And Jack and his mother had a fine house on the River Thames and a little farm nearby in Bermondsey. And Jack became apprentice to John Dee, and began to learn what it is to be master of oneself. ‘That is the true gold,’ said John Dee, ‘and the hardest to attain. The inner gold of which we speak cannot be bought and sold or traded in the market place. It is yours and yours alone. And the sun is its emblem. And the battle is fought and lost every day. And sometimes, it is won.’
I could have been a priest instead of a prophet. The priest has a book with the words set out. Old words, known words, words of power. Words that are always on the surface. Words for every occasion. The words work. They do what they’re supposed to do; comfort and discipline. The prophet has no book. The prophet is a voice that cries in the wilderness, full of sounds that do not always set into meaning. The prophets cry, out because they are troubled by demons.
Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different.
People do go back, but they don’t survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time.
when money becomes the core value, then education drives towards utility or that the life of the mind will not be counted as a good unless it produces measurable results.
Going mad takes time. Getting sane takes time.
And our madness-measure is always changing. Probably we are less tolerant of madness now than at any period in history. There is no place for it. Crucially, there is no time for it. Going mad takes time. Getting sane takes time.
Sometimes, often, a part of us is both volatile and powerful – the towering anger that can kill you and others, and that threatens to overwhelm everything.
Growing up is difficult. Strangely, even when we have stopped growing physically, we seem to have to keep on growing emotionally, which involves both expansion and shrinkage, as some parts of us develop and others must be allowed to disappear … Rigidity never works; we end up being the wrong size for our world.
I did cry. Why is the measure of love
The Battle of the Sun
