iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

A powerful examination of those moral climates that enable us to flourish, rooted in decades of prison research and deep, humane reflection. For anyone interested in human flourishing, what enables it, and how it unfolds in organizations, not only prisons. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2026/09/aris...

031

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Each time I re-read this, I trigger an experience of ‘time alive’ that is at its metaphysical heart. It is a great work of imagination. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-ma…

000

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

"In heart's truth I declare What most I fear To find beyond death's veil: Not legendary hells of ice and fire But a face too merciful For my own devil-peopled soul to bear." ncolloff.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-d...

001

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Twenty years before Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, his contemporary, the novelist Claude Houghton, published this - a shorter, more didactic version of the same vision. “There is a beautiful familiarity between all master utterances"

000

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

"Where all doctrines meet, stands the saint" The Kingdoms of the Spirit, Claude Houghton

010

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

This is the ocean. All serious, vast and grey. Yet just as the mind in solitary moments suddenly opens its shifting reflections to secret depths – so the ocean, too, one blue morning may open itself to sky and solitude. Look, says the gleaming ocean, I too have stars and blue depths. Olav H.Hague

100

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

A very moving search for a right relationship with his dead wife, and compelling exploration of maps of the afterlife, written by a highly accomplished travel writer! 3 books in one.

000

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Enormously enjoyable, psychologically acute fantasy novel - with a brilliant description of just how carrying on in the Blitz may have actually felt (and cost). ncolloff.blogspot.com/2026/07/what...

020

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

A vivid exploration of the joys (and challenges) of solitude enfolded within an active life. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2026/07/an-i...

021

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

How to weave that "other world" of the misnamed "paranormal" into a compelling story of souls in search of one another, environmental resistance, cultural renewal, and the delights of Bengali cuisine! A through joy, of tales personal and communal. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2026/07/ghos...

011

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

I am sorry to hear this - a kind, thoughtful man. I remember him at a fundraising dinner doing a highly entertaining double act with Richard Dawkins on behalf of Amnesty, of which they had both been long-term supporters. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

churchtimes.co.uk

Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford and celebrated writer, dies, aged 89

A regular contributor to the Church Times for several decades, and to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, he wrote 26 books

061

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I am sorry to discover that the novelist and poet, David Malouf, died yesterday. May he RIP. His An Imaginary Life, which is one of my favorite novels. Hauntingly poetic, and a beautiful meditation on the relationship between language and the worlds we see and create.

130

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Happy Easter. Aldous Huxley described Piero Della Francesca’s The Resurrection as the greatest painting of all time (and thus secured its safety in WW 2) and whom am I to disagree. Magnificently restored and, interestingly painted for a ‘secular’ setting in the town hall.

020

Reposted by Nicholas Colloff

Julian Hoffman @julianhoffman.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

"The river won, the forest won, the memory of our ancestors won." Terrific piece by @jonathan-watts.bsky.social on the courageous and against-the-odds activism of Indigenous river defenders in the Brazilian Amazon. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

‘The river won’: how campaigners in Brazilian Amazon stopped privatisation of waterway

Local river defenders force U-turn by occupying grain terminal operated by one of US powerhouses of world trade

27931

Reposted by Nicholas Colloff

churchtimes.bsky.social @churchtimes.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

“I could see that people with faith were deriving some kind of experience that I couldn’t even understand.” Experiencing spiritual love, agape, prompted her conversion to Christianity, Susan Greenfield tells Jack Valero ✍️

churchtimes.co.uk

Susan Greenfield: Neuroscientist on a journey

Experiencing spiritual love, agape, prompted her conversion to Christianity, she tells Jack Valero

002

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Re-read Kathleen Raine's In the Lion's Mouth, her harrowing account of her relationship with the author, Gavin Maxwell, who, on his death, gave flight to a remarkable series of poems, reflecting on love, guilt, and grief. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-d...

001

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

A Blakean Awakening ncolloff.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-bl...

020

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/12/merr...

010

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

My books of the year in two categories: The first published this year: Donald and his Seven Cows by Angus Peter Campbell ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/09/dona... The second a re-read of a novel published in the 1930s: Claude Houghton's Julian Grant Loses His Way ncolloff.blogspot.com/2020/04/half...

011

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Everything demands of me: “Feel us!” Everyone begs of me: “See us!” God lend me Your eyes! I’ve come to sow seeing in the world. Abraham Joshua Herschel, “Intimate Hymn”

021

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

The Buddhist scholar tackles the great esoteric Christian (and scientist) by whom he was greatly influenced (and translated into Japanese).

042

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

On a Deserted Shore by Kathleen Raine, one of two poets that Eliot regretted not publishing. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-d...

021

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

On the River of Life, 1896, by Hugo Simberg.

030

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Charles Williams’ Tarot inspired novel is, amongst many other things, a remarkable account of a realized stage cunningly disguised as your favorite aunt. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2014/08/aunt-s…

ncolloff.blogspot.com

121

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

In the conference gaps re-reading Bede’s Return to the Centre. The first book’s of his I read and that led to correspondence, his mentorship and our friendship. One of the holiest people I have known.

131

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

A beautiful and poetic novel of what it means to belong to a place actually loved and known. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/09/dona... @luathpress.bsky.social

032

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

The author, J.B. Priestley, was born on this date in 1894, now principally known for An Inspector Calls (for being a set text in schools), he was a polymath, and under the guise of the bluff Yorkshireman, was a serious intellectual. Jung described him as his best lay interpreter!

021

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

The extraordinary subtlety of being simple. Without question the book I would recommend first as an introduction to Christianity (and worth reading by all as a remarkable reminder).

021

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Gunn's 'mysticism' is tightly woven to his characters and - their hopes, loves, humours and struggles - such that the 'well at the world's end' is everywhere, for the world's ending is placed in every particular being, every person, as their birthright. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-...

121

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Fifteen twentieth-century exponents of holiness and critics of modernity are introduced in graceful, thought-provoking essays by Harry Oldmeadow. ncolloff.blogspot.com/2025/08/spir...

ncolloff.blogspot.com

Spiritual Lights in Benighted Times

As the journalist and biographer of Pope Francis, Paul Vallely noted in an article for the Church Times, the process of canonization in th...

011

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

A Fool collected, a gallery enjoyed and a saint acquired …

011

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

From the depths of Buddhist illumination to the charming surfaces of the folkloric appreciation of fisherfolk, Blofeld explores Kuan Yin, both goddess and Bodhisattva of Compassion, with grace, insight and humility.

010

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Even Song, 1930, by Agnes Pelton

040

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Woman with a Leaping Cat, 1945 by Robert Colquhoun.

120

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Landscape with Elements, 1975-76 by John Craxton.

020

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Brahma in his pavilion in a Budapest garden.

020

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Fascinating, having read this excellent account of the conquest of the indigenous in Argentina and its relation to the birth of evolutionary science, I was surprised to hear from a friend over the weekend that in Argentina, it had recently been described as 'an empty territory.'

111

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Blue Vases, 1983 by Josef Czpaski An accomplished artist and one of the most attractive spirits of the last century, if only we all had lived so well, with such integrity and compassion. ncolloff.blogspot.com/.../creating....

010

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Raven Stealing the Sun, 1978 by Ken Mowatt.

020

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Undoubtedly worth waiting for …

011

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

When the world worn professor through the love of Iris and the remembrance of irises steps into the ‘other kingdom’ in the last of the stories here, you know Hesse caught a taste of perfection, rarely achieved in literature.

011

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Masterly weird tales of shifts in time, disturbing illuminations, influenced by the Fourth Way and Jung, with glimmerings of social satire and comment.

111

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Pentecost: Woodblock print by Sadao Watanabe 1913-1996

001

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

A Being of the Sea, 1945 by Cecil Collins

010

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

An anthropology of dreams rooted in contemporary Egypt and deeply respectively of people’s actual experience and their accompanying hermeneutical frameworks. Dreams as an inhabited landscape rather than unconsciously generated within a self.

042

Nicholas Colloff @ncolloff.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

The Ascension, 1963, by Peter Rogers for today’s feast (courtesy of the Methodist Church Art Collection).

022