I wrote and discarded two posts today because they were too self-indulgent and because I don’t need to wallow. Instead I’m going to share a piece of my art and tell you three things that I think are beautiful. Here is the art.

Sir Morien learns that the dryad who seduced him with music and song seven years ago may have neglected to mention something afterwards.

1. I’m re-reading one of my favorite books, How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. Montaigne is, as Sarah Blakewell tells us, is the prototypical blogger before there were blogs. His essays exploring his thoughts and his life are profound and mundane. I think that is probably the state of all of our thoughts and part of the joy of reading him. His usefulness to me at the moment are his thoughts on how to live a good life in the face of wrenching change and disaster. He lived through civil war and plagues. Through it all he retained his humanism and a bonhomie.
2. One of the delights of writing a blog is following people who also write blogs and only came to my attention because they liked something I wrote. The Alchemist’s Studio is one of those. He creates wonderful raku pottery along with paintings and interesting posts. I subscribe to his newsletter and his is one of the ones I read more often than not.
3. John Wreford is a photographer specializing in photographing the Middle East. He lived in Damascus for about ten years and documented it in his journals and in his photographs. His blog documents these. Both the journal articles and the photographs are well worth your time. Living through a period where it is easy to have tunnel vision in my own small world, his photographs and essays allow me to stretch out beyond myself and see what is happening in depth. Also of note is a list he has compiled of fourteen great books on Syria.

So there you have it. One piece of artwork and three beautiful things. Please do take a look and see if you don’t enjoy them as much as I do.

Be well, friends!