On going to the limits of our longing, my research methods, and the intimacy of listening for Soul in the ordinary places

"You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire" - Bukowski

Hello friends,

Today I’m writing to you from a small island out in the Indian Ocean where the clocks have gone back some fifty years. There are no cars, no roads, in fact, even for the horses and carts used on the mainland. And the entire island can be walked around in just under an hour.

I’ve transformed a small table into a desk (as is becoming the custom) and dragged it to face the view. I’m looking out across the sea to the mainland about a ten minute boat ride away, where mountains dry and lilac swell up behind green oasis with thatched roof houses scattered in the shade of palms. Most spectacular of all are the varieties of native fig trees growing impossibly out of the white sand and refreshing the baked shore.

The landscape reminds me of Oman, with its dryness and undulating mountains the colours of dusk and the wild goats like acrobats reaching for the irrational.