The heart that touched my heart I feel no more
Alone in some great space. I feel afraid
Like a conductor who has lost the Score
The soul that touched my soul I feel no more
As other orders that soul did obey
The heart that touched my heart I feel no more
Alone in the abyss. I feel afraid

I’d like to write a villanelle today

There’s something satisfactory in that form

But do I still have anything to say

In the past old women used to pray.

At least that did not do them any harm

I’d like to write a villanelle today

For every wrong we do we have to pay

My doctor said that I should feel more calm

Is that all that I have got to say?

I wish I were more virtuous  every day

I’ve spoken about nature and her charms

I’d like to push a villain off today

Even an old donkey wants to bray

Give up poetry write a few more yarns ?

Have I got a purpose, what do you say?

Everybody’s got a lot to learn

Don’t tell the teacher when it is your turn

I’d like to write a villanelle today

I don’t know if I’ve got a word to say

Kieran Setiya

Love is not one single thing, in distinguishing attachment from concern. I see that there is room for loving-kindness, wanting the best for someone, without being attached to them, unable to let go. There is a way to accept mortality in which there

The hill rises as steeply as a horse’s neck

And the hill itself is Marked with limestone like a horse’s spine

When you reach the head you can see the other side

Poole harbour beautiful, blue and sweet as a berry

We have wooden walking sticks which seem to help with the hills

So you can walk right along to Corfe Castle

I am caught with wonderful surprise after all this is not a mountain not even the real hill

Nearby on Durlston Head there are many many butterflies and the land ends in startling cliffs

The birds and the butterfly can fly out over the sea but we can’t

I don’t go too near the edge because my legs tremble.

See  all the wildflowers in bloom.

More modest than our cultivated gardens but strong

What flowers did they have in the holy land when Jesus was alive?

Consider the lilies of the field and I stand there and I do consider them

They will never be as rich as Donald Trump or even me

And Elon  Musk would not be impressed by a daisy

They would dig them all up not knowing they would destroy the world that way

Yes without the butterflies and insects

Without the bees and the bugs the crops would die

And so would we  the powerful human race.

There is no race for the wild flowers. 

Why are we called the human race anyway ?

Yes the strong will win the race but the weak with inherit the earth

Because they already possess it

I thought I would try writing a poem which rhymes the same throughout. Well it is possible but I don’t think it’s successful I think you need at least two different rhymes to make the poem work so I shant do it again especially as there are a lot of words which have that many rhymes unless you’re very very skillful thinking of esoteric words and I dont that’s what poetry is about

I wish I were in Purbeck now with you

The hills that are the spine, oh what a view

The harbour there of poole the sea so blue

I lost my breath in wonder that’s the clue.

We see at times s this world as if its new

I want to worship colour and its hues

And by the ancient church the ancient yews

The baptism font the coffin track unused

Clambering up the limestone path amused

Of joy and humour I will now accuse

You the one I loved,oh where are you ?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/06/stress-crisis-uk-financial-health-housing-insecurity?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Cleaner required for short sighted woman and cat.Well prayed daily   Aroused  by any other meme, brains weep Do they MOT  easily?   Abandon lips.Suck toes How about eggs?   About menace,I don’t feel it. But do you see it.   Above, what Lord? God   Anti-wrench mends sprained wheels easily How about ankles?   […]

Embrace the whole

Degenderize yourself in easy steps
Wear a   mask and anything that helps
Men want out
While  women doubt
Suspecting one more trap.

Gender is irrelevant in maths
And on   the  noble intellectual path
Can we change
Or rearrange
While musing in the bath?

Of course we still must  reproduce via sex
But that don’t take so long with modern  tech
Eggs all frozen
By the dozen
Sperm we might inject.

With  on line porn  or fantasies remixed
We  might pick up a few  new, startling tricks
No love’s  embrace
No human face
No honour and no gift

Who did the gooseberries fool?

Why does hair gel?
Why do strawberries jam?
Must eggs lie on toast?
She fried her own eggs daily.

She even made her own bread
We had grapefruits bigger than the grapes.
Why do sheets change?
Do pillows have good cases in law?
Why get married when you can go to prison?
Why have a man when you could love a cat freely
Why marry a wo/man when you can go fishing?
Just relax and act naturally
My therapist is dead but I’ve never mentioned it.

She may rise from the dead but I don’t think yeast is sufficient to cause that.

The discontent of Britons turns to hate.

It’s hell for some, for others it’s too late.

No eggs for children’s meals, no milk and cheese.

Worn out nurses see their pay decrease.

The paramedics angered by misuse

Are met at times with physical abuse

Imagination wilts is crucified.

Without a rapid ambulance some people die

What Carers do for love cannot be asked

Workers must be paid for arduous tasks

If  people die this day who is to blame?

The government must answer this complaint

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/stephanie-dowrick-s-lessons-of-intimacy-and-solitude-from-the-pandemic-20210102-p56rb4.html

D

the answers she gave to a New Zealand journalist recently about the effects of loneliness and the “beautiful benefits” of solitude. And here’s her blog about how desperately important connection and communication can be in a time of pandemic.

“I know how distracting it can be if you are having an interesting conversation and have to eat and order as well,” she says. “Although I won’t be eating much. But you must order something that you would really like, perhaps duck or prawns; that would make me feel a lot better.” I tell her that I am happy with her vegetarian choices of golden tofu (which she says “sounds lovely”), crispy dumplings and pad Thai.

Infuzions Thai in Cammeray is our venue because of its proximity to a studio where the Balmain-based Dowrick has been recording the audio book for Intimacy and Solitude. As it happens, recording has been completed, so there is plenty of time to move around the largely empty restaurant in search of the best spot for recording and photography.

Dowrick’s vibrantly patterned dress, in what interior designers would call “jewel” colours, blends well with the richly coloured Thai cushions and warm woods. “Lead, Kindly Light,” she jokes, quoting a famous hymn, as we search for the most flattering spot. In addition to being a versatile author of almost 20 fiction and non-fiction books, and a psychotherapist, Dowrick is an interfaith minister who was based at Pitt Street Uniting Church from 2006 to 2017. More recently she has been co-leading “sacred gatherings” at the InnerSpace Centre in Five Dock.

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It quickly becomes clear that the meal is secondary to Dowrick, who I have met several times over the years through her publishing work and journalism. She wrote a popular Inner Life column for Good Weekend between 2001 and 2010, and was a regular guest of both Geraldine Doogue and Tony Delroy on ABC radio. These days she contributes opinion pieces to newspapers, primarily on social justice, human rights and ethical issues. And as she is my friend on Facebook, I am also aware of the joy she reaps as a mother and grandparent – and of her “later life” marriage in 2017 to Darwin-based paediatrician and health activist Paul Bauert. (“Because he lives 4000 kilometres from my home, I can continue to evolve my understanding of intimacy as well as solitude!”)

Today, and perhaps always, conversation and ideas interest her. Dowrick is a woman of intense blue eyes, a direct gaze and gently probing questions; she invites confidence and confidences, and indeed becomes the interviewer as much as the subject. It is fortunate that she arrived with her background dossier.

First published in 1991, Intimacy and Solitude was an international bestseller and has been revised and expanded several times since then. The latest edition was sparked by a recognition that the unpredictable events of 2020 had made the book’s message more relevant than ever. It is an encouragement for readers, a message of hope that blends readable case studies with deeply considered but accessible wisdom. Dowrick is convinced that we all have the potential to respond to both familiar and new situations freshly and creatively, especially if we renew our closeness to ourselves and to other people.

Comedian and author Magda Szubanski, musician Clare Bowditch and politician Kristina Keneally are among her raft of fans.

“If the pandemic taught us anything at all, it is that we are utterly and inevitably connected – and not only with this earth on which we wholly depend in all its brilliance, beauty, fearsomenesss and biodiversity,” Dowrick writes in her new 7000-word introductory essay. “COVID-19 showed us plainly that we protect ourselves best by willingly and generously protecting one another – even when separate or ‘distanced’.

“As powerful as those two potent words are individually – intimacy and solitude – they together describe and evoke a steadiness of inner support and resourcefulness that brings more than resilience and inevitably extends beyond ourselves to other people.”

‘My instinct has been unwavering: that not just I, but most of us, want to do at least somewhat better in our connections with others.’

Dowrick says that in addition to interviewing many people for the book, and “surveying screeds of psychological wisdom for the finest ideas”, she reviewed her own rich catalogue of “missteps” as well as what had made life “most worth living”. “My instinct has been unwavering: that not just I, but most of us, want to do at least somewhat better in our connections with others.

“A relatively healthy sense of self lets you accept what others can give you, even when it isn’t quite what you yearned for … It’s also dependent on trusting that your life matters – whether or not it is lauded by others. And that you deserve to care for yourself as respectfully and supportively as you would a trusted and cared-for friend.”

Dowrick was born in New Zealand and spent some of her formative years in isolated Maori and Pacific Island communities, where her parents were teaching. Her mother, Mary, died in her late 30s, when Dowrick was eight. It was, of course, a truly terrible experience and not one that she wishes to dwell on overly in an interview.

However, in her book she writes of the loss, which has affected the rest of her life: “Unsurprisingly, I was incapable of much self-care, never mind what ‘independence’ adds up to. I had gained immeasurably from the years of unstinting love my mother could give me when she lived. She was also, in her moral and emotional intelligence, in her creativity and pride in her profession as a gifted teacher and her commitment to service to others, an exceptional example to me.”

In the late 1960s, a lack of career opportunities in New Zealand for a clever and determined young woman led Dowrick to head for London where, with delight, she fell into book publishing (where senior women were still a rarity and her colleagues, mostly men from public schools, addressed each other by their surnames).

Her star rose. At the height of “second wave” feminism, in 1977, she convinced British publishing entrepreneur Naim Attallah to back a groundbreaking feminist imprint, The Women’s Press, and became its first managing director. Writers Janet Frame, Andrea Dworkin, Michele Roberts and Lisa Alther were among those who joined the list and, in 1983, with the Commonwealth publication of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple, commercial success was added to its cult status.

Shortly afterwards, Dowrick moved to Sydney and had two children, Kezia and Gabriel, in quick succession; her first novel, Running Backwards over Sand, which tells of a journey of self-exploration by a young woman who has lost her mother, was published in 1985. Subsequently, she worked part-time as a publisher at Allen & Unwin and broadened her writing to focus on self-development and further explored spirituality, most particularly through the work of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (on whom she wrote a PhD thesis that evolved into a book, In the Company of Rilke).

On learning to live with isolation, the author, an “impatient patient” who fell ill for four months and was in hospital for 10 weeks before the pandemic hit, says that while the lockdown was a crisis of communication for social beings it could also offer “an opportunity to consider with fresh interest how we can more thoughtfully support others – receiving with grace and gratitude what they may have to give”.

While many have been feeling “flat”, she says it is important to be more consciously open to receiving, even when what’s coming your way doesn’t quite fit your expectations of how things should be. Like any change, some detachment is needed to see things anew, as is stillness, which is best achieved by not being constantly busy. (“Being busy is for me a psychological defence.”)

“In illness, our world shrinks. In social isolation, our world shrinks. Yet it’s precisely now that our vision must enlarge. Choosing to be the smallest bit more generous, perhaps more tolerant in both directions (giving and receiving), is itself an act of empowerment, an act of self-respect and even love – for ourselves and for all with whom we share this planet.

“When we’re down, our thoughts leap into a future that’s frightening. When we slow down, by contrast, we can experience this moment and – when we can – infuse it with greater vitality and hope. We can surround people and situations with the energies of loving-kindness and care, rather than anxiety or raw terror. And when we do this, we ourselves will benefit.”

The afternoon is slipping away, but Dowrick proposes we move on to coffee and pavlova. She wants to ask me some more questions.

Infuzions Cammeray

439 Miller St, Cammeray

(02) 9957 1122

Daily, 11.30am-9.30pm

Intimacy and Solitude by Stephanie Dowrick is out now from Allen & Unwin.Save

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Shona Martyn is Spectrum Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the Publishing Director of HarperCollins, the founding editor of HQ magazine and an editor of Good Weekend.Connect via email.

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Thank you for reading the Herald

Drawn  over  to your garden  by a rose
I broke my glasses then I broke my nose

What is nonsense what is common sense?

Explain it using  only pounds and pence

When I left, I felt like being soothed
 Oriental massage makes me  bruised

When the books I read were full of dust
I  felt I had to get them off my chest

I wonder why the doctor  was so kind
I was dead but now I’m going blind

My doctor is  a  bright young man
He’s  got a Ph.D,  she’s çalled Diane 

He wondered why I  eat just Weetabix
Why ask a pin to explain why it pricks?

Essential Waitrose cornflakes gleam

I’m a shoplifter so I can’t scream.

Do they have essential food for  brains?

I’d  ask God but he would just complain.

https://archive.philosophersmag.com/emmanuel-levinas-a-snapshot/

Levinas’s philosophy is clearly governed by a deep-seated pacifism. In fact, it is one of Levinas’s central contentions that Western philosophy is wedded to a counter-ethical process of conflict. It is this radical idea that underpins Levinas’s first magnum opus, Totality and Infinity (1961).

This treatise opens with a discussion of war – an all-encompassing, as well as literal term for conflict. Levinas states that it is the Western preoccupation with the truth that generates this conflict. In short, if one is able to apprehend the truth, one is essentially self-sufficient or “total”.

For Levinas, this reassuring sense of totality is disastrous for it harbours an underlying antagonism towards others who are liable to challenge one’s authority.

Levinas traces this conception of totality back to the teachings of Socrates and Plato. According to classical authority, the self is literally self-contained – it is able to contain the truth. For Levinas, this spirit of autonomy was perpetuated in the work of philosophers as diverse as Plotinus, Bishop Berkeley and Hegel. In addition, Levinas also detected a return to this spirit of self-sufficiency in the phenomenological work of his former tutors, Husserl and Heidegger.

In an attempt to evade this tide of thought, Levinas turned his attention to the constitution of subjectivity. For Levinas, far from being self-sufficient or total, the self can only exist through reference to the non-self. In short, self-knowledge presupposes the existence of a power infinitely greater than oneself. Echoing the famous Cartesian cosmological argument, Levinas thus suggests that the subject is indebted to the idea of infinity. In direct opposition to contemporary continental thought, Levinas thus reinstates the subject – a subject that encounters itself through the mediation of an-Other. According to Levinas’s intricate argument, such an encounter precedes the disastrous desire for truth.

Crucially, Levinas argues that the encounter between the self and the Other is always passive. In slightly different terms, one welcomes the Other as the measure of one’s own being. It would seem to follow that one’s subjectivity depends upon a non-aggressive or non-violent interface. Given its passive nature, Levinas concludes that this interface is a proto-ethical moment that precedes all other ethical discourse. In this way Levinas undercuts traditional ethical debate.

Today, Levinas’s ethical thought is frequently discussed in relation to diverse academic fields beyond the traditional boundaries of philosophy. Disparate fields such as sociology, literary theory, historiography and anthropology have all benefited from the priority Levinas accorded to “the Other”. This ubiquity stands as testimony to both Levinas’s profundity and growing contemporary relevance.

At the time of writing, Lawrence R Harvey was teaching and completing his doctoral thesis on Levinas and the ethics of representation.

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SHARES

When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemenr

He wanted some companion during the night but nobody was able to be with him.

I’m sure that some of us have had a similar experience.

So would a helper have said to Jesus

Why don’t you listen to some music

I know the radio has not been invented yet but you are God…. So make yourself a radio and listen to music

Why don’t you turn your mind away from fear of death

  I’m thinking about signing up for an art class,myself.

I know that Jews can’t worship images but there’s no harm in making some images was paint or pastels.

It might lift your mood..

Now Jesus, have you drunk enough water today? Have you had a proper meal?

(Well they had the last supper I believe.)

Don’t you think we should all go home and go to bed and have a good rest and forget about this event that’s going to happen?

Now Jesus what you need is a good holiday.

You know it’s not so far to Cyprus and it would be a break from living in this occupied territory.

The Romans have a lot to answer for.

And would Jesus have lost his temper and called out to the  disciples

Satan get thee hence.

Then somebody will just say, if you feel bad at three o’clock in the morning it’s often a sign of depression and I believe there are some new antidepressants on the market now.

Why don’t you see the doctor tomorrow and ask him can you have a free sample because there is no NHS in the holy land.

And that’s why Jesus stayed in the Garden of Gethsemane by himself because he did not like what his followers were saying to him.

And it was all because they didn’t want to actually know how he was feeling: that he was sweating blood that he was afraid that he was terrified but he was going to continue on the path that he believed God had set him on.

And after all he was the son of God. So he believed and there is some evidence to favour that view.

And thus it did transpire

Main course

Codswallop in batter with nude potatoes and peas
Roast teeth and Yorkshire pudding with speaking broccoli
Rascal’s Lamb with Hint Sauce
Lasagne with chips,tea bread and butter thrown in.
Corned beef smash and cabbage
Beef stewed in Wales with French Bread and roast tomatoes

Pudding

Roly poly jam with steamed air.
Lemons on mice.
Oranges sliced and baked in a stone dish with marmite [You keep the dish]
Full flat yoghurt with fruit of the day
Christmas Cake pudding and bustards
Minced lies and branded nutter

Doctor,doctor,I;m worried about my coughin’.
What about your coffin?
Well,it’s keeping me awake at night.
Why,are you sleeping in it
I have only one place to sleep.
If you are tired you can sleep anywhere!
is that legal?
Of course, it is.
Well, can I sleep in the Queen’s bed?
In theory,yes… but you might frighten the horses.
Why, do they sleep with her?She must have a big bed.
Don’t be so ridiculous…
Well, she has loads of money; she, could have a bed made for her.
She has a bed maid for her
Do you mean someone makes her bed every day?
well,don’t you make yours every day?
No,I bought one in a bed store and it’s well built.
But do you change the sheets daily?
No,i never use paper I write letters on my chromebook.
Which letters?
Any letters at all,except French ones.
but they use our alphabet.
it’s not ours.
Whose is it?
Possibly the Romans.Tantrum ergo!
They are all long gone into their coffins.Uno,duo tres,quattore…,decem,duodecem,duagessin’..
I knew coughin’ was very dangerous
I think your grammar is bed.
What a posh excent you have
It’s all I have left of the old palace.
Well, never mind you can share my coffin if you like.
But is there a bed in it?
Just a bed bug as yet…
I blame the CIA.. who do you blame?
I blame God and he blames us so it’s pretty much a stalemate.
We need the Messiah…..
Not again,we’ve not got over the last one yet…
You make him sound like a hurdle…
Well,it’s one way of looking at it all.. a big hurdle.
It’s all this talkin’ keeps me awake at night…
At least it stops you coughin’

Doctor,doctor,the coughin’s keeping me up all night again
For goodness sake put the lid on it.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-israel

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/13/the-link-between-stress-and-depression-and-the-10-simple-words-that-could-help?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/pinchas/elijah-and-the-still-small-voice/

Clouds as light as wedding veils float by

Fitting decorations for the sky.

The sky  so huge and beautiful is calm.

Absent thunder can this cause us harm?

The human world of houses shops and schools

All are shaped and ordered by known rules

And underneath the sky so calm and light

The earth can quake and shudder day or night

The human world is easy to destroy 

Bombs or earthquakes do more than annoy

Our human mind has tempests of its own.

Suddenly the unknown swamps the known

What is the flood that heals, the flood that drown?

Display the Catherine wheels, bring on the clowns

Just keep going, even if it means taking a different route.

Chris Bonington

I have studied and I’ve got my last degree
My heart has learned its lessons one by one.
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

I didn’t know how painful it would be
When the man you love and cherish has then gone
I’ve been studied and I got the third degree

The tears I wept could wash out the Dead Sea
Remove the salt and scour the shore till done
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

I know now I must die,we cannot flee

We turn to dust and that is not much fun
I have studied and I’ve got my last degree

Ii is not real News, not for the BBC.
Unless you’re Stephen Hawkings, that great man
We’re graduates of the grief academy

We can’t control life with a self made plan
God is gone though prayer might well begin
I have suffered till I got a new degree
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

Wasting life when we would like to dance
Walk in ferny woods. exchange a glance
Can we have a decent person at our head?
Jesus Christ,no b*gger understood

Why be happy when you could feel mad?
Glad that Donald Trump is not your dad
Don’t let logic, reason or plain thought
Sell you something Mother never bought

Why not let the police take all control?
They know how to score a self made goal
They can kill a man and wound a child
Yet kneel down in Church along the aisle

Holding a black Bible in one hand

Will not take you to the Promised Land
Cain and Abel,Jacob and Esau
Does he hope to start another War?

As the old man fell towards his death
They offered us a handrail for the bath

Shattered by their honest,wilful lies
I could not speak, my saliva had all dried

He was walking albeit slowly when at home
When they took him off I heard the groan
Lost inside his head, no wife nearby
Even Satan would have wept that night

Gabriel and Satan, hand- in -hand
Neither one will ever understand
We humans waste so much,we’re almost blind
Full of envy,hate and so unkind

G

Joy sings now in golden light,

Then after day comes deep,black night.

New moon is rising by grey trees,

The earth is where I want to be.
I want the day,I want the night.
I want the dark.I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,~
And not to lose my precious  dreams

The sun has set, grey clouds turn black,

The day just gone  will not come back.

I’ll rest in quiet reverie

Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.
And then I drop and mix with dust,
Till worms and beetles sate their lust.
And fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance, in sunlight,  music’s notes.

No more striving ,no more ambition

No more fighting,no competition.

Every particle’s the same

Without even  a unique name.
And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land

https://www.google.com/search?q=origin+of+the+word+eight&client=ms-android-motorola-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&inm=vs

10 years ago I lost my husband.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/what-the-wild-things-are/201509/grief-and-fear

Grief and fear can feel similar because they both involve a sense of danger, uncertainty, and disorientation. When grieving, you might feel like you’re in uncharted territory with no direction, similar to how fear can feel when facing an unknown threat. Both emotions can also cause physical sensations like a fluttering stomach, restlessness, and difficulty breathing. 

Here’s a more detailed look at why grief can feel like fear

O

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/31/what-is-the-most-common-mental-health-misinformation-on-tiktok?CMP=Share_AndroidApp

O

Several videos about borderline personality disorder suggest symptoms that are everyday experiences – such as feeling anxiety when people change plans, experiencing mood swings, a fear of abandonment and mirroring people’s behaviour to be liked.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/31/more-than-half-of-top-100-mental-health-tiktoks-contain-misinformation-study-finds?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other