Solstice sky over the old Queen Mary Nurses Home

Deeper Than Love

There is love, and it is a deep thing
but there are deeper things than love.

First and last, man is alone.
He is born alone, and alone he dies
and alone he is while he lives, in his deepest self.

Love, like the flowers, is life, growing.
But underneath are the deep rocks, the living rock that lives
alone
and deeper still the unknown fire, unknown and heavy, heavy
and alone.

Love is a thing of twoness.
But underneath any twoness, man is alone.

And underneath the great turbulent emotions of love, the
violent herbage,
lies the living rock of a single creature's pride,
the dark, naif pride.
And deeper even than the bedrock of pride
lies the ponderous fire of naked life
with its strange primordial consciousness of justice
and its primordial consciousness of connection,
connection with still deeper, still more terrible life-fire
and the old, old final life-truth.

Love is of twoness, and is lovely
like the living life on the earth
but below all roots of love lies the bedrock of naked pride,
subterranean,
and deeper than the bedrock of pride is the primordial fire of
the middle
which rests in connection with the further forever unknowable
fire of all things
and which rocks with a sense of connection, religion
and trembles with a sense of truth, primordial consciousness
and is silent with a sense of justice, the fiery primordial
imperative.

All this is deeper than love
deeper than love.

- D. H. Lawrence

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#ElfOnTheShelf

“The latest viral meme trend among the rich and famous is a clever twist on “The Elf on the Shelf,” the popular children’s book that inspired a Christmas tradition involving small, magical house guests that pop up around the holiday season to keep an eye on kids vying for a spot on Santa’s nice list.

But instead of “Elf on the Shelf,” Garcelle Beauvais, Reese Witherspoon, Elizabeth Banks, Sterling K. Brown, Kerry Washington and other entertainment luminaries have been flexing their rhyming skills with their own Photoshopped creations.

It all started with actress Beauvais’ “Garcelle on a Pharrell”: An image of a tiny Beauvais casually sitting on singer-producer Pharrell Williams’ shoulder. And a flood of similarly cheesy posts soon followed...”

  • LA Times


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Blanche Violet Maher

I accepted the challenge to bake these biscuits using a recipe from 100 years ago in the notebook of photographer Blanche Violet Maher.

There was no Method in the original recipe so I referred to the “Basic Biscuit Recipe” from The Commonsense Cookery Book first published in 1914. I also used my great-grandmother’s *Bakewell mixing bowl. The camera featured in this image is my 90 year old mother’s Box Brownie.

Blanche Violet Maher (b.1874) was an Australian photographer who lived with her family on Collaroy Station in the Upper Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia.

By all reports the biscuits were delicious and reminiscent of Ginger Nuts.

* #BakewellBrothers Ltd was established by William Bakewell, born in England in Nottingham county, who began making bricks and pipes on their Erskineville site in around 1884. The firm gradually developed to include the manufacture of tiles, pots, jars and other domestic and commercial wares.

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Mass Isolation

The really enchanting folx are always on the opposite side of the street.

Rest in peace, Uncle Vincent Wenberg.


Condolences to Uncle Vince’s family and the KBH family.

I made this portrait of Uncle Vince in September 2002 at the site of the former Kinchela Boys Home near Kempsey, NSW, on the first Journey Home.

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