Dolly Parton was a big part of my childhood and something of an icon in our family. We listened to quite a lot of country music in those days, and Dolly was a firm favourite—especially “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene,” two songs I have loved ever since. Her popularity only seemed to climb as the decades passed, until she became one of the rare figures in an increasingly divided America whom almost everyone could agree on. Much of that affection came from her personality: her warmth, humour, generosity, authenticity and wonderful ability never to take herself too seriously. I was deeply saddened today to hear that she has died at the age of 80. She felt like one of those enduring presences who would somehow always be there.
I also love Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” which transformed Dolly’s gentle country song into one of the great vocal performances in popular music. It came about when Kevin Costner suggested the song for The Bodyguard after another choice fell through. Whitney’s soaring rendition became a worldwide phenomenon and introduced Dolly’s remarkable songwriting to a vast new audience.
For me, Both Sides Now is much more than a beautiful song. It is one of the wisest reflections ever written about what it means to be human. Joni Mitchell begins with the certainty and idealism of youth, seeing clouds, love and life through the lens of imagination, only to arrive at the humility of experience: "I really don't know life at all." Far from being a statement of defeat, I hear it as the beginning of wisdom. The older I get, the more I realise that reality is always deeper than my concepts about it. The greatest mysteries cannot be captured by explanations alone—they can only be lived. That is why this song resonates so deeply with me. It reminds me to hold my beliefs lightly, to remain open to wonder, and to approach life with the curiosity of someone who knows there is always another side yet to be seen. In a world that often celebrates certainty, Both Sides Now celebrates something rarer and, to me, far more beautiful: the wisdom of mystery.
I watched Hamnet today and was hugely moved by it, especially the final scene. Hamnet is about how private grief (the loss of Shakespeare's son) is transformed into enduring art (the tragedy, Hamlet), showing how loss, love, and memory are woven into creativity as a way of making meaning from unbearable absence.
I love what Richard Lawson had to say about the final scene in his review in The Guardian.
The music from the scene is also absolutely sublime. It's the same music that played in the opening and final scene of Arrival (2016) that also moved me so much, also a meditation on grief.
I'm totally in love with the voice and music of Laufey, an Icelandic singer I have discovered. Not only does she compose her own songs, she is a very accomplished cellist (an instrument I love too) and often plays it in her songs. Her music is both timeless and retro. It makes me feel deeply nostalgic.
I lie on a deckchair on my balcony under a vast sky swirling with cloud. My eyes look up into the heavens in a profound sense of thanks to God. Wonder arises. Wonder for the pure beauty of it all. Love arises. Love for God. Love for everyone and everything. Love so strong, it feels like it will surely tear me apart. Love so strong surely it can only be divine.
And that is when the deepest realisation arises; the deepest knowing I have ever experienced. It is Consciousness itself that is looking up through my eyes. It is Consciousness itself that is delighting in the sight of the sky above. There is no separate me here on this balcony. There is only God here.
God I am. God I am sensing the breeze through human skin. God I am hearing birds sing through human ears. God I am feeling love and wonder through a human heart. God I am having a human experience. God I am experiencing a world of form through this living form. God I am, experiencing this world of form.
I lie on a deckchair under a vast sky swirling with cloud.
I let all things be, all things go, all things flow.
I disentangle from the attic of my mind and awaken to a wondrous world of senses.
There is the sight of clouds passing overhead. The sensation of the breeze on my skin. The sound of birds twittering. A sense of how wondrous it all is. A feeling of of aliveness and sacredness in all I perceive.
There is a surrendering to a deeper and deeper sense of being the aware space in which these experiences are arising and subsiding.
I realise I am that space...
… an infinite, formless, timeless space in which all things arise and subside.
… an all perceiving space.
... an all experiencing space.
I realise I am not what arises in awareness, but the awareness itself.
I realise I am not what I perceive, but that which perceives; that which itself cannot be perceived.
I realise I am not my experiences, but that which experiences them; that which makes experience possible
I realise that Pure Conscious Awareness I Am.
I realise that the all perceiving Perceiver I Am
I realise that the eternal Subject of all experiences I Am
I realise that God I am ...
... God I Am, looking out from human eyes ...
... God I Am feeling the breeze through human skin ...
... God I am hearing birds sing through human ears ...
... God I am feeling love and wonder through a human heart ...
... God I am, experiencing through the sensory portal of a human form
God I am …
… appearing as form
… experiencing through form
... expressing through form
I experienced a revelation below in an extraordinary burst of joy, looking out into a world of swirling clouds from my deck chair, listening to sublime music. I laughed with pure joy, couldn’t stop laughing. And cried and cried. I felt like I woke up for a while, that for a moment I truly knew and experienced who I was.
I am Consciousness.
I am on a journey of awakening to myself through form.
I experience this world of form (a vast, extraordinary, wondrous, sublime, infinitely vast work of art) through the portal of this form and all other living forms.
This form called "Graeme" (its body and mind patterns) is simply a kind of sensory lens for experiencing the world of form. It actually doesn’t even exist, mostly space with the illusion of form. Just a temporary "sensory portal".
Mind patterns seem almost like characters. Mr “I’m not enough". Mr Spiritual Hero. Mr “I Need Control” Mr "Driven to Succeed". I get sucked up (hypnotised) by these characters and imagine myself to be them, my attention consumed by them.
When I become purely aware, free of the mind patterns, the lens becomes totally clear and I really see. That’s when the love and wonder and peace and joy flows. And inspiration and creativity.
When I become sucked up into the characters, my pure flow is stemmed. Insight and love are blocked by the illusion of anger, jealousy, shame, pride, guilt, fear etc.
I lie behind it all, behind the eyes of each and every living form, looking out into the world of form, sensing and experiencing it. When I look out of the eyes of this form into the eyes of another form, in a state of pure awareness, free of mind patterns, I recognise myself and pure love flows.
What an extraordinary creation this world of form is!!! What a wondrous thing to experience in so many different ways, through so many different lenses and sensory portals. What an adventure! What insights! Waking up to myself through so many forms in so many different ways.
Right now, I’m looking out of the eyes of this form called Graeme, typing into a computer. I’m going to enjoy experiencing the world of form through this form. Exploring through this form. Creating through this form. Helping myself to awaken through other forms.
I don’t just experience this world of form through human forms. But also through animals and birds and trees and flowers and fish and insects. When I look into a dogs eyes, I can see myself too!!
"Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web." Marcus Aurelius
