Julian Summerhayes
@juliansummerhayes.bsky.social
Spiritual activist, lover of poetry, inveterate walker
https://juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/
https://juliansummerhayes.substack.com/
https://juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/
https://juliansummerhayes.substack.com/
Today's blog post - Hindsight juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/h...
Hindsight
“The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart.”― Annie Dillard We’re born, we live a little and then we die. And give it less than 100 years and you’…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 9, 2026 at 6:01 AM
Today's blog post - Hindsight juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/h...
Today’s poem is a short elegiac one by William Carlos Williams and is called, The Last Words of My English Grandmother
February 9, 2026 at 5:42 AM
Today’s poem is a short elegiac one by William Carlos Williams and is called, The Last Words of My English Grandmother
Today’s poetry reading: “Last Walk?” by Robert Lowell from his book, “Day by Day”.
February 8, 2026 at 6:26 AM
Today’s poetry reading: “Last Walk?” by Robert Lowell from his book, “Day by Day”.
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/o...
Old man
“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”― Rainer Maria Rilke This picture was taken of me on Exmouth beach in 2010. I look cross; I don’t remember, but I was on …
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 8, 2026 at 6:08 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/o...
Today's poetry reading: I LIVE MY LIFE IN WIDENING CIRCLES by Rainer Maria Rilke (the Joanna Macy verion; not the Bly one which is a little different).
February 7, 2026 at 5:42 AM
Today's poetry reading: I LIVE MY LIFE IN WIDENING CIRCLES by Rainer Maria Rilke (the Joanna Macy verion; not the Bly one which is a little different).
Why have so many people given up on religion, faith or a belief system?
February 6, 2026 at 11:39 AM
Why have so many people given up on religion, faith or a belief system?
Today's poetry reading: "Morning Poem" by Mary Oliver (the voice is still recovering)
February 6, 2026 at 5:56 AM
Today's poetry reading: "Morning Poem" by Mary Oliver (the voice is still recovering)
Reposted by Julian Summerhayes
JG Ballard kinda called it already, in 1973. This is the first *paragraph* of the introduction to CRASH.
December 22, 2025 at 1:48 AM
JG Ballard kinda called it already, in 1973. This is the first *paragraph* of the introduction to CRASH.
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/05/t...
The miracle of life
I start today’s post with a reading of “Little Gidding” (not the whole thing) by T.S. Eliot. The rubric is carefully chosen. Note: I do not say “your life”. Life is sc…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 5, 2026 at 6:16 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/05/t...
Today's poetry reading is a phenomenal Mary Oliver poem, "Am I Not Among The Early Risers".
February 4, 2026 at 12:47 PM
Today's poetry reading is a phenomenal Mary Oliver poem, "Am I Not Among The Early Risers".
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/04/p...
Prayer
I start today’s post with a poem by Carol Ann Duffy. “Prayer”Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayerutters itself. So, a woman will lifther head from the sieve of her hands and stareat t…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 4, 2026 at 6:04 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/04/p...
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/c...
Change your life
InvitationMary OliverOh do you have time to linger for just a little while out of your busyand very important day for the goldfinches that have gathered in a field of thistlesfor a musical battle, …
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 3, 2026 at 6:13 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/c...
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/02/w...
What do you believe in?
For a long time, I was stuck with the question: “How the hell did it get like this?” (I’m not sure I ever got close to answering it, save to poke large, excoriating holes in the d…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 2, 2026 at 5:41 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/02/w...
My heart cries out for all the animals, birds and insects who have had to endure the recent rain and strong winds www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘It sounds apocalyptic’: experts warn of impact of UK floods on birds, butterflies and dormice
Events such as Storm Chandra take a terrible toll on ecosystems, but nature can be part of the solution for mitigating flood waters
www.theguardian.com
February 1, 2026 at 4:46 PM
My heart cries out for all the animals, birds and insects who have had to endure the recent rain and strong winds www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Why are we so disconnected from the world?
February 1, 2026 at 4:34 PM
Why are we so disconnected from the world?
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/a...
A little less pain
Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
February 1, 2026 at 6:16 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/a...
“Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
February 1, 2026 at 5:39 AM
“Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/01/31/f...
Forty years
the replacementsby Charles BukowskiJack London drinking his life away whilewriting of strange and heroic men.Eugene O’Neill drinking himself obliviouswhile writing his dark and poeticworks. now our…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
January 31, 2026 at 6:57 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/01/31/f...
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/f...
For those no longer here
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”― Meister Eckhart There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the dead. I mean all of them — includin…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
January 30, 2026 at 6:03 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/f...
“nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.”
― Charles Bukowski
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.”
― Charles Bukowski
January 29, 2026 at 4:35 PM
“nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.”
― Charles Bukowski
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.”
― Charles Bukowski
I see a number of ex-lawyers becoming "life" coaches. Their shtick is still the same: there is something to fix; but all in the name of getting said client/patient back to work or to be more productive. No one appears to want to challenge the status quo and say the system is broke.
January 29, 2026 at 4:28 PM
I see a number of ex-lawyers becoming "life" coaches. Their shtick is still the same: there is something to fix; but all in the name of getting said client/patient back to work or to be more productive. No one appears to want to challenge the status quo and say the system is broke.
At least it was dry this morning
January 29, 2026 at 8:30 AM
At least it was dry this morning
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/m...
Miracles
God wills that we be not carried overly low because of sorrows and temptations that befall us, for it has ever been this way before the coming of miracles — Revelations of Divine Love. Ch. 37, Juli…
juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com
January 29, 2026 at 6:32 AM
Today's blog post juliansummerhayes.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/m...
When I look back on my so-called career, I wonder what it was all about. I never set out to be a lawyer. In hindsight, I should have done a theology degree.
January 28, 2026 at 4:26 PM
When I look back on my so-called career, I wonder what it was all about. I never set out to be a lawyer. In hindsight, I should have done a theology degree.