of his life desires to return into his own being, into the eternal unknowable meaning.

– Carl Jung

RSS basically works like social media should work. Using RSS is a chance to visit a utopian future in which the platforms have no power, and all power is vested in publishers, who get to decide what to publish, and in readers, who have total control over what they read and how, without leaking any personal information through the simple act of reading.

Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic

Living in such close proximity to a living, pulsing vein of nature is a clear and ever present reminder of our position in the scheme of things.

On the edge. Precarious and brittle. Vulnerable.

It’s unsettling but necessary.

I was sent home from work early today because of the flooded roads. Made it back OK, just. It will be interesting to see if I make it in tomorrow morning…