Category: Spirituality

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The Deadly Edge of Love (part two)

(Continued from Part One of The Deadly Edge of Love) It’s the morning of 18th November, 1558. Robert Dudley is witnessing a miracle. In her dying months, Queen Mary, Elizabeth’s half-sister, and daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon, has restored Elizabeth to the line of succession, following the failure of her marriage alliance with Charles II of Spain. Now, Mary is dead, and … Read More The Deadly Edge of Love (part two)

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The Deadly Edge of Love (part one)

They were both young, though he was a year older; beyond childhood but not yet adults, not in the way that their lives would soon force them to be… They had been together since their early years, and what they were experiencing, now, would, on an emotional level at least, bind them together for life. How much more frightened could you be than to … Read More The Deadly Edge of Love (part one)

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An Arthur for Elizabeth?

Philip Sidney was born into prosperity and with connections. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley – making him a relative of the 1st Duke of Northumberland and the 1st Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. If there was a man at Elizabeth’s court who epitomised the qualities of … Read More An Arthur for Elizabeth?

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The Adventurer’s Hidden Magic

“Strike man, strike!” Those were the last words of Sir Walter Raleigh, spoken to an executioner who was taking his time, at the end of one of the most colourful lives of the whole Elizabethan era. The attitude–not of defiance, but of expediency–typified this adventurer’s life. Raleigh had charmed Elizabeth I, but failed to do so with her successor, James I of England, who … Read More The Adventurer’s Hidden Magic

A game of three halves (3 of 3)

Continued from Part Two So, this one day, considered in all its facets, resolves itself into a journey, a destination and an arrival – an arrival at a meeting with a French relative we have never met, and whose unlikely presence, here in the north-west corner of Wales, completes a cycle of mystery and loss lasting ninety-three years… As we journey along the spine … Read More A game of three halves (3 of 3)

Magical Man at the Dawn of Science

The Elizabethan age considered itself scientific, indeed the word ‘science’ was used to mean ‘knowledge’. The so called Age of Reason was a much later term applied by historians of science to broad-brush the slow ascent of experimental-based knowledge. What we now call science originated from the attempts to separate the observer from the method of experiment; a method that would employ only the … Read More Magical Man at the Dawn of Science

Never Look Back?

Never look back! It’s an adage that makes a lot of sense. It also characterises a certain stage of mystical development – a point at which the aspirant comes to realise that the only place of reality in our lives is within the moment; and that our history is simply a container that has conditioned how we react to experience. A skill-maker, certainly, but … Read More Never Look Back?

The Mind of the Virgin Queen

Is it possible to go back in time and see into the minds of monarchs who played a key role in a country’s development? Given it is so long ago, how difficult would it be to do this for the Elizabethan age? This is our task for the Silent Eye’s spring workshop 2018: “The Jewel in the Claw’. The jewel is the emerging spirit of … Read More The Mind of the Virgin Queen

Where are we going?

Where are we going? When things are going well in ‘our’ world, there is an understandable tendency to assume that a generally benign evolution of civilisation is taking place, one in which we play our part, however small, being a kind of swimmer who lives and dies within that flow of slow progress. But when we are faced with the kind of politics, violence … Read More Where are we going?

An Encounter with Death

It is 1616. King James VI of Scotland has been on the throne of England and Ireland for thirteen years, having inherited the kingdom as the closest surviving relative of the beloved and sadly deceased Queen Elizabeth I. England continues to go through a time of both upheaval and opportunity, though the crowning glory of Elizabeth’s reign, the destruction of the Spanish Armada, has … Read More An Encounter with Death

The Flowers of Mistrust – #Silenti

We live, increasingly, in an age of mistrust. It can be seen as cool, savvy, to doubt what we hear–an expectation of deceit in the ‘other’, as though trust belonged to the infant’s playground; something to be outgrown in the face of maturity in the world and in life. As ‘humanity’, if such a concept is meaningful, we yearn for the true values of … Read More The Flowers of Mistrust – #Silenti

Intimate Flames – #Silenti

What is it to be intimate? The touch  of a lover’s hand or lips, perhaps?  Two bodies locked together in desire for a common fulfilment; the intellect muted while the emotional and sexual energies dance their own bolero? We generally associate intimacy with the body, but it’s not always so, and the exceptions can point the way to something much deeper… The body has … Read More Intimate Flames – #Silenti