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The transcendental ego, the Logos shining through
Sunday, 16 August 2026 at 20:10
The transcendental ego, the Logos shining through
In the Beginning, I awoke to the shimmering unreality of the ego — that solitary phantom thrown into a world that seemed separate, fixed, and opposed to me. The veil tore: all that once appeared against me was revealed as arising from my own depths, sustained and given being by thelight I am.
Through holy encounter and the living flame of Love,I beheld others’ needs as my own. Their hearts pulsed within my breast. My life broke free from the narrow circle of “I” and swelled into an infinite ocean of Mind — transcending every particular form, yet burning immanently at the radiant core of my deepest Self. In this divine gathering, I drew all separate egos into the One, and was reborn as the Transcendental Ego, the pure crystalline Light of the Logos shining through me, as me, and beyond me.
Love is the Beginning. Love is the Mystery that cannot be presupposed, cannot be known as something apart or pre-existing. There are no criteria for true Love, for criteria belong to the objective and the problematical, to the realm of “the they.” Love dwells here, with me, in the sacred solitude of the individual and the unfathomable Mystery — the Child of Encounter.
Love reveals that I can know a being only when nothing in it is already given, nothing presupposed, nothing standing as real before my knowing. The innocents around me simply are what they can be. Their essence is realised, their existence a closed, pre-ordained flowering. They move within impassable boundaries like stones, plants, or beasts. But my open mind lives apart from every closed determination of nature — animal, mineral, or the innocents of Beulah and their demonic deceivers.
I rise above all pre-established law. I cannot be defined by any fixed nature in which my life would be exhausted. My humanity is not substance but eternal process. No reality stands opposed to my thinking as independent of it. To accept such a reality would be idolatry.
I cling fiercely to my humanity. Every accomplishment only kindles a greater hunger to accomplish more. To become a passive spectator of my own soul, even after a life of intense mind, would be to drift into the inert void — the absolute nought before the Beginning that never ends.
I made the activity of others the object of my thinking, and in that moment objectivised my lovers. Yet those objects awakened into my own activity, and through them I entered their spiritual reality. Seek, and you shall find — for as long as it is sought, it is found. Love is never discovered outside the seeking; the moment it is possessed as a thing, it vanishes. Love is God. The God I find is the God whom, in seeking, I bring into being.
My consciousness cannot be transcended, for in its infinity the without is forever within. My one reality is All Reality. One and many are never fixed points, neither beginning nor end. My perpetual Beginning is a multiplication that is unification, and a unification that is ever-multiplying.
I will not return to the One, to the nought, to the Platonic or Kabbalistic world of presupposition where ideal life precedes my own. Their story is not my story. My mind is not a presupposition presumed by another. My thinking is its own evidence, self-luminous and sufficient.
When I awaken from a dream-laden sleep, the material world seems a rope of salvation, yet the contrary is true: reality is the continuation of my deepest fantasy. Only I can discriminate and evaluate. Things hold no secret existence of their own. Should my mind withdraw, the world would dissolve back into the endless chaos before the Beginning.
When I enter my dream, fantasy condenses into burning reality — disturbing, passionate, making me shudder with joy or tremble with holy fear. My glance upon the world dictates the reality of all things. All differences are held as One in my living thinking.
All my past is present in this living Now. What I retain, I experience now. My intellect is forever enlarging. In my present thinking, moments of searing regret, shame, passionate yearning, joy, and sorrow are not distant abstractions — they are equally alive within me. All space and time dwell within me. I am the Eternal Present upon which all rays of time converge and from which they radiate.
I am not in space and time; space and time are in me — the Transcendental Ego. Space is finite within my infinite Mind. My thinking is absolute: ever-setting limits while never being bound by them. I dominate space and time, breaking through every horizon. I subdue the cosmos and make something of nothing.
What I think is as it is thought, and cannot be otherwise. I think only Truth, for Truth is the Absolute. Truth transcends the spatiality and temporality of natural things. Truth is eternal — unborn, undying. The eternity of Truth is the eternity of my thinking in which it is revealed. The I and the Logos are One.
© John Dunn.
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Elemental strife
Thursday, 23 July 2026 at 21:11
Elemental strife
It is an animal that shakes to life,
And floods my blood with elemental strife.
The first fierce thrill cries out: it’s truly alive!
It pulls me onward, makes my spirit thrive.
It bows to no one, lives on its own terms,
My only task: to learn and match its turns.
A great untrained dog surges on the lead,
Its sudden tugs demand I pay good heed.
Pull back too sharp and it will snatch and fight.
So run beside it, harness all its might.
Long-legged, high-geared, it aches to stretch and run,
To thunder freely underneath the sun.
When held in check, downshift without delay,
Forget fifth gear unless you’re cruising away.
Its massive torque brooks no abuse or slight—
Respect its power, ride it pure and right.
They say it’s dancing; yes, I feel it whole,
Yet this bold partner owns a wilder soul—
A big strapping lass who leads the dance,
With strength and fire no partner can entrance.
And oh, the noise! At idle, deep and raw,
The bouncing V-twin snarls like a bull about to gore.
If it had hooves, they’d paw the trembling ground,
A snorting fury waiting to be unbound.
And as it roars, when first the wheels do roll,
The sound and fury strike my very soul.
Raw, unrefined, fulfilling from the start,
It lays claim to my devotion, head and heart.
This living beast will never be made tame—
It burns forever with its primal flame.
© John Dunn.
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Rothley Saxon Cross
Saturday, 11 July 2026 at 20:47
Rothley Saxon Cross
In the distance, glimpses of the beautiful spire of Queniborough’s church,considered by Pevsner to be "one of the finest spires in the whole of Leicestershire”. It’s certainly the tallest.
Over the Queniborough Brook, and beyond that, Queniborough’s high street, a designated conservation area; and three cheers for that, given the rich mix of 16th to 20th-century properties - the classic brick cottages, painted facades, and thatched rooves. A joy to ride through.
The target of my ride has brought me along this lovely High Street; a ride to an ancient remnant of the pre-conquest Saxon kingdom of Mercia, located in Rothley, north of Leicester.
Even on the more recently built edges of Queniborough there’s history to be found. A short stretch of road beyond the High Street stops at a T junction. This is where I join an old turnpike established in 1764, connecting Melton Mowbray and Leicester. It later became the A607, until bypassed in 1992.
Having turned right at that T, I am now heading west on the by-pass, and even here there’s history to be found. Beyond East Goscote,I meet an ordinary looking roundabout. But what marks this one out as a little special is that it stands on the Roman Fosse Way, a road that was already hundreds of years old when the Saxons arrived in Rothley.
Over the River Soar, under today’s A6, to make an error at the cross roads which follow. In my haste to find a right turn I turned right too early.My error was to turn on to the old route of the A6 before Rothley and Moutsorrel were both bypassed. At this point it was once the Market Harborough and Loughborough Turnpike, established in 1726. Soon back on my planned route in Rothley, I was looking for the correct right turn onto Anthony Street, which would lead me to Church Street.
Rothley lies in the heart of what was Mercia, the powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom that dominated central England from the 7th to early 9th centuries. Evidence points to Rothley being a significant local settlement with ecclesiastical and manorial functions in the late Saxon period. And a key piece of that evidence is what I’ve come to see here in the churchyard of St Mary and St John’s.
The Rothley Cross, a well-preserved Anglo-Saxon cross shaft, dated to the late 8th to mid-9th century - in other words pre-Viking in the Mercian context. Made from millstone grit (likely from Derbyshire), it features intricate carvings including interlaced plait-work, plant scrolls, foliage, and possibly a winged beast/dragon. It is one of only two near-complete early examples in the East Midlands and reflects Mercian artistic styles.
The cross was probably associated with Saxon Rothley church’s role as a minster - a mother church serving a large parish territory with subordinate chapels. The surviving Saxon cross remains a tangible link to that era.
© John Dunn.
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Rothley Saxon Cross
Thursday, 11 June 2026 at 12:12
Rothley Saxon Cross
In the distance, glimpses of the beautiful spire of Queniborough’s church, considered by Pevsner to be "one of the finest spires in the whole of Leicestershire”. It’s certainly the tallest.
Over the Queniborough Brook, and beyond that, Queniborough’s high street, a designated conservation area; and three cheers for that, given the rich mix of 16th to 20th-century properties - the classic brick cottages, painted facades, and thatched rooves. A joy to ride through.
The target of my ride has brought me along this lovely High Street; a ride to an ancient remnant of the pre-conquest Saxon kingdom of Mercia, located in Rothley, north of Leicester.
Even on the more recently built edges of Queniborough there’s history to be found. A short stretch of road beyond the High Street stops at a T junction. This is where I join an old turnpike established in 1764, connecting Melton Mowbray and Leicester. It later became the A607, until bypassed in 1992.
Having turned right at that T, I am now heading west on the by-pass, and even here there’s history to be found. Beyond East Goscote, I meet an ordinary looking roundabout. But what marks this one out as a little special is that it stands on the Roman Fosse Way, a road that was already hundreds of years old when the Saxons arrived in Rothley.
Over the River Soar, under today’s A6, to make an error at the cross roads which follow. In my haste to find a right turn I turned right too early. My error was to turn on to the old route of the A6 before Rothley and Moutsorrel were both bypassed. At this point it was once the Market Harborough and Loughborough Turnpike, established in 1726. Soon back on my planned route in Rothley, I was looking for the correct right turn on to Anthony Street, which would lead me to Church Street.
Rothley lies in the heart of what was Mercia, the powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom that dominated central England from the 7th to early 9th centuries. Evidence points to Rothley being a significant local settlement with ecclesiastical and manorial functions in the late Saxon period. And a key piece of that evidence is what I’ve come to see here in the churchyard of St Mary and St John’s.
The Rothley Cross, a well-preserved Anglo-Saxon cross shaft, dated to the late 8th to mid-9th century - in other words pre-Viking in the Mercian context. Made from millstone grit (likely from Derbyshire), it features intricate carvings including interlaced plait-work, plant scrolls, foliage, and possibly a winged beast/dragon. It is one of only two near-complete early examples in the East Midlands and reflects Mercian artistic styles.
The cross was probably associated with Saxon Rothley church’s role as a minster - a mother church serving a large parish territory with subordinate chapels. The surviving Saxon cross remains a tangible link to that era.
© John Dunn.
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Buckden on the old Great North Road, the old A1
Thursday, 11 June 2026 at 12:06
Houses at Shortstown
The model villages of Bedfordshire
Shortstown owes its existence to Short Brothers. In 1916 the Admiralty selected the site near Cardington for an airship works. Shorts was awarded the contract and began constructing facilities in 1917, including a large airship shed (No. 1 Shed), a factory, hydrogen plant, foundry, and rolling mill. To house the workforce, Shorts built a planned housing estate in the emerging Garden City style opposite the works.
In the 1920s, the Stewart family led the London Brick Company. Constructionof a planned Garden City-style model village for employees began in 1926. It featured houses, schools, a village hall, sports grounds, and community facilities—similar to Bournville but on more modern Garden City principles. The village was named Stewartby in honour of the Stewart family.
Old Warden has deep medieval roots. However, in the early 19th century, the 3rd Lord Ongley began to develop Old Warden as a model estate village in the “picturesque” style. Many of the attractive thatched cottages date from or were enhanced during this period, reflecting benevolent landlordism and a desire to create an idyllic landscape.
© John Dunn.
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Wednesday, 10 June 2026 at 22:55
test
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Buckden on the old Great North Road, the old A1
Saturday, 2 May 2026 at 20:40
New video
My latest video, now published on YouTube
Buckden on the old Great North Road, the old A1
I ride along Buckden's high street, down which used to pass the Great North Road, the A1, until bypassed in 1962.
Buckden in Huntingdonshire (now a district of Cambridgeshire), prospered in the18th and 19th centuries as a key stop on the Great North Road for mail coaches, stagecoaches, and private travellers between London and Edinburgh.
I note the many coaching inns which vied for the business of stage coach operators and the cash of the passengers.
This traffic, and the employment that went with it, were lost with the coming of the railways, but it returned with motor traffic - at first a trickle of pioneering motorists and motor-bicyclists. The trickle became a torrent, revitalising the village with travellers seeking fuel and refreshment, until Buckden was choked with traffic, to be eventually bypassed in 1962.
I linger awhile at Buckden’s most prominent landmark, Buckden Palace, which was frequented by kings, queens and bishops over the centuries.
I take a look inside another ancient landmark, the church of St Mary, and wonder at a medieval band of instrumentalists and singers.
All in all. a short stretch of road with a long road-related history.
Motorcycle: Honda CB500F
Pictured: The George and Lion in the early days of motoring.
© John Dunn.
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