BLENDED WISDOM

Musings after a recent conversation with a close friend and a reiteration of the same topic in an Ethan Hawke interview snippet - the fact of having to admit to ourselves our attention span, ability to stay ‘in’ things - notably a book - has diminished or is on the noticeable decline. As a reader, the power of having to admit this to oneself or out loud is not fun but, at the same time, we have enough introspection to notice it and so the fight becomes, to take up arms against it, as the Prin...

Musings into the things we are called to do and the characters that form our experience, guide and influence us. The power of belief in your own dreams and in others to fulfil theirs. I watched a film called The Tender Bar - picked at random, after a writing day, and it was about a young man who becomes a writer and learns all life’s hardest lessons from his absent father and all his most insightful ones from his Uncle Charlie, who owns The Dickens Bar and ensures his nephew reads, star...

Musings from St Paul de Vence after an encounter with a Finnish art teacher and painter who had spent all afternoon in the village and returned, simply overcome with emotion. She muttered the words - “Stendhal Syndrome” - as a way of expressing what had overcome her. A vague recollection of its meaning and I was on the right path, as I had experienced it myself as a young twenty something coming to St Paul de Vence in France for the very first time, Once a winter enclave for artis...

Musings from La Muse Writers Retreat in SW France where I picked up a book of conversations with Joseph Campbell called An Open Life in its wonderful library. The double entendre between the conversations being intimate in a way that opens us up to the heart and mind of Joseph Campbell - student and educator of The Hero’s Journey - and the open life he led by following his interests and ultimately his bliss, in his life, his career and his marriage. He studied Mythology his whole life and gav...

Musings upon receipt of the news, on 25 August 2026, that our beloved Dolly Parton had passed away. She never shied away from speaking into injustice and instead poured money back into her home community, looked after her employees with good wages and their children’s education paid for. Her IMAGINATION LIBRARY was quietly founded in 1995 and she had books mailed to families every month for children 0 - 5 years so that reading became an early influence for them and any barriers were taken out...