Mothers & Mothering

There were seven Cleopatras, the last one – the one of our fantasies – was Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt. The name is Macedonian meaning “Famous in her Father.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful – even if a miracle beyond your present belief – to Feel totally loved – Beloved – by your mother?

"I am a little world made cunningly  Of elements and an angelic sprite." - John Donne, "Holy Sonnets" The “angelic sprite” our Soul, our Jen, our Matrophilia.

So-called stagefright is audience fear. And, basically, the audience is always your mother. So it is to them as her that you sing.

All that matters in a work of art, if it is really to help us, is how how matrophilial it is: how much does it bring us closer to our mother's love?

This rock has come from the magma which gave it birth into our earthly world.

Aristotle taught that the essence of tragedy is hamartia – the tearing apart of the fabric of one's existence.

When we sing a melody using just pure vowels instead of the given words, our Life Energy, and that of any listener, is greatly enhanced. For then the experience becomes metaverbal.

From the Greek tropos, a turning, is derived our tropism, a turning movement of an organism. So phototropism is an organism, especially a plant or a tree, turning towards the light. And as a photographer, I turn to the light: always aware of it, always relating to it.

It would well seem that Mencius was perhaps the most inspired – and so inspiring – of all philosophers. His basic belief was that our inherent natures are naturally loving just as it is the inherent nature of water to run downward.