I was born a WASP,
in 1939 in England
1939-1950’s
All my life, I have wanted to pass on the feeling of total
connectedness that is at the heart of all religion.
Trying, as a child, to make sense of this,
I plunged into the only religion I was offered (C of E Christianty.
Most of it passed me by but bits of the gospels made sense.)
The only other religion I had any contact with at school
was Judaism, but in the 1950’s people did not want
to talk about their religion. It was just something odd
that my friends did on Fridays.
1959-63
Then I read Theology at Oxford. I can’t say I broadened
my knowledge or found a way to pass on inspiration. Instead,
I learned about love and beauty.
1960’s-80’s
I started a nursery garden in SE London. This felt to me
a valid way of passing on my inspiration. On the proceeds,
I started a city farm and wrote a book about it. I learned,
and fleetingly taught, yoga. I was taught Vipassana meditation,
which is very much harder work than any effort demanded
by Christianity but it does provide reliable access to that
state of consciousness that I had so often dropped into
by accident.
I stumbled on Geoffrey Harding at St. Mary
Woolnoth in the City of London, teaching relaxation. Geoffrey
saw what I’d been trying to express, founded the Relaxation
Society, made a scholarly attempt to interpret Anglicanism
in terms of meditation.
1980’s-90’s
I travelled round England on a narrow boat and wrote a book
about relaxation, which nobody read. I travelled with N.F.
Simpson, a committed atheist, whose plays induce the state
that I was trying to pass on. They do it by twisting logic
so hard it breaks.
1990’s-2005
I travelled round Britain in a van (alone). My excruciating
pain at our estrangement from the natural world came to
a head with the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001. Pain at
unthinking cruelty brought on my only involvement in protest.
It was a total failure, but led on to my journey round the
farms of Britain.
2005
I settled as a free-lance hermit. I don’t belong to
any religion but my C of E tradition is still enriching.
This website is my latest attempt to pass
on enlightenment.
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