The Hedge School

The Hedge School The Hedge School is preparing to welcome its students. There is an Itinerant Teacher come to town ...

“Okay, hey! So, great to meet you, thank you so much for coming in, congrats on getting to this stage! No secret why you...
11/06/2026

“Okay, hey! So, great to meet you, thank you so much for coming in, congrats on getting to this stage! No secret why you’re here, of course … So, as you know, obviously, the Witch-King of Angmar is taking early retirement, understandably, right … This means we’re going to be having a bit of a shake-up here at the Nine, and, bottom-line, we’re going to have a position opening up as the Nazgûl in charge of the Isengard-Rohan-Fangorn region … Not gonna lie to you, it’s not an easy beat. Lot of politics, lot of distances to cover, complicated stuff. But let me just say, super rewarding, from experience! Right? We’ve all been there.

So anyway, I have to tell you we just LOVE your profile and your background, what you can bring to the Nine. This is why we called you in, we looked at you and thought, “yeah, this is the kinda guy where he’s basically hit a ceiling in terms of being a Lord of Men” - LOVE what you’ve done with your kingdom by the way, very cruel, very unusual, we’re all HUGE fans in here - “and you’ve just kinda seen it all, done it all, been around the block”… And we’re like, “here’s a guy who is ready to take it to the next level, and really come up and play in the big leagues, become a semi-discorporate immortal wraith in thrall to the Eye and the Ring …”

I mean, we’ve had our “Eye” on you for some time, pun totally intended, haha. So before we start the induction process, are there any questions YOU might have about the … uh … the nitty-gritty of what’s involved in the role, or …?”

“Okay, so first, HONOURED, right, thank you for this. Secondly, interested, of course, who wouldn’t be? But yeah, there are a few … Well, I have to say I’ve often wondered, I mean we all know about you guys’s bad-ass missions where it’s the whole team together, whether it be Black Riding around looking awesome chasing Hobbits, or like, war stuff where it’s “oh Gondor is making an incursion into Ithilien again, let’s stomp that s**t out”, kudos, it was amazing by the way.

But like, I can only imagine that must be just the tip of the ice-berg, right? Is there a lot of admin, paperwork, that has to be done before and after those missions? Or do you have a team for that …? What about in-service training? Team-building? I mean I bet! Look at how you guys work together! Then I have to say, so I know that black snorting hell-horses are a dime-a-dozen, but are those Company-Wyrms? Or do we have to provide our own? What about your pension plan, health benefits, that kind of thing? I know, I know, it’s really cringe to talk about money straight away, but I was doing really well as a Dread King, and I know, right, NAZGÛL, who are we kidding: PRESTIGE…! But I would need to know that I’m not actually going to take hit on income, I do have a TON of henchmen, concubines, viziers, royal guards etc that are going to need to be taken care of somehow … Do I just pension them all off, or do I need to recruit my own successor? I have SO MANY ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN, lol. It would be a bloodbath.”

Not even joking, this is my actual desk, in my bedroom, where I work. Actually, joking! Sharp eyed observers will notice...
06/06/2026

Not even joking, this is my actual desk, in my bedroom, where I work.

Actually, joking!

Sharp eyed observers will notice that this is not a desk upon which any work is happening just this moment. The gallimaufry of arcane curiosities attests to this. It's just too crowded. Also, I've been cultivating that cobweb for *months* ...

No, this is where the real work happens, in the summer months. At my other desk, just outside my bedroom door. Again, I am not joking. This is really my desk.

(there is a third, secret desk, in the study in the upper room, the Hidden Library.... But that's a secret, and I have not allowed myself to go there for quite some time; if I did, I would surely get lost in the recondite volumes and esoteric treasures, and not come back for days.... Soon. Soon, I will return...)


25/05/2026

"Little Gidding, V",

TS Eliot

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from. And every phrase

And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,

Taking its place to support the others,

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,

An easy commerce of the old and the new,

The common word exact without vulgarity,

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together)

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,

Every poem an epitaph. And any action

Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat

Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them.

The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree

Are of equal duration. A people without history

Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern

Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails

On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel

History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this

Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

A Goodly Pentecost to you all.from TS Eliot, “Little Gidding”IVThe dove descending breaks the airWith flame of incandesc...
25/05/2026

A Goodly Pentecost to you all.

from TS Eliot, “Little Gidding”

IV

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

“The Fire in the Head” This phrase has been on my mind today: Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit descended in tongu...
25/05/2026

“The Fire in the Head”

This phrase has been on my mind today: Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of flame upon the heads of the remaining Disciples, frightened, gathered in an upper room, and brought them inspiration, eloquence, the ability to speak in foreign tongues.

I am no longer Catholic, but there are things that remain, and resonate with where I now am; this phrase, “Fire in the Head”, for me comes from the “Song of Amergin”, one of my sacred texts: “I am the god that brings fire in the head”….

I relate it to the concept of “Imbas Forosnai”, the fire of inspiration, the gift of the Bard after his initiatory experience. It is the tattoo in Ogham on my inside right forearm - my first, after years of wanting them - “IMBAS ORM”, may the Fire of Inspiration be upon me.

The Ogham letters:

"Idad-Muinn-Beith-Ailm-Saille-Onn-Ruis-Muinn” - Yew, Vine, Birch, Fir, Willow; Gorse, Elder, Vine” : (loosely)
"The Dead, Intoxication, Beginnings, Eminence, Healing; Fire on the Hill, Completion, Intoxicating Vision."

On an ordinary rainy streetI am surrounded by the scentOf masses of hollyhocks and honeysuckleSpringing from the cracks ...
06/05/2026

On an ordinary rainy street
I am surrounded by the scent
Of masses of hollyhocks and honeysuckle
Springing from the cracks in concrete in profusion
How could I ever doubt the world to be enough

...in a field, in France...
04/05/2026

...in a field, in France...

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Look for the essay, republished for the present moment, on the UnderPile. (Y...
23/04/2026

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.
Look for the essay, republished for the present moment, on the UnderPile.

(You know where to look)

IN SPRING Sometimes in Spring Waiting on the platform before the dawn Birdsong and green scent The sunrise over the hurr...
21/04/2026

IN SPRING

Sometimes in Spring
Waiting on the platform before the dawn
Birdsong and green scent
The sunrise over the hurrying landscape
I look out, still, coiled like a spring, taut like a whip, plucked like the string of a harp, in this moment only
Inside I hug myself, shivering with delight, say "I'm in love I'm in love I'm in love"
And then I know I'm in danger

In Spring, sometimes I put down what I'm reading and look out the window of the train
At the hills and fields at dawn or at sunset
A sudden, dizzying sense of the weight of life that's left behind
How little time remains, as myself
A sense of time, of turning seasons, of the rising and the falling sun
All be over soon
Oh god what have I done
The danger has passed
What remains
To count the days

I think I've been reading a lot of things you've been reading… Prof Kripal of course, Dean Radin, Mitch Horowitz, Josh C...
20/04/2026

I think I've been reading a lot of things you've been reading… Prof Kripal of course, Dean Radin, Mitch Horowitz, Josh Cutchin - haven't read Eric Wargo yet, but I must. Much more too: Occult philosophy, Magic, Consciousness Studies.

Increasingly, my take on it isn't even based on the idea of “pre” cognition, but on the notion that there is no “pre”, there is no “post” … Time is an illusion, and the idea that it moves progressively in one direction is a convenient fiction that we need - most of us - to merely put a shape on our existence that doesn't drive us insane; memory works “backwards” AND “forwards”, and indeed in every other direction as well.

“Time is a flat circle” is one way of looking at it, and human experience is a fragile little boat that moves from one shore of this still pond to the other. But human - and other-than-human - action can set up ripples that expand across the surface in ALL directions. Our Consciousness can flit across the surface, back, forward, to the side: or stay still for a time.

There are other powers and intelligences that we can encounter, on the surface where we exist, but that can dive deep below, or soar above, only rarely intersecting with our perceptions.

Time doesn't exist: it is a notional plane upon which we travel, not a line. It is not just a plane, but three dimensions around us; we mostly limit what we take in, keep our eyes on the farther shore, our shoulder to the tiller…

But it is all available to the searching power of memory and imagination (which are the same faculty)…

“Human time,” says the Sphinx, in Cocteau's La Machine inférnale, “is but folded Eternity” … and the gods and monsters are bright pins who pierce the folds right through, linking “moments” far removed - for us - with their shining presence…

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