Season’s Greetings

This year’s card is from a painting by Andrew Walton, inspired by an ancient chalk figure on the Dorset Downs known as the Rowley Round Ring (Roll Around Ring), named for the surveyor John Rowley who, in 1710, first recorded another antique geoglyph, the Long Man of Wilmington.

The significance of this particular design is not fully understood but it recalls similar turf-cut labyrinths called Troy Towns, after the deliberately confusing construction of their walls, perhaps intended to keep unwelcome spirits trapped within.

Each winter, at the full cold moon, a blessed cheese is rolled around the circle by an eminent local cheesemaker in a ritual offering to the gods, celebrating the newborn baby cheeses.

Frames of reference

Andrei Tarkovsky, Cinema Of The Soul

And then I found this short homage by Martin Kessler. It’s a collection of well-chosen clips from some of Tarkovsky’s best films, beautifully woven together with music by Beethoven and Bach, to produce a sampler that just leaves me wanting to see more of these memorable moving images.

Open Culture: Andrei Tarkovsky

Frames of reference

San Galgano

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A couple of days later we discovered another ancient abbey, a counterbalance to the beauty and elegance of Sant’Antimo, the Abbazia di San Galgano stands open to the sky, with all the breathtaking grandeur of a canyon carved out of the rock, its great hulk like a ship run aground. Continue reading “San Galgano”

Frames of reference

Bagno Vignoni

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After visiting San Quirico d’Orcia and Montalcino we headed south looking for Bagno Vignoni, a spa since Roman times, but we got distracted along the way by the Abbazia di Sant’Antimo, a beautiful Benedictine monastery set in a lovely landscape of wooded hills and olive groves. Continue reading “Bagno Vignoni”

Frames of reference

A Living Advent Calendar – Peace To The World

A new initiative was started in the borough of Kensington this year by The Rev’d Stephen Fielding of St Mary Abbots church, to engage with the various businesses of the borough. The idea was to create a Living Advent Calendar, where each day, participating businesses in a different location would unveil a window display to create an advent calendar across the parish. Each business would ask an artist to create an artwork for their window which would illustrate the Christmas theme of Peace To The World, and each day at the unveiling of the window, a small celebration would be held to unite businesses, locals and visitors to the area to add to the sense of community. Continue reading “A Living Advent Calendar – Peace To The World”

Frames of reference