Category: Responses

Accidental Philosopher: How Owen Barfield Derailed My Life

Sharing my correspondence with Owen Barfield is a gift that I’m honored to bestow. Beginning in 1988 – when he was 90 years old – we traded letters until 1995, two years before he passed. He sent copies of essays and talks of his, and commented on poems and essays I sent to him. He recommended books to read. I told him of authors I’d found. All told, I have sixteen letters from him.

Sharing my correspondence is also humbling. It does involve two people, after all, and only makes full sense when both people are taken into account.


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Silje Lilly - Sunset at l'étang de l'or

A Sonnet for Barfield

‘…the poetic… that bodiless ocean of life out of which all works of art spring.’
Owen Barfield

 

We participate in one and the same
Consciousness, feeling its sudden changes.
Hark! Our keel scraping against pebbles,
The impending bed pronounces your name
In metallic whispers.


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