When Elvis Presley swivelled his hips and a generation of females screamed in ecstasy it was as if Dionysus had been reborn and the Maenads liberated from their long imprisonment under the tyranny of the One God. I was13 and still remember the impact of Elvis’s “All Shook Up” the…

What do we mean by ‘Goddess’? Is there any historical basis for honouring the Divine Female, as we have been forced to honour the Divine Male exclusively for so many centuries? The short answer to the first question is that ‘Goddess’ is a term used to refer to the sacred…

I met Peggy when she was playing the piano and singing in a bar in Brighton, sometime in the 90s. A great performer of the old school, she became a good friend until she died in 2015 at 81 years old. …

There can be few more difficult subjects to discuss at the beginning of the 21st century than that of ‘drugs’. Link the word to ‘spirituality’ and we’re in a real quagmire. Let us first examine what we mean by ‘spirituality.’ We use the word to describe the essence of all…

I saw a living tiger last week. Even behind a glass plate it was the most majestically beautiful creature I have ever seen. I finally understood the spirit of William Blake’s poem, which as a girl I used to think was a bit simplistic! What did I know?! How could…

I have to start by admitting I was one of the idiots who voted for Brexit. Mea culpa. I knew in my heart that if we left Europe we would be at the mercy of whatever Tory government clutched hold of power — and I was right. …

So! The dreaded moment has arrived. To vax or not to vax. I’m not against vaccination per se. I have my flu jab every year; as a child I had the polio vaccine — no problems there. So what is it about the COVID vaccine that makes it so contentious…

In 1859 Charles Darwin published his theory of natural selection as the engine of evolution. Natural selection is just that, natural, no external agency decides on a being’s right to survive or not, just circumstances. But the same period saw the development of the theory of Social Darwinism, a construct…

“There were never such devoted sisters…” so sang Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen in the classic 1942 movie ‘White Christmas’. I’m sure there are devoted sisters in the world today, but not every sibling relationship in history has been Hollywood happy. Take the Boleyn sisters… Mary and Anne Boleyn seemed…