Bella Basura

The first week of December has now become widely accepted as National Mistletoe Week, a week of education and celebration about the plant Mistletoe. It is no surprise then that Jean Dark’s short piece “How to See Mistletoe” has been published in the 2012 Earth Pathways Diary as the text for this week, the first week of December. It also feels apt at this point in time to republish this blog…

After yesterday cycling to the Stourbridge Leper Chapel with Man From Uranus, I feel its time to re-post my 2006 article about the Leper Chapel and a link to my Cambridge Psychogeography site.

This site is intended to focus on my writing as Mary-Jean Dark. The name change to Mary-Jean Dark is to distinguish me from  denim trouser retailers, french-speaking prestidigitators and breeders of Dobermann Pinsers. Try googling  jean dark and see what you come up with! Or you could check out some of my evolving writing archive here

E-Books vs. Paper Formats. Pt 1 Yule 2011 I was lucky enough to be given an e-book reader. After switching it on and frustratingly browsing some e-book distributor websites I chose to download George Orwell’s 1984. There are complicated reasons for this choice, not the least of which that the last time I read 1984 from cover to cover was early september 2001. I was actually reading about the…

This autumn just passed I spent a glorious few weeks getting to know my new housemates. In particular, Phil The Man from Uranus – avant garde musician, film-maker, performance artist and all-round Renaissance-Man. One of the projects we worked on together over one weekend was a music video for The Loved Drones single Cosmique Memories. Later in November, our house were hosts to the band when they…

Unfortunately I have been forced to suspend further blog postings in The Wall of Girls Blog-sequence as I have been sent on a DWP Work Programme. This means I shall be expected to attend a full-time two week course until I find a job. Please watch out for further posting, which hopefully will resume soon. In the meantime, please occupy yourselves with these thoughts on life on the dole, which…

Vision of a Sacred Garden  Back in February 2011 at a Pagan conference in Chester I had the good fortune to take part in a guided pathworking lead by Glennie Kindred, the author of the pagan primer “The Earth’s Cycle of Celebration” and part of the Moonshares Collective who annually produce the Earth Pathway Diary – a pagan “network and resource for Earth lovers, environmentalists, artists,…

I’ve just spent the evening creating a new menu called Articles, you’ll see it on the top banner menu. or you just click here Articles. Mainly I have uploaded articles of mine that have been published in Earth Pathways Diary. Have a rummage and enjoy

I’ve added a new link to my Pickings from the Internet link-list (you can also access it via the menu at the top of the page) – This most recent addition is to the Psychedelic Press Journal blogsite, to an interesting article from 2013 by Jack Hunter. In this link list I am attempting to gather…more…  

Quotes from the article “Fasting with the Fool –  The Seven Progressive Stages of Consciousness Under Fasting. By Doctor Gordon Tripp “As a form of reality distortion the practice of fasting has a long and august history. Starvation was certainly twisting the minds of our Neanderthal forebears long before they hit on sativa, somniferum or muscaria. Fasting is well established as a prelude or…

During September and October I will be running a series of six creative writing workshops at The Edge cafe. Places are limited, so please contact me to reserve a place.

Limerance 2025 Late half moon rising Climbs the horizon Dark in the early hours Like a cold ragged sun Cracked and fissured Through still bare trees Hangs like a lantern A light in another’s window A beacon of shared insomnia Slips slowly through a lattice of branches The movement of its own orbit Marking these sleepless hours As degrees on the ecliptic Until it slips away Into a…

I think that in the title of this new poem I have invented a new collective noun. Gaunts House 2012 A Comfort of Aunties There will always be those White haired ladies, Angry in a lilac cardigan. They are the ones to watch, Bitter, twisted, politically astute. They are rebellion, protest, Resistance in your face. They are just stop oil, XR, Pagan vegan anarchist hunt sabs. They are…

Lost and alone, I relentlessly haunt my own back catalogue, visiting and re-visiting the failures of my past. This piece – The Global Underbelly of Mexican Culture – was first printed in the anno 2001 pamphlet Necrotourist. The Global Underbelly of Mexican Culture Coyacan suburb, on the edge of Mexico City, was about the most unMexican place I’d seen in Mexico. In contrast to the crowded…

Under renovation Sequoia Corridor Bella Basura 2012 Jean Dark

this feed is now a work-in-progress Sequoia at the end of a corridor. Bella Basura 2012 Meanwhile try bellabasura.com