Synopsis "Book of the Spirit"
Many of my traditional images, found in many of my poems and writings - time, the horizon, the sea - as well of course as love, find a place again in these lines - in my prayers. 'Rooted in the mythologies of religion, of church, synagogue and the Zen Buddhist temple or monastery, and calling, too, on the Graeco-Roman gods and muses, this collection borrows words, terminologies and phrases as well as their characteristic styles to resonate with the Christian and Jewish language and liturgies, with just a whisper of Far Eastern religions. Blending near identical theologies around a single belief system, a religion centred on love, there are echoes of the Old Testament of the Bible, and of the Torah, the Talmud, and Midrash and Kabbalistic teachings. For example, Kabbalistic teaching suggests that the manifestation of God that we perceive is his unity, when he transitions from nothing to one, just as Zen masters understand the nothingness of the godhead: a God present in nothingness. Despite this heritage, the collection speaks from - and for - the spirit of the modern world. It is the voice of our deepest, most primal faith.' - Chris Armstrong About the author: Chris Armstrong has had three careers, working as a merchant seaman and navigator, a farmhand on the farm where he still lives, and as an information scientist before retiring to become a poet and writer. He has one collection of poems in print, Mostly Welsh (Y Lolfa, 2019). Although initially entirely focussed on poetry, his writing has branched into short stories and his first full length work of fiction, The Dark Trilogy was published in 2022. A collection of short stories is in preparation. He has been published, for example in Storgy, Agenda and London Grip New Poetry. He lives in a cottage in the mountains of mid-Wales.
