Africa's First People. The Hadzabe tribe of East Africa. One of the oldest tribes in the world and perhaps the last authentic hunter-gatherer tribe on the planet.
Africa’s First People (Hunting in the Rain with 40,000 year old Hadza Tribe)
Author: jamesdeeclayton
PLEASE contact me on diary.aesthete@yahoo.co.uk - emails to other email addresses often get lost. Sorry!
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Global Pilgrim and Wanderer... just a simple man of faith; Jesus of Nazareth my only idol... Chaser of sky, mountain, desert, jungle, Creation, Earth; the quality of Stars... Ad Astra. Infinitum // Music moves me, deep drums and harmonic voices. I prefer infinity to the limits of social expectation, a paragraph, or an about me. Love all people and can find beauty in all places and situations. So inspired by this earth, and always looking to escape the realm of man.
Today We Live
What if you saw your life flash before your eyes? In a blink, every scene, every moment, winking by in a flip-book of memory. Would you be happy? What would you see?
the Inner River
"Now the long road of the pilgrimage meets the path of the nile... Canyons of orange and beige roll down into empty dells of rust and bone; dusted staircases and shattered statues licked with gold. Pillars of alabaster split the horizon and strange mountains rise like chiselled breasts, mocking the sky."
The Path of the Nile
"...And now your eyes see it... layers of memory are ushered away to reveal kingdoms tasted in dreams long ago... Canyons of orange and beige roll down into empty dells of rust and bone; dusted staircases and shattered statues licked with gold. Pillars of alabaster split the horizon and strange mountains rise like chiselled breasts, mocking the sky. Kingfishers glide across braided ripples of copper and blue; crown of Ramses emblazoned by the fire of a sleepy star. Finally this land reaches out a hand to you, as time itself stops... a secret mark passed from the heavens kisses your brow. You have held all of this within your heart from the earliest days of boyhood. Even you had forgotten! This magical place. Land of kings, sand and stars. Your dreams upheld, an offering to the righteous sun; arms quivering. Swollen and full, you gasp. This is really happening. You are really here. The inner river finally reaches the outer shore; all tributaries aligned with the wide arms of the great valley..."
The Voices of Ancestors
Deep, in the Bush, this kind of Africa still lives, where children run barefoot in the dust to the pounding of stone and millet, where the voices of ancestors still echo across the sunburnt hills, where the red sun hums like a glowing ember behind the billowing grey choke of campfires, blades are sharpened each morning to the tremble of the dawn chorus, arrowheads are delicately rolled in poisonous weeds by thick cracked hands, and grounded bark and pollens remain the cure-all for every disease and ailment. Here, fading gently with time, the cradle of mankind's legacy on earth waits, waits for hungry passengers of the cosmic drama to dine on its forgotten nectars and deliver its message to a world bereft of a spirit...
The Earth Beyond Borders and Divide
Life, is surely more than what we are lead to believe? A journey is only really a journey if you’re moving. Perhaps we are asleep now, and the real story has yet to be written… Or maybe we just need to take the reins and get writing.
The Road to Galilee
It's a name so famous, so simple and evocative, its mere mention re-calling a plethora of timeless moments from that story, the Greatest Story ever told. Like Jerusalem this place to me was mythical, and surely didn't exist up to the present day. I've always been the kind of person to search beyond the myth, peer closer into the fabric of things... always searching, seemingly always finding.For a person who professes to value very few material things, I seem always to be acquiring, growing in the richness of life experiences, connections with people and places far and wide, and the deeper reality of being human.
Love Letter to India #3
"It was as if the people in this exotic and strange place were closer to the very fabric of life, the very fragility of existence. The folk I encountered were not so guarded by the thick veils and illusions that usually withhold us from embracing our reality. The air was lighter, less tense, more open. The focus was not on the pains of birth, but on the joy of infancy. Here, death was never far away; the perishable life wasn't so hidden..."
Love Letter to India #2
"...Once you live in love, once you embrace and go into the world open-armed, ready to give yourself to all people you encounter without judgement or fear, then loves comes to you, love finds you in all places. Love, always, finds the beloved."
Love Letter To India #1
Recent times have given me the chance to swim a little in that great wide pool of remembrance, and, especially, to move a little through my time in India ~ a strange, wonderful, and wholly mysterious land.
He is One
We must always be strong, we must always be faithful, we must always forgive, and love. For the One who we follow is not all the things of this world; He is One thing... He is love.
The Valley of the Shadow (Walking The Judaean Desert)
'Alone' in the Judaean Desert, Year 29, The Dead Sea, Being Chased by Armed Israeli Soldiers, Tea with a Bedouin and Finding Wadi Qelt... "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."And so I came to this place... brought [...]
Life in a Monastery, Cyprus
I began a journey at the end of Spring that set a great and terrible tremour in my foundations, sparked a fire in my spirit beyond all imagining... pyres are made to burn, and ashes make fertile even tired, wintered soil. Even a desert becomes a delta in the rains... What my eyes and soul witnessed in those days I will never forget.
All Roads Lead to Rome
I thought, there, where all this began, I might find something of before. Some treasure, some sign... some relic of a former life. In a way I was totally right. In a way I couldn't have been more wrong. I found a skeleton, all flesh decayed and returned to dust. It seems time does not preserve [...]
Somewhere in Tuscany…
Isn't it fascinating how different places call forth different energies from within? Complex beings we are... I find it amazing how it seems our inner being, or our soul, is apparently greatly affected by our environment, the people and the energy around us. Long have I been bewitched by this phenomenon... I've tried many things, breathed [...]