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From left to right, top to bottom: Saint Francis, tied to a post by his father, is released by his mother. The father brings his son before the Bishop Guido. Robbers throw the naked Saint in the snow. Francis washes the feet of lepers.

"Thereafter, this despiser of the world, loosed from the bonds of worldly desires, left the city, and, glad and free, sought an hidden solitude where he might hearken in loneliness and silence unto the hid treasures of the divine converse. And while the man of God, Francis, was making his way through a certain wood, chanting praises unto the Lord in the French tongue, and rejoicing, it chanced that some robbers rushed out on him from their hiding-places. With fierce mien they asked the man of God who he was, and he, full of confidence, gave a prophetic answer, saying, "I am a herald of the great King." Then they fell upon him, beat him, took all his clothes, and cast him into a ditch full of snow, crying, "Lie there, lout, thou herald of God!" But he, on their departure, climbed out of the ditch, and, uplifted with exceeding gladness, with yet louder voice began to make the woods echo with praises unto the creator of all."

~ From The Life of Saint Francis, by Saint Bonaventure


Francis flagellates his naked body, then lies in the snow. He is attacked by devils in the home of cardinal Saint Leo. He receives the stigmata. He revives the innocent youth stabbed in the throat.


He preaches to the birds. Francis on his deathbed surrounded by his fellow brothers. Revival of the woman from Monte Merano. Either the Saint freeing Albert of Arezzo from debtors' prison or freeing Peter Alafai, who had been imprisoned as a heretic.

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I had an extraordinary dream the other night. I was swimming very fast, and with ease, out to sea at night. The waves were huge and barrelling but I dashed through them like a leaping clumsy dolphin. There were two others swimming with me, but they kept behind me slightly and swam with even greater ease, and with a certain composure. They were guides, watching my back.

I was incredibly happy. The waves were black; true, it was night, but they were black anyway, in colour. But it was a strange, comforting black, like the black of space rather than the black of the grave. And it wasn't like water, it was thinner. I kept looking up to see the moon above the sea horizon - it was big and incredibly bright, and it had a clear face, a jolly, overjoyed face and broad, toothy smile. I felt even happier still seeing it and swam ever faster towards it through these great barrelling waves.

I half-noticed that the horizon was not the horizon. Imagine the world really were flat, and that the ocean would fall off the edge like a waterfall. The horizon was like that - the edge of a great waterfall I was swimming towards.

But instead of going over I was propelled ahead into space - like a diver plunging into a pool I slowed down rapidly and then just floated. I realised I was in space, outside the Earth. And I cannot tell you how real this was. It was like I was awake and really floating in space with the earth behind me. Space was pure black, and the stars crystal-clear. The Milky Way stood colossal in front of me, above me, below me. I was terrified.

But those guides were still at my back, smiling at my fear, which they knew to be groundless.

More suddenly than I had 'plunged' from the ocean into space, I travelled further on - I found myself beyond the galaxy. The galaxy stood behind me like the Earth had, and it was within a sphere of pinkish nebula-cloud. There was a ragged hole I had come through. My guides were still with me, and their demeanour was unchanged, but I was even more scared now.

Then even more suddenly still than the previous times, I was far, far further out. I can't remember what I saw, but I remember feeling like you might feel standing inside a clocktower, behind the face and among all the cogs and wheels. I felt like I was in amongst the clockwork of the universe, behind the scenes, as it were. I felt a vast, barely comprehensible presence everywhere, in everything, like a drop in the ocean might sense the ocean.

My fear reached a peak, and a decision seemed to be made by my two guides to take me back because I was too scared, because I couldn't cope. I was turned about and saw before me another pinkish cloud, thicker than the first and enveloping the universe. There was an enormous tunnel in it, the cloud inside folding like velvet. Two blue lights flew and hovered there. I flew through it, barely conscious of doing so, then 'punched' through the first veil of cloud I had come through, and I was aware that it was a veil, hiding things from us for our own good. Then I was on Earth again among people and we were engaged in some very mundane activity. And I then felt, in my physical body, like a pair of hands might feel if they were to become conscious. My body felt like a tool, or a willing servant; I, also, felt like a willing servant.

When I woke up and contemplated all this, it occurred to me how strikingly similar it was to some accounts of near-death experiences. Not that I think I died. But there are two ways to die - one is for your body to fail; the other is for you to 'die to the earthly world', in your soul, like mystics have aspired to do down through the ages. Like Saint Francis did.

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Discovered a brilliant new artist recently - Serhiy Savchenko. He's bloody outstanding.

Soldier:


Warrior:


On Black.

Tenderless.

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Do me a favour? Write me new testimonials calling me names? Preferably any colourful synonym for 'fool' you can think of (nothing aggressive, that's not what I'm going for). Oh, go on - it'll be a laugh; a whole bunch of testimonials calling me names! Monty Python-esque Think of it as a conceptual art project.