Author: jamesdeeclayton

Global Pilgrim and Wanderer... simple man of faith; an Eastern Orthodox Christian... Chaser of sky, mountain, desert, jungle, Creation, Earth, and 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. So inspired by earth, and always looking to escape the realm of man and seek the Divine.

The Road to Galilee

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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.

Shine Your Light

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My dear readers, what an age it feels since I last wrote, and what an age of the world we are living through! And whilst on the surface it would seem like the dawning of an Orwellian disaster, I must confess my own life has not changed all that much... can you feel it? The [...]

Love Letter to India #3

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"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..."

Life in a Monastery, Cyprus

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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

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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…

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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 [...]

The Song of the Heart

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You could spend an eternity this way... floating between folds of time, no more a traveller or sage, years of searching simply washing away... nobody's man and yet prisoner of the elements, caught up in a war between swirling waters and burgeoning skies... perhaps this is eternity? ...not a destination, but a hidden place between, nearly impossible to [...]

A New Day

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A whole new day has dawned in my life! And I couldn't be more grateful, more alive, or more in love. This most recent 'journey' has brought me so much peace and illumination. I feel so blessed to be alive, to be given another chance to roam this earth and carry on my journey as [...]

And Did Those Feet…

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  Everybody knows I love me a bit of England from time to time. Catching up with family, old blast-from-the-past friends, sentimental places and nuances of English life I'll never fully shake off as the self-professed Aesthete I am. Cities like Oxford and Cambridge are no exception. Seriously, I have much overlooked these absolute golden [...]

Morocco Diaries

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Morocco. North Africa. We've been here before. This time we will see it through new eyes. Since my first trip back in 2017 I haven't quite been able to stay away. So vivid, alive - its landscapes, winding cities and warm-hearted people. The place is crazy! In the heat, the bustling medina; weaving in and out [...]

Inferno

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Florence. Italy.2013-2019. It's been a long, winding love affair.A lot of poetry, a lot of tears, a lot of cigarettes and laughter.Forever, somehow, will that city be associated with this aesthete... and what was.(and, of course, this diary) I'm always drawn back, somehow, even when I think it's finally over. Life speaks to me ~ little [...]