December Reflections
Geometric drawing, William Blake, and Benjamin Zephaniah.
LEARNING
Have you ever had a go at geometric drawing? Last January I set myself a 31-day challenge to practice the basics and discovered how mind becomes quietly engrossed in forming the shapes and patterns. I am intrigued by the concept of geometry as a process of numbers taking form, or numbers as a way of understanding form, and enjoy pondering ideas around ‘sacred’ geometry in the natural world and the body.
I’ve been refreshing my skills over the holidays and you can have a peek into one of my journals below. If you feel curious, then try this simple tutorial for starters; you may only need to puchase a compass set to get going.
READING
I’ve enjoyed re-reading William Blake vs The World by cultural historian John Higgs (the audio version narrated by the author is also worth a listen). Like a Pied Piper, Higgs leads the way through a maze of themes that include philosophy, religion, mythology, neuroscience, even quantum meachanics, as well as providing enough biographic and historical context to ensure it’s all about Blake. Not strictly a biography, and certainly not an academic appraisal to get bogged down in, I was enthralled for a second time.
On following a Blakean bread crumb trail through the ever-expanding Forest of Podcasts (see below) I found myself purchasing a copy of Iain McGhilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary for which I am now eagerly awaiting delivery. It ostensibly concerns the collective embodiment of right/left hemisphere dominance on society and culture (think: Rationalism and Romanticism). My curiosity is rampant as I have long been intrigued by the corpus collusum, the neural tissue that connects the two hemispheres, and how it plays its part in integrating the duality of the hemispheres (another three-ness in one, perhaps).
Synchronistically, a related theme popped up in an interesting Guardian read on the rise of a New-Romanticisim as an antidote to the tech-age (nothing to do with Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran - at least not directly).
NOTE: You can now find handy lists of my monthly prose and poetry picks on Field Notes Recommends my new affiliate space on Bookshop.org which supports independent booksellers across the UK. (Do also check for secondhand offerings and older editions on World of Books). All the poetry collections and books I’ve mentioned throughout December are here.
On Substack, I’ve particularly enjoyed reading Ruth Allen’s offerings in Breccia exploring the craft of writing and the field of geosomatics, where the bodymind meets geology for personal, creative and therapeutic transformation. The premise of geosomatics, as I have understood it, jogged my memory of the Body and Earth excursions facilitated by Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose, and Olsen’s book of the same name.