Arbor
Philosophica
Independent
bona fides; a cache of self-published antiquities in the making.
Transparent inherency to continually hand on.
Champion
the cause & the right
Championing the cause and the right of each and every person to express
themselves locally and globally through their art be it in writing,
painting, composing, … the cause and the right for each one
of
us to express ourselves artistically for our own sense of personal
achievement,
for the encouragement of our contemporaries, and to
deposit for our descendants, and future generations a worthy legacy
of
what we were like from an artistic point of view.
This is the joie de
vivre of one self-originating 21st century artist on this
the 1st day of May in the year 2009.
(Richard of Éire)
Seventh
Book Published
Today: Friday, 24th April 2009, 21st century
 Back cover
caption:
-
Richard
of Eire’s chanson
d’amour parfumée Unto
Lineage Royal is a highly original work of fiction based
on a good deal
of factual input; a cornucopia of delightful literary unpredictability.
It is a work all about feelings and imagination. There is an attempt to
perfect the skill of composing incantations to help bring about a
greater beauty in the world.
The text is presented in ‘a
status update format’
as if it were a dream status update in continuity. Accordingly, the
reader will need to approach the text piecemeal; to train oneself to
slow down, and by doing so will be greatly pleased to discover that
this approach affords an excellent means of reflecting on what is being
read. The author wants to bring reflection back into reading.
Past life regression technique is used
as a literary device in that Unto
Lineage Royal is being presented as if were being told in
a past
life regression session; a ‘life metaphor session’
yet it is not a ‘past life’ but rather a moment, a
time in one’s life. A ‘life metaphor
session’ may be said to be the telling of events which
occurred to one while sojourning in a particular place in the Great
Universe.
The reader will enjoy seeing how
Richard of Eire’s poem
for
the legendary contemporary Lebanese
singer Fairuz came into being, and
its translation into
Arabic by Dr. Nabeel Issa; how his discovery of
the wonderful
photographs of Indiana photographer Mark Orr greatly
inspired him; how he enjoyed conversing
with Tennessee folk artist
Enoch Tanner Wickham and his wife Annie; the composing of
a moving
letter to His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI, and of his meeting on the
Brooklyn Bridge with the happy trio: Paulo Coelho, Kahlil Gibran, and Mary Haskell.
Presently, one of the loveliest of the
romantic poems from the work is
being provided with a most exquisite musical accompaniment by renowned
German composer/keyboarder Kristian Schultze.
-
Front cover: L'Etoile Perdue by
William
Bouguereau (1825-1905)
-
Image thanks to the Art Renewal
Center®
-
Website: http://www.artrenewal.org
To
preview & purchase: visit my bookstore.
Also available from such
outlets
as
Amazon, Barnes
& Nobel,
Borders, Powells.
A CD/Mp3
album of the author reciting 44 poems
from the work is available
from CDBaby.
Myriam of
Lebanon
(Hardback: 111 pages. ISBN:
978-1-84753-673-0)
Description:
I have
often asked myself how might the
myriad contemporary becloudments of the mind, and as a consequence
their frustration of the body be transcended once and for all? WhereI
have asked dwells in beauty a paraclete?
To such
questions and the like, I have
pondered with an idea that I have had for some time, namely that most
likely a joyous, bright, contemplative of heart, non-denominational
woman’s word would be more effective, and even more warmly
received by peoples of the world than say a man’s,
especially, if she were perceived by them to be in every way
exceedingly beautiful, and equally as important, if she were in
melliferous voice and rhyme to talk ‘with’ them
rather than ‘at’ them.
Myriam
of Lebanon
presents a
philosopher-poetess called Myriam
from the Phoenician port city of Byblos
of the land of Lebanon who visits the isle of Éire
and while there shares of her profound wisdom.
This
work is a bright beacon of hope and strength for our
times and beyond; a beautiful and endearing work born of the green
fields of Éire and the snow-capped mountains of Lebanon.
A lyrical philosophy of
ambiance steadfastly established
on Gibran
Khalil Gibran Ben Mikha'il Ben Saâd's
The
Prophet.
Click on COVER
in left column
to preview
and purchase.
A
Jesus of Nazareth
(Hardback: 316
pages. ISBN:
978-1-84799-030-3)
Description:
This
genre-breaking work
readily encourages and lends
itself to comparison and contrast with the Holy
Bible,
the Holy
Qur’an,
and the Holy
Tanakh
as well as with the principal philosophical Taoist texts, namely the
Tao
Te Ching and
The
Chuang-Tzu.
This
essentially contemplative work,
written as it is to be interpreted both exoterically and esoterically,
is an attempt to restore to the bright - the light, the memory, and the
power of insight, dream, and intuition.
A
necessary
caveat respectfully to the reader: neither
the Jesus of the Gospels nor the Isa (Arabic for Jesus) of the
Qur’an exists here within no more; no more too the
Jesus of such works as Kempis’ The
Imitation
of Christ,
Loyola’s Spiritual
Exercises or Brown's The
Da
Vinci Code.
Rather what
exists here within is a Jesus
of my own inspiration, and, who to my own heart is
eminently credible, enjoyable, and profound.
The work
traverses the lands we in modern times would refer to as the Arabian
Peninsula, Egypt,
Iraq,
Israel,
Jordan,
Lebanon,
Palestine,
and Syria.
Click on
COVER
in left column
to preview
and purchase.
Generations Reaching
(Hardback: 503
pages. ISBN:
978-1-84799-110-2)
Description:
Reflections on
a sampling of life’s eternal concerns.
Like
all my writings, Generations
Reaching
is being presented as a time barque for the generations of our
future,
thence enabling them to know, and to come to appreciate the
reflections
and
aspirations that one of their ancestors had, with respect to a sampling
of
life’s eternal concerns while happily living simply and
plainly with his wife
and two children in a 21stcentury
of his era;
Happily
living
simply and plainly in a beautiful border village that the people of his
day
called Tallow,
on the lovely isle they called Éire,
of the
fragile planet they called Earth,
of the solar
system he called Garden,
of the spiral galaxy they called Milky Way,
of the
thirty galaxies or
more they called Local Group,
of the beyond and
beyond which he called Horizon,
and of the that which they called Great
Universe.
Generations
of the future in their
readings and reflections on this work will be with the delight of
knowing that all
those decades, hundreds, and thousands and more of years ago, one of
their ancestors was
already with bringing them and their time to his mind.
Contemporary readers of
today's world are cordially invited as honoured guests on
board the
exquisite Time
Barque of
the Eternal Ocean for
its precious cargo to bethink for
themselves, and to bless before it sets sail from out of the bay of our
own day.
Click
on COVER
in left column
to preview
and purchase.
Hearing
in the Write
(Hardback: 499
pages. ISBN:
978-1-84799-293-2)
Description:
A purely philosophical-poetic work, Hearing
in the Write
shows a marvellous fluidity and rapidity of
thought.
While it neither advocates nor adheres to any philosophy per se; a
philosophy in the sense of being a time-honoured discipline hauling and
dragging after itself otiose luggage of correct principles of
reasoning, it definitely does concern itself in its own lyrical way
with profound questions on what exists, what are some of the essential
natures of things, how we live our lives, what
‘knowledges’ are thought to be, and above all it
concerns itself with safeguarding the spontaneity of speculation.
This delightfully exhilarating work has healing qualities about
it in
that through means of its powerfully nebulous thought engagements it
encourages the mind back out into the heartland of wondrously
uninhibited speculations.
The work presents diversion and digression in thought and expression as
essential
ingredients for the good of our intellectual health.
Click
on COVER
in left column
to preview
and purchase.
Innkeeper's Fire
(Hardback:
Vol. One
493 pages. ISBN:
978-1-84799-551-3)
(Hardback: Vol. Two
605 pages. ISBN:
978-1-84799-552-0)
Description:
Innkeeper’s
Fire is a keeper; a fascinating
piece of literary art.
It has been said
of the celebrated Russian soprano Anna
Netrebko that even if she were
to learn many more new parts, the role of Natasha Rostov in War and
Peace will remain one of the chief roles in her life.
The same could
very well be said of myself, in that
even if I were to write many more new books, the role of Rísteárd
Mac
Grailt in this work will remain one of the chief
male
character roles
in my life.
That’s because this
type of calm, wise,
bright,
joyous, courteous, warm voiced, nuptial hermit and family man; this
rural philosopher-poet of Éire who tells mythic stories and
engages in
homely conversations perfectly fits my imaginative,
writing, and poetic possibilities.
There is the quiet man and
his lady
of the valley of Ballylee, the quiet man and his lady of the lake isle
of Innisfree, and now here the quiet man and his lady of the hill
country of Deisi Mumhan.
An
international College textbook:
Innkeeper’s
Fire with its focus on compelling
contemporary
topics, ranging from those related to Art and Artistry,
Astronomy,
Bioethics, Economics, Environment, Extraterrestrial life, Family,
History, Human dignity, I-ching, Language phenomena, Marriage,
Parentage, Philosophy, Relationships, Religion, and to Technology just
to mention but a few, could also make an ideal
international
college textbook for helping to
bridge cultural divides, such as the West-East, East-West, and the Hibernian-European-Sino.
The lyrical simplicity and
inventiveness of the discursive language
employed, and its potent ability to bring about a qualitative change in
the way we look at life and ourselves would make the work a very
attractive read for undergraduate/postgraduate students, especially
students involved in comparative
literature and
comparative culture studies. To achieve this effect an
abundance of
artistic, literary, mythic, religious, and symbolic motifs have been
brought into play.
Innkeeper’s
Fire effectively communicates that it is an
ongoing human obligation to think life in a new and different light.
The flamboyancy and style of both the stories and their commentaries
ensures a highly enjoyable and most rewarding encounter. Its profundity
will at times bring tears to the eyes. While cryptic and esoteric
elements are subtly and copiously scattered here and there throughout
the text, they won’t in anyway distract from the
reader’s enjoyment of the work, rather will instead be
handsomely adding to their enjoyment of it. The work takes the position
that there is nothing that isn’t mysteriously related to
everything else in some way or another.
Innkeeper’s
Fire is being presented as a landmark work in the
tradition of clear independent Irish thought; in the tradition of
spontaneous, independent, Irish philosophical speculation of the most
natural, and native kind. The ever-embering presence of this tradition
has been softly glowing with us down through the ages in the treasured
burial caverns, rock designs, artifacts, stories, poetry, and writings
of our gracious ancestors. Yet, there have been but brief memorable
moments when this softly glowing embering was with the laying of well
footed May-dried turf, spontaneously given to kindling itself into a
passionately glowing fire in the hearth of Irish and global
intellectual thought. Such a rare, beauteous, and auspicious moment,
like unto the appearance of a supernova in the heavens, I see as having
last occurred in the welcoming, self-culturing mind of the 9th century
independent Irish philosopher Iohannes Scottus Ériugena.
I have grown to greatly
admire Ériugena for his intellectual
brilliance, his originality, his courage to freely and profoundly
speculate, and above all for his focus on harmony, yet I need, however
for it to be made clear from the outset, that this should not be taken
in any way to mean or to imply that I share his Neoplatonic ontological
explanations on how everything is. This having now been said, I feel we
need to regenerate in our own day such an openness of mind as
Ériugena’s; such a spirit that will with style and
finesse boldly speculate on the given existence. To be of such a
lyrical spirit is to be at one with the ever-becoming generations of
yesterday, today and tomorrow. May it continuously be that there be in
place and time enlivened metaforms of this fragrant metaphor kind.
Some eleven centuries would
dilatorily pass before the tradition of
clear independent Irish thought; spontaneous, independent, Irish
philosophical speculation at least of the Ériugenan kind
would again make its reappearance. In the big scheme of things this is
but a moment, but here on planet Earth this has been quite a long time.
And this in no way is meant to deny the existence of the many other
great Irish thinkers in that long span, especially those who have been
influenced in one way or another by Ériugenan principles,
but rather to bring out the idea and the image that the particular
self-cultured Ériugenan adventurous type and style of free
thinking has not been with us now in person for such a very very long
time.
Its reappearance and
regeneration as presented in Innkeeper’s
Fire (and in my other works in particular Hearing in
the Write); its
journey from the banks of the rivers of Éire, to the banks
of the Seine of Paris, the Han of Seoul, and the Bride of Tallow,
respectively has not been conveyed to me per se by means of those many
great thinkers, but rather as it were by means of transcending rainbows
of vestige thought forever forming themselves o’er the
landscape of my heart. Incidentally, this is no ‘pot of
gold’ I happened upon by chance at the end of a rainbow of a
soft misty morning in July, no rather the rainbows themselves have been
the vessels of gold; vessels of gold on means of old on how to
spontaneously speculate along the banks of rivers to seas
continuously.
Click on COVER to
view CONTENTS
and more.
"It could
be six months of daydreaming. I live in a landscape (i.e. the landscape
of
Éire) which every single day of my life is
enriching. It's
food and drink to me. And very happily, I'm allowed to be with my
family, who don't get to see a lot of me when I'm working. So I wish to
make up for that when I'm not.
It's a gift. It's a great privilege."
(from -The
Mystery Of Daniel Day-Lewis with photograph courtesy of CBS
News
Sunday
Morning,
6th January
2008)
Quiet
rhythm man Daniel by hearth
“… in
these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the
spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle
of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having
been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and
how to playfully define.
Spontaneity of speculation
being synonymous
with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural
philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with
the spontaneity of speculation be.
And by the way of the rural
what may we say?
A
philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say.
Iohannes
Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you;
salutes your
lyrical ear
and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp.”
(Hearing in
the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)
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