It was just a matter of time – we all knew that. But that doesn’t help She was old – very old, even. But that doesn’t help She said she was ready to go – life, as she saw it, was done. But that doesn’t help The phone call that jerked us awake yesterday was […]
Human beings have a thing about permanence, about roots and foundations. We like knowing where we belong, and many of us drift through life looking for “home” with a capital H, a place in which to settle down and remain for the rest of our lives – a permanent fixture, if you will. We are
They found him in the aftermath of the Battle of Lützen, 382 years ago today. His looted body was naked except for the three knee length linen shirts he had worn as protection against the cold. What little hair he had left was stuck to his skull, covered in blood and gore. There, in the
In 1310, a little old lady was tied into place at the stake and the faggots at her feet were lit. Did she pray? Lock her eyes on the infinite blue of the June sky above? Whatever the case, Marguerite Porete went up in flames, as silent and obdurate in her moment of death as
When they Begin the Beguine – of radical religion in the 13th century Read More »
Many of us like swimming. Very few of us want to swim with the fishes – at least not for any extended period in time, as reasonably this would mean we are very, very dead. Or mermaids. These days, a majority of the children in the Western world are taught how to swim. Not so
Some people would argue that humanity’s defining characteristic is our intelligence. Hmm. Given our predilection for constantly endangering the future of our species through war, pollution and excessive exploitation of this our very precious, very small, green planet, I am not so sure about all that intelligence. Others will say it is our communication skills
Several years ago, when I was still a child, my single greatest fear wasn’t that I was going to die – it was that my mother would. At the time, I was young enough to consider myself more or less immortal – life extended before me as an endless sea. But I was old enough
Last year for Midsummer, I wrote a little post describing just how we celebrate this the shortest night of the year up here in Scandinavia. Tonight, I am sitting in the late twilight watching the antics of the swifts, and I am preoccupied with the ghost of a long-gone man – or rather his death.
Today, I thought I’d treat you to a short story – dedicated to Erin Davies – detailing the sad fates of Lieutenant Sixten Sparre and his paramour, tightrope dancer Elvira Madigan. The below takes place in July of 1889, in Denmark. It is a perfect summer day…. He took her by the hand when they left
One last time – of impossible love and its consequences Read More »
It’s tough being a parent. Even tougher if you were a medieval king, blessed with too many sons. Just look at what happened to poor old England in the aftermath of Edward III, what with him having a number of healthy sons, all of them with their own dynastic ambitions. Maybe things wouldn’t have ended