Peter Harris

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About Peter Harris
I am sometimes known (by those who approve of wizards) as The Wizard of Eutopia. I live in The Story Ark, an old army barracks on the main road of Kaiwaka, 'The Little Town of Lights' - blink and you miss it, only at night you can't because it has fairy lights everywhere. For twelve years (intermittently) I've been building, also on the main road (well, a little to one side of it), a sculptured ferrocement folly called Café Eutopia.
What is Eutopia and why should you care? Well, it's an organic café, a temple to Love Beauty Truth and Freedom, and a bookshop - not necessarily in that order. See photos. For lots more, taken by tourists from all over the world, just enter 'Cafe Eutopia' in Google images. The tourists love me; the locals keep asking, 'When's he going to finish that darned thing?'
Unbeknown to them, for even more than those twelve years I've been also building a much more ambitious, unseen 'folly' - a fantasy epic named (in a dream after I failed to come up with a title) THE APPLES OF AEDEN. I've also written a few other books, as you can see - fiction, non-fiction and some in between.
To release the writing from the computer screen (and beat the gatekeepers of traditional publishing)I started a digital printshop and developed a quick method of book-binding, and more recently, embossing and 'edge-carving' antique-fantasy-style books (and, at the other end of the book spectrum, ebook uploading).
I spent much of my earlier life, like many of us in the troubled 'post-everything'West, in an angsty quest for Truth (between enterprises intended to feed us but always threatening to consume us - spinning wheels, clocks, oval picture frames). A teen convert to radical Christianity, I thought I should become a Bible translator, so I got a BA in classical Hebrew and Greek. But in the process I 'lost my faith' (quite rationally I think!)and became an angsty agnostic.
To feed a growing family, I tried to focus on the oval frames and sacrificed a few tormented years on the anvil of manufacturing, much of it in a cold, dickensian defunct woollen mills in Dunedin. Upon reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I had an epiphany which saved our business.
But in 1990, just when we had paid off my father-in-law and even started to make some money, the rubberband of my soul (I felt) was stretched to breaking point, and I had to leave the workshops of the North where we had moved, and go to the City to study Philosophy at Auckland University. In 1995 I wrote (in a database), an infamous 'evolving' MA thesis called 'Process and Inquiry'. The professor rang me to say he had 'wondered whether I was an undiscovered genius,' but after an outside examiner from Alberta (an expert on Aristotle no less) pooh-poohed it, he felt emboldened to say, 'But now, I don't think so.' Ah, how good it is to be able to fall back on peers!
'I have abandoned my quest for Truth, and am now looking for a good Fantasy' (Ashleigh brilliant).
We left the City then, and to detox from the philosophy department I began Eutopia, 'singing outside the walls' of academia. I was free at last - but (at least compared to the philosophy professors) broke.
As a Neoplatonist/Pagan free-thinker/Defender of the True West, I love inspiring others by what I create in buildings, artefacts and ideas. In the Story Ark I have started the New Leaf Network, a book-binding and self-publishing group. And in the old hall at the back of the Ark I am developing the School of Wisdom and Wizardry, based on the Tree of Life, the Flow Rainbow and the Wheel of Wisdom game. Also the Tree of Life 'wizard's staff', representing the power we actually all have, to 'ground' at least a bit of heaven on a bit of earth - so creating 'Eutopias' - Good places - wherever we may be.
PS: I met Raewyn Crisp in Greek 101, and we married the next year (so young!). Thirty-five years later we can say we have four (mostly) grown-up children. We think we may be almost there too! But they may differ with me on that. Raewyn too. She is a perennial student, and now the kids are grown, is back doing a post-grad psychology degree. She refuses to psychoanalise me, however. She's a behaviourist.
PPS: My main blog for general reflections, offerings and creations, is www.wizardgifts.wordpress.com
PPPS: Main influences: Tolkien (of course!) C.S.Lewis, Nietzsche, R.Pirsig, R.Bach, C.S.Peirce, J.M.Barrie... oh and Plato (how not?), Plotinus... So, if you wonder why read P.J.Harris, well, the compost of my mind has grown a garden with some trees which I think do sometimes sway in a wind from beyond the walls. Also, I know quite a bit about the walls themselves.
PPPPS: Zarathustra: 'O afternoon of my life! What have I not given away that I might possess one thing; this living plantation of my thoughts, and this dawn of my highest hope.' What was his hope? Perhaps this quote comes close to the vision: 'I will make company with creators, with harvesters, with rejoicers: I will show them the Rainbow and the Stairway to the Overman.'
What is Eutopia and why should you care? Well, it's an organic café, a temple to Love Beauty Truth and Freedom, and a bookshop - not necessarily in that order. See photos. For lots more, taken by tourists from all over the world, just enter 'Cafe Eutopia' in Google images. The tourists love me; the locals keep asking, 'When's he going to finish that darned thing?'
Unbeknown to them, for even more than those twelve years I've been also building a much more ambitious, unseen 'folly' - a fantasy epic named (in a dream after I failed to come up with a title) THE APPLES OF AEDEN. I've also written a few other books, as you can see - fiction, non-fiction and some in between.
To release the writing from the computer screen (and beat the gatekeepers of traditional publishing)I started a digital printshop and developed a quick method of book-binding, and more recently, embossing and 'edge-carving' antique-fantasy-style books (and, at the other end of the book spectrum, ebook uploading).
I spent much of my earlier life, like many of us in the troubled 'post-everything'West, in an angsty quest for Truth (between enterprises intended to feed us but always threatening to consume us - spinning wheels, clocks, oval picture frames). A teen convert to radical Christianity, I thought I should become a Bible translator, so I got a BA in classical Hebrew and Greek. But in the process I 'lost my faith' (quite rationally I think!)and became an angsty agnostic.
To feed a growing family, I tried to focus on the oval frames and sacrificed a few tormented years on the anvil of manufacturing, much of it in a cold, dickensian defunct woollen mills in Dunedin. Upon reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I had an epiphany which saved our business.
But in 1990, just when we had paid off my father-in-law and even started to make some money, the rubberband of my soul (I felt) was stretched to breaking point, and I had to leave the workshops of the North where we had moved, and go to the City to study Philosophy at Auckland University. In 1995 I wrote (in a database), an infamous 'evolving' MA thesis called 'Process and Inquiry'. The professor rang me to say he had 'wondered whether I was an undiscovered genius,' but after an outside examiner from Alberta (an expert on Aristotle no less) pooh-poohed it, he felt emboldened to say, 'But now, I don't think so.' Ah, how good it is to be able to fall back on peers!
'I have abandoned my quest for Truth, and am now looking for a good Fantasy' (Ashleigh brilliant).
We left the City then, and to detox from the philosophy department I began Eutopia, 'singing outside the walls' of academia. I was free at last - but (at least compared to the philosophy professors) broke.
As a Neoplatonist/Pagan free-thinker/Defender of the True West, I love inspiring others by what I create in buildings, artefacts and ideas. In the Story Ark I have started the New Leaf Network, a book-binding and self-publishing group. And in the old hall at the back of the Ark I am developing the School of Wisdom and Wizardry, based on the Tree of Life, the Flow Rainbow and the Wheel of Wisdom game. Also the Tree of Life 'wizard's staff', representing the power we actually all have, to 'ground' at least a bit of heaven on a bit of earth - so creating 'Eutopias' - Good places - wherever we may be.
PS: I met Raewyn Crisp in Greek 101, and we married the next year (so young!). Thirty-five years later we can say we have four (mostly) grown-up children. We think we may be almost there too! But they may differ with me on that. Raewyn too. She is a perennial student, and now the kids are grown, is back doing a post-grad psychology degree. She refuses to psychoanalise me, however. She's a behaviourist.
PPS: My main blog for general reflections, offerings and creations, is www.wizardgifts.wordpress.com
PPPS: Main influences: Tolkien (of course!) C.S.Lewis, Nietzsche, R.Pirsig, R.Bach, C.S.Peirce, J.M.Barrie... oh and Plato (how not?), Plotinus... So, if you wonder why read P.J.Harris, well, the compost of my mind has grown a garden with some trees which I think do sometimes sway in a wind from beyond the walls. Also, I know quite a bit about the walls themselves.
PPPPS: Zarathustra: 'O afternoon of my life! What have I not given away that I might possess one thing; this living plantation of my thoughts, and this dawn of my highest hope.' What was his hope? Perhaps this quote comes close to the vision: 'I will make company with creators, with harvesters, with rejoicers: I will show them the Rainbow and the Stairway to the Overman.'
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Blog postThis is my new <business> card… if I begin to list the arts and crafts and things within, there would be no end …Such is the renaissance man’s burden!
1 month ago Read more -
Blog postApologies for the machine gobbledygook – human lucidity to follow this interlude of machine madness!I thought it was 2021… so I could trust a new Word press theme to slot into place without a fuss. But no, the Hestia theme had ideas of being helpful beyond its machine intelligence, and helpfully plastered a whole bunch of sample filler text in posts it actually then posted to you…aghhh! So no, … Apologies for the machine gobbledygook – human lucidity to follow this interlude of machine madness! Read More »
2 months ago Read more -
Blog postI’ve started posting an illustration a day on a new Facebook page @applesofaeden… as my broken heelbone heals I continue to practice focus – blinkering even – to finish a highly illustrated shorter version of Volume One of The Apples of Aeden, the Girl and the Guardian. I’ve migrated to Facebook mostly because there is where people mostly see a post and more importantly, easily comment, like, love and follow. I love blogs, but the action is seemingly on Facebook and other social media and ima9 months ago Read more
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Blog postI’ve started a Facebook page for apples of aeden…if you cant beat them, post to them! I’ll post here too… Here is the new page : https://www.facebook.com/applesofaeden/
9 months ago Read more -
Blog postWhen in my twenties I belatedly came into real contact with the Punk movement and related underground anti bourgeois drug-taking communities and thought worlds, I immediately knew I wanted very little to do with this possible way of being, this psychic underbelly as I saw it… I aspired to the upper realms, in philosophy a … On Fairytales, Romantic Fantasy and the Bourgeois Read More »
9 months ago Read more -
Blog postI’ve had a tiger by the tail, trying to get to the point of actually doing this Peter Pan sculpture. I agonised over the question whether it will be worth the space and time it takes up. Sculptures can’t be filed away in 2-D like a canvas. They are 3-D, in your face, have weight and breadth and depth. They are an expensive embarrassment if bad, a logistical problem and a sales problem even if good. And, as my own responses in Melbourne recently tell me only too clearly, even a ‘good’ sculptur1 year ago Read more
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Blog postHi friends who may still be following here! I’ve been away in http://www.dreamspace.nz the gallery and workshops in Gisborne…and http://www.dreamhaven.nz… and the Facebook colonisations of these… I’ve been doing some sculpture ..a commission for the Captain Cook memorial…giant ferrocement gourds..hue in Maori. Now inspired by a dream and my brother’s offer of a donation, I’m doing a statue of a Peter pan figure from our epic Apples of Aeden, Quickblade.
So an artwork begins…1 year ago Read more -
Blog postThis week I painted the five sectors with subsectors to emphasize the fact that every primary phase of the whole seems like the whole to those who live in it… also it’s colourful and stimulating – fractal is like nature and more beautiful than uniform blocks. .
3 years ago Read more -
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Blog postThis is a big leap forward in the ergonomics of the 4phase process approach to meetings. Around this five-part table people can find their ‘home sector’ and really get how they fit with the other sectors in the process of creating new ideas, of coming to new mutual understandings and synergies.
Our grandsons shown here playing with the prototype sector ‘wands’… The sector tables may get imprinted with some graphics to represent four sub-phases within them – each phase is a process wor3 years ago Read more -
Blog postYes, you guessed it – I DIDN’T put this Big Rock in first… 18 years it’s been on my longtailed back burner agenda… and it should have been one of the first things I built, at Cafe Eutopia.. why? Because it is the symbol of synergy.. social, intellectual and spiritual. It’s actually love articulated – … Big rocks go in FIRST…The Long-delayed Round Table of the Five Elements Read More »
3 years ago Read more -
Blog postThere’s a ‘long tail’ – or long tale – to the things we create, if we live (and believe) long enough and don’t forget too much but let it all simmer on a long-term ‘back burner’ – or perhaps call it an athanor, or alchemist’s oven, which would slowly heat ingredients to fuse them together.
An example from many in my life here at Dreamspace recently: the short epic love/sacred quest story set in ancient Cornwall and Aeden. I wrote this spinoff/sidetrack from the epic Apples of Aeden ab3 years ago Read more -
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Blog postWho said the road to hell, or at least dehumanisation, wasn’t fun? Late last night it coalesced in my mind as a coherent pattern, a syndrome. I christened it the Hedonomatrix. There may be other, better, names – I haven’t checked. By any name, it is now (to my mind) officially a Thing, as the millennial younglings say. A coming grand unification of unbridled consumerism, narcissism, online video entertainment, virtual reality, gaming…. Almost instant gratification of our hedonistic desi3 years ago Read more
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Blog postDear friends – (Pun alert…) Get off that treadmill! Become a misfit! (It’s a lot of fun having this position just to left field of the sport and fitness industry! There are so many puns…) We do coffee with wholecream milk…:) For that and so much more, run on down to 61 Carnarvon St, Gisborne, or pilates your mouse to http://www.lifegym.nz and vigorously explore strange new lands of the mind and spirit (under construction as I speak) – and the neglected realms of the creating h3 years ago Read more
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Blog postIn green ink, after going over all the letters with the Dremel… Getting there… ‘Without a vision the people perish’… may we all re-imagine what it can and should be like to be in the (True) West. .. Gondor, Numinor before the falling away… Advertisements3 years ago Read more
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Blog postJust a quick trial, a rapid prototype …but exciting to get to this stage. Now re-engraving and getting a better blanket to press the dampened card into the letters… So, just been reading Jim Rickards’ ‘Road to Ruin’ – this is a bit of an antidote to the bad prognosis for the financial system and … Continue reading An embossed print first proof of newly engraved Declaration of the True West3 years ago Read more
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Blog postDraft only…
I’ve been thinking what does represent the True West best, most unambiguously, without any reference to bad episodes in the actual western history? So a viking-looking ship isn’t a safe choice, though sailing to new lands is a very Western thing.
So, a Tree of Life perhaps? Grounded in the Earth and reaching for the sky. With a glowing crystal of knowledge and communication (borrowed from my True-Western fantasy Apples of Aeden, where each World Tree has a Heartsto3 years ago Read more -
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Blog postGoogling didn’t find me much on this at all – what are the images and icons that people who love the ideals of the West, as distinct from a western country or western religion, use? Is there such an icon? Could someone or some group invent one? Could we?
In that spirit, I will submit some images for your feedback. The one I put on the poster is one idea only – the ship sailing to new lands representing new understandings, knowledge, wisdom. Only trouble is, the Vikings, Columbus and h3 years ago Read more -
Blog postFriends of the True West! Do kindly read this and give me ANY feedback that occurs to you before it’s set in stone (or steel plate actually – for printing as an etched-embossed poster, version 1.0). Here is the digital poster of the draft, and the text below it in case you want to copy and paste and edit to repost or share – all I ask is add to the end ‘modified by’…. and your name and contact. Or if you love it as is, share freely! Comments welcomed too, for me to look at modifications. I wa3 years ago Read more
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Blog postI’ve had a project simmering for a while which the awful movie The Last Jedi has pushed onto the front burner: the making or co-creating of a kind of ‘Magna Carta’ declaration of the True West – what it is and why the current backsliding, self-sabotaging version of it we have today is still vastly worth defending, if necessary with our lives, and at the very LEAST with our pens and printing machines.
Today at a coffee ‘bubble’ (I love bubbles, whether drinks or quiet conversation bubb3 years ago Read more -
Blog postWakeful, was angsting about impending opening of Dreamspace gallery, so many competing options values visions materials styles messages as an artist, now opening a WHAT??… Now just getting out of my own way and just DOING IT…
So for this blog, the invitation, should you be nearby:
3 years ago Read more -
Blog postToday Britain apparently voted herself free of that most insidious, bureaucratic, statist, autocratic organisation: the EU. Wow! Fantastic! This is proof that the fatal tendency to bigger government is NOT irreversible. Maybe this market signal will get through to Brussells…. maybe!
Here’s to all those who love freedom and hate Big Brother. Thank you all you British who voted for freedom, despite the alleged economic risks. Any state or pseudo-state that legislates the size and s5 years ago Read more -
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Blog postHere’s my latest graphic in the alarmclock I got on special for about $12. I added hours around the purple circle in case the clock is also wanted for use as a chronometer!
It only takes unscrewing the legs of this model and you can replace the face with a printed one as I did… I printed it on 250 gsm plain card , colour inkjet. Here’s the jpeg I printed it from in photoshop, using the print to a custom size option. in this case 105 mm. I used a leather punch to make the central hole5 years ago Read more -
Blog postI’m planning a new book – always a complex project! I want to use all I know to do this one efficiently – all the phases every hour, so the work is balanced. A little phasetimer clock right beside me makes more sense than a big one on the wall or set into the desk. Introducing the phasetimer alarm clock! Prototype $13 from Briscoes on special – nice quiet one with sweep motion second hand. Printed to size, inkjet on 250 gsm card, the original clock face pulled off the contact tape, phasetimer5 years ago Read more
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Blog postAfter many twists and turns of fate and a huge amount of water under the burning Kaiwaka bridge, I sit me down at a new desk
to make the last of the edits for Apples of Aeden volume four, The Pillars of Aeden (only 56 pages to go out of 459) and upload the completed ebook as soon as that is done (an a week or so I trust). Apologies for the dreadfully long delay. We are now living in Gisborne (New Zealand), nine hours’ drive from anywhere, to be near our two delightful grandsons (2 3/45 years ago Read more -
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A Platonistic poetic homage to the foundations of the True West, and to The Second Coming by W.B.Yeats. Read The Second Coming here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062 Or see a youtube video animation (a little disconcerting) of a photo of the aged Yeats dramatically reading his own poem:
I have been working on a painting of trip we made to Paris in 2015 (I’ll put an image up here when it’s ‘done’), and as is my custom now (see my www.altarsofar5 years ago Read more -
Blog postHe has a lovely face… a promising start!
Erich Fromm on the Art of Loving –by Maria Popova, syndicated from brainpickings.org, Jan 12, 2016
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love,” the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hahn admonished in his terrific treatise on how to love — a sentiment profoundly discomfiting in the context of our cultural mythology, which continually casts love as something that happens to us passively and by chance, something we fall int5 years ago Read more -
Blog postIs love a feeling, or a relationship, or an action, or an energy, or even (as Christians claim) a Person?
If love is a feeling, then it is a feeling about someone, for some reason. Otherwise we could solve all the problems of the lack of it with some kind of feel-good drug. And no one (I hope!) would seriously suggest that that would do it. So, there’s a logic behind it – a reason.
If love is a relationship with someone, then there is a logic to it – relationships with re5 years ago Read more -
Blog postGreetings, my intrepid followers on the website formerly known as Loveqor! For simplicity and plainness I’ve changed the name to The Logic of Love. And now living in Gisborne, I am hoping to do more on the subject! Starting with some writing. This ebook was uploaded on the first of the first, 2016:
How to Love Everyone and Everything – Starting With a Stone By Peter Harris We assume we know what love is, and that we just ‘need more of it in the world’, but we have huge emotional and menta5 years ago Read more -
Blog postReally I jest not: this one is important, no matter how many others I have imposed on the long-suffering WordPress engine… Whether or not anyone listens to it, I have felt for a long time I must start a site specifically for the exploration and promotion of the idea of what I call the True West. If, as one could wish everyone in the world knew and loved Tolkien, I could have called it Numenor. But they don’t, and this is too real and important to hide under fictional allusions, however5 years ago Read more
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Blog postThese two trials of the embossed copper lettering got me thinking… about the beauty of truth and meaning and all that I explored in those years studying philosophy. (The roses are from our garden here at Appletree Haven; the vase is an English Doulton Willow pattern I got for 10c because it was cracked. Like me – cracked but still useful for something, and going for a song! The table is on the Art Deck, which I recently closed in with a big old window -free- from an old school.) I think i can –5 years ago Read more
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Blog postWhat is worse than mad art? Bad art I suppose? Or philosophical art with words? I feel ambivalent about this work in progress which I have returned to for a calm frenzy of activity this morning. Presuming to depict the evolution of the spirit – and its scariest undertaking : to deny what it once … Continue reading The church of mad art-in-progress – the Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit5 years ago Read more
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Blog postJust when I thought it was safe to say ‘done!’ I suddenly thought: the bands should be reversed so the smaller divisions go to the outside, like on a ‘normal’ clock… Like this: I also refined the wording around the perimeter – hopefully a clear quick reference for the meaning of each phase… Like it?? … Continue reading Phasetimer revised for beauty & clarity6 years ago Read more
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Blog postMy card as of today:
Last night we watched The Giver (see the trailer here: https://youtu.be/uxFJvlWqphM), about a society which had traded colour and true feelings for safety and sameness – and a boy and his mentor (the Giver) who gave them it all back. It’s the kind of movie that can give you an altered state and change your perceptions of the world, and therefore your conceptions. I thought, the world is a different place to the one who sees the colours of the creative process, whi6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is my latest (04 10 15 ) Phasetimer prototype (white frame because shop had no black), with an inner band for timing shorter cycles of four phases – fifteen minutes to go through a cycle, or 3.75 minutes per phase. This is for quick processing a question – also can be used to go through four cycles in an hour…iterations are of course all part of process and evolution.
For the ‘early adopters, should there be any here (you know who you are!) here is a free jpeg of the timer face,6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is the latest prototype of the phase clock or as it’s now mostly called, the phasetimer. the 4phase round table will have a recess for the timer – the rest of the time it could be on the wall…
6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is a little photo story about a coveted bandsaw, a brother named Big John (currently making a FILM called Every Little Thing – see http://everylittlethingfilm.com/) who bought a painting sight unseen, thereby making it possible for me to buy it, and me and the doglets going to get it from Tolaga Bay. The pit stop for doglets at one of the lovely beaches, then them hemmed in by the bandsaw and some beachcombed wood on the way home; then cutting some driftwood of unknown species;6 years ago Read more
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Blog postWell the storm in Gisborne washed up a huge lot of wooden treasure onto the downtown beach:
spot the doglet in mid jump:
so we got beachcombing and picked up wood for compost bins, hunks of firewood, and pieces like this:
So, the hollow needed cleaning out and exposing the heart rimu. I needed a gouging adze! Looked online and found some forging fanatics who did a great job hammering redhot car springs etc on anvils then tempering etc, and I thought – too long, b6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is the $4 prototype of the 4phase clock, as i contemplated it in bed with doglets this morning. ..
The idea is that process is time-related and directional so why not practice that flow with a clock…? Over one hour you get a balance of activities. Later i think an individualised clock will have a different spread – though it is highly directional, process is different for different people in the relative amounts of each phase.
This relates to your own ‘process profile’ .6 years ago Read more -
Blog postI THINK I have a great new way to simply apply the living logic of process (which has been a major obsession for the twenty-odd (very odd, some would say!) years since I was writing my MA thesis ‘Process and Inquiry’ at Auckland University): live, 3D meetings! Shock, amazement, cries of ‘You, Peter? – no way!’
Yes way! (Well, small and intimate meetings, for a start…)
Here’s the first card I did the day after a certain fateful meeting (I always start a new movement with a6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is a medium-resolution photo of the large (4 by 3 foot) third painting I did in Gisborne, not entirely done but at present I’m calling it finished, through practical exhaustion and general awareness of mortality…
It is a personal/mystical/dream view of Kaiwaka, the scene of so much of my struggle for so long to realize Eutopia, a Good Place of more than ordinary Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom. The Seagull/white dove wall I built last year for the visionary dressmaker Jenny Lynn6 years ago Read more -
Blog postSo, this is my brand new blog – yet another! But this art is what I’m mainly doing now, when not planning or building hobbit havens… This is a new painting framed in the new style which I call ‘Altars of Art’. Hence the blog name. I hope you like it.
Description and prices:
Enthorned They Dream Peter Harris, August 2015 24″ by 36″ Original $5,550, limited edition signed prints full size stretched canvas unframed $333, framed with the silver lettering in ‘altar’ style $56 years ago Read more
Titles By Peter Harris
by
Peter Harris
$0.00
A really simple new way to pace yourself, slow down and be blissfully mindful. As the title says, you just turn (or click) the pages and breathe. One breath per page gives you a nice 6 minute meditation through the seven colours. To really get into a colourfully altered state, try seven breaths a page! Each colour can represent a chakra, or level of the human being. Or it could be just pure experience of the qualities of colour as you mindfully breathe.
by
Peter Harris
$3.99
If you have ever wanted to sculpt or build in a permanent material that is extremely strong and can be moulded to any shape, ferrocement is the medium for you - and this concise book shows you how to do it all.
Tools, techniques and sample projects - a garden pot, angel, dome, and more - are all logically described and illustrated. The many photos showing the building of Cafe Eutopia by the author and his family will inspire as well as inform, while the introduction and 'Origins' story and updates on the progress of a ferrocement cafe and 'temple' to Love, Beauty, Truth, and Freedom add a deeper dimension to this book which shows the struggle to marry an abstract ideal with a (literally) concrete realisation.
Tools, techniques and sample projects - a garden pot, angel, dome, and more - are all logically described and illustrated. The many photos showing the building of Cafe Eutopia by the author and his family will inspire as well as inform, while the introduction and 'Origins' story and updates on the progress of a ferrocement cafe and 'temple' to Love, Beauty, Truth, and Freedom add a deeper dimension to this book which shows the struggle to marry an abstract ideal with a (literally) concrete realisation.
Other Formats:
Paperback
by
Peter Harris
$0.00
This short book is not focused on the trappings of wizardry, fun though these may be, nor is it a guide to gaining power over anyone but oneself. It is not about 'pointy hats', though Gandalf's looks very good on him.
Instead, it outlines the foundational thoughts of the True West (as I see it), and in the 'Emerald Tablet' section lists the 'Wizard's Desiderata' - the kind of life which is truly powerful, truly magical, mythical, and truly possible. It always has been possible to be a 'wizard' of one's life, though never perhaps with as little danger of being burned at the stake.
'How to be a Wizard' is the fruit of a very long journey by one misfit christian turned process philosopher turned 'wizard' and fantasy epic writer, who ended up building a magical or at least idealistic and romantic place called Cafe Eutopia (a 'temple' to Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom) in a little town in New Zealand, besides many other adventures of the mind and spirit. I offer it in the hope that it will spark a burning desire to truly be the wizard of your own life, and then of your community, and ultimately, no matter how imperceptibly perhaps, to help the whole world.
I value the true tradition of the West, to which I belong. Yes, I know it has gone horribly wrong in so many ways that many think it (and/or the planet) is doomed. But I believe that its problems can all be solved by a return to the 'True' West - the ideals of Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom which have inspired its best, and kept some check on its worst. Also a return to seeing the world as organism, not a soulless machine, as has been the dominant model since Descartes.
My vision is that more and more 'Wizards of the True West' will arise in answer to the challenge of the times, and like Gandalf will help to turn the tide. But we desperately need not only the goodwill, the desire to see good things happen, but also the philosophical foundations on which to build. These have been undermined by many enemies, most of them the very ones we look to to hold them fast and keep them strong - our philosophers, in particular, and academics in general. Relativism, 'postmodernism' and nihilism, not to mention PC nonsense of many shades, have been actively promoted by many of them, so that now these ideas have become the norm, and what I write in this book may seem incredible to you at first. So, read it as an interesting fantasy, and if it seems like a pleasant alternative to the 'real' world of our postmodern, materialistic madness, try some of it out. You may be surprised to find that it actually works, actually rings true. Then - spread the word!
Instead, it outlines the foundational thoughts of the True West (as I see it), and in the 'Emerald Tablet' section lists the 'Wizard's Desiderata' - the kind of life which is truly powerful, truly magical, mythical, and truly possible. It always has been possible to be a 'wizard' of one's life, though never perhaps with as little danger of being burned at the stake.
'How to be a Wizard' is the fruit of a very long journey by one misfit christian turned process philosopher turned 'wizard' and fantasy epic writer, who ended up building a magical or at least idealistic and romantic place called Cafe Eutopia (a 'temple' to Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom) in a little town in New Zealand, besides many other adventures of the mind and spirit. I offer it in the hope that it will spark a burning desire to truly be the wizard of your own life, and then of your community, and ultimately, no matter how imperceptibly perhaps, to help the whole world.
I value the true tradition of the West, to which I belong. Yes, I know it has gone horribly wrong in so many ways that many think it (and/or the planet) is doomed. But I believe that its problems can all be solved by a return to the 'True' West - the ideals of Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom which have inspired its best, and kept some check on its worst. Also a return to seeing the world as organism, not a soulless machine, as has been the dominant model since Descartes.
My vision is that more and more 'Wizards of the True West' will arise in answer to the challenge of the times, and like Gandalf will help to turn the tide. But we desperately need not only the goodwill, the desire to see good things happen, but also the philosophical foundations on which to build. These have been undermined by many enemies, most of them the very ones we look to to hold them fast and keep them strong - our philosophers, in particular, and academics in general. Relativism, 'postmodernism' and nihilism, not to mention PC nonsense of many shades, have been actively promoted by many of them, so that now these ideas have become the norm, and what I write in this book may seem incredible to you at first. So, read it as an interesting fantasy, and if it seems like a pleasant alternative to the 'real' world of our postmodern, materialistic madness, try some of it out. You may be surprised to find that it actually works, actually rings true. Then - spread the word!
“If You’re so Smart, How Come You Ain’t Rich?” - a money handbook strictly for the Nerds - Letter One
Jan 2, 2013
by
Peter Harris
$0.00
This is the first in a how-to series distilling the experience and secrets of a serial entrepreneur, eutopian idealist, artist, inventor, lifelong 'nerd' and process philosopher, on the matter of Money and How the World Works, and how to work with it to get the success you deserve while remaining true to your values. Strictly for the Nerds.
by
Peter Harris
$0.99
More advice, strictly for the Nerds, from the heart and mind of a serial entrepreneur idealist nerd who is now finally getting exactly how simple you have to keep it to succeed in the actual (socially driven) world. The KISS principle ("Keep It Simple, Stupid!) is here applied to all networking - in fact all interactions, intellectual and social. But especially social and marketing.
(No principles were over-simplified in the making of this book - I hope!)
(No principles were over-simplified in the making of this book - I hope!)
Happiness - it's Now or Never
Apr 25, 2013
by
peter harris
$0.99
This book is about loving your life and becoming Happy Now. It's a convenient but hard-to-accept fact that happiness is not to be found by trying even harder to get what we want, but by opening up to our Here and Now, which we can enjoy right now. Anything we get after that is a bonus.
$0.99
Arthur Pike, a talented but rebellious 15-year-old who loves online gaming, windsurfing and skateboards, lives with his mum Mary Pike, in an apartment in the Metropolis, Auckland. Mary, a career lawyer had lost since left her obsessive marine researcher husband on the Pacific atoll where he had refused to give up his quest for a lost species of deep-sea Nautilus. But sometimes she missed her romantic ex-husband badly…
On the eve of his 16th birthday, Arthur is kidnapped by his reclusive billionaire grandfather, Dr Thaddeus Pike. He is taken deep into a North Island forest, to an island in the middle of a brooding lake connected by an underwater cave to the sea. There, in a secret underground research station, Arthur meets his obsessive, Nemo-like grandfather for the first time. The old man gives him Virtual Reality access to a huge super computer - and tells Arthur he is to be groomed to take over ‘Project Nautilus.’
Arthur’s grandfather has developed a revolutionary organic computer powered (unknown to Arthur) by a giant nautilus which Arthur’s father had finally discovered deep beneath the reefs of the atoll. In a travesty of nature Dr Pike has connected the creature to the internet, believing that its giant brain will allow him to take control of the Web and set the world onto a rational course – his course… But the ‘computer’ is starting to ask awkward questions like “who am I?” And through the ‘Gaiaweb, the other Nautiluses are seeking out their kidnapped sister. They have great mind-powers, and they are not pleased. Dr Pike and all his staff are in danger if they do not listen to the warnings…
The Nautilus has learnt everything scientific – but it wants to be told stories. She wants an identity, and a history, and dreams. She wants to hear myths and legends, and to learn about laughter and sadness. She is beginning to sound like a child looking for its place in the world. How human is this computer?
Arthur is enthralled by the supercomputer, and tells his crazy grandfather he will harness its powers. He is beginning to go over to the Dark Side… But when he breaks into the top-secret basement level of the base, he learns the terrible secret that it is a sea-creature that has been turned into a kind of Cyborg (like the humans in The Matrix). So Arthur promises the Nautilus he will help it become more ‘human’ and ‘find itself.’
Unbeknown to both Dr Pike and Arthur, the sinister agents of Dr Pike’s deadly rivals for World Wide Web domination, the INC, are closing in on the secret base. They are determined to capture the Nautilus’ secrets by fair means or foul.
Arthur befriends John, the enigmatic American Indian caretaker and his daughter Tess who live in the mysterious forest on the edge of the lake. Though Dr Pike scorns the caretaker’s ‘Nature worship,’ he needs his massage skills to control his terrible migraines and neuralgia. And Arthur begins to learn of another way besides Dr Pike’s…
Arthur is kept a prisoner in the research station. His mother is desperate to get him back – but Granddad has a secret hold over her. She decides to turn to her estranged husband for help, and he sets sail for New Zealand in his research vessel.
Meanwhile Arthur and Tess have both befriended the Nautilus, and together they develop a bold plan to set it free, through the underwater caves to the sea. But it’s not just his grandfather Arthur has to worry about. Dr Pike’s scary and vigilant laboratory assistant Dr Hilda Batham has her own ruthless agenda - and the INC’s submarine is closing in on Dr Pike’s hideaway.
On the eve of his 16th birthday, Arthur is kidnapped by his reclusive billionaire grandfather, Dr Thaddeus Pike. He is taken deep into a North Island forest, to an island in the middle of a brooding lake connected by an underwater cave to the sea. There, in a secret underground research station, Arthur meets his obsessive, Nemo-like grandfather for the first time. The old man gives him Virtual Reality access to a huge super computer - and tells Arthur he is to be groomed to take over ‘Project Nautilus.’
Arthur’s grandfather has developed a revolutionary organic computer powered (unknown to Arthur) by a giant nautilus which Arthur’s father had finally discovered deep beneath the reefs of the atoll. In a travesty of nature Dr Pike has connected the creature to the internet, believing that its giant brain will allow him to take control of the Web and set the world onto a rational course – his course… But the ‘computer’ is starting to ask awkward questions like “who am I?” And through the ‘Gaiaweb, the other Nautiluses are seeking out their kidnapped sister. They have great mind-powers, and they are not pleased. Dr Pike and all his staff are in danger if they do not listen to the warnings…
The Nautilus has learnt everything scientific – but it wants to be told stories. She wants an identity, and a history, and dreams. She wants to hear myths and legends, and to learn about laughter and sadness. She is beginning to sound like a child looking for its place in the world. How human is this computer?
Arthur is enthralled by the supercomputer, and tells his crazy grandfather he will harness its powers. He is beginning to go over to the Dark Side… But when he breaks into the top-secret basement level of the base, he learns the terrible secret that it is a sea-creature that has been turned into a kind of Cyborg (like the humans in The Matrix). So Arthur promises the Nautilus he will help it become more ‘human’ and ‘find itself.’
Unbeknown to both Dr Pike and Arthur, the sinister agents of Dr Pike’s deadly rivals for World Wide Web domination, the INC, are closing in on the secret base. They are determined to capture the Nautilus’ secrets by fair means or foul.
Arthur befriends John, the enigmatic American Indian caretaker and his daughter Tess who live in the mysterious forest on the edge of the lake. Though Dr Pike scorns the caretaker’s ‘Nature worship,’ he needs his massage skills to control his terrible migraines and neuralgia. And Arthur begins to learn of another way besides Dr Pike’s…
Arthur is kept a prisoner in the research station. His mother is desperate to get him back – but Granddad has a secret hold over her. She decides to turn to her estranged husband for help, and he sets sail for New Zealand in his research vessel.
Meanwhile Arthur and Tess have both befriended the Nautilus, and together they develop a bold plan to set it free, through the underwater caves to the sea. But it’s not just his grandfather Arthur has to worry about. Dr Pike’s scary and vigilant laboratory assistant Dr Hilda Batham has her own ruthless agenda - and the INC’s submarine is closing in on Dr Pike’s hideaway.
by
Peter Harris
$0.99
This 'passport to creativity' is a short illustrated guide to creating entirely new things, making creative improvements to anything, and solving all kinds of problems. It uses the 'IdeaTree', a five-part colour-coded diagram of process which enables all stages to be clearly visualised - and applied.
The IdeaTree diagram is based on the process philosophy developed by Peter Harris in his MA thesis in Philosophy, 'Process and Inquiry', finished in 1995. Since then he has gone on to become the builder of Cafe Eutopia, a fantasy author, inventor, sculptor, bookbinder, etc. So, Peter knows the process of creation from the inside, as well as theoretically, and uses some examples from his life to help explain the theory.
The IdeaTree diagram throws light on all areas of life, since life IS process. It also makes it clear just how people who specialise in the creative 'zone', can fit in with the other essential aspects of life and work, in a dynamic balance. Creative people do not have to be isolated and frustrated! They have an essential place in the cycle of growth of any group, society, business, or nation. Now more than ever, as our global economy becomes more and more dynamic and fast-evolving, the creative zone is in hot demand. Yet there is still fear and suspicion of creativity and the people who go in for it.
This book aims to help change that by showing that creativity is an essential aspect of all life, yet it does not exist in mysterious isolation, but is simply the second of the four phases of all process: Input, Novelty, Reaction and Output.(The fifth part of the IdeaTree diagram is the 'Status Quo', made up of all the successful cycles of creation which have happened already. The Status Quo 'feeds' the process, while the new cycles are emerging.)
These big concepts are distilled into this clear little book, making a deceptively simple tool for revolutionising the way we think - and create.
The IdeaTree diagram is based on the process philosophy developed by Peter Harris in his MA thesis in Philosophy, 'Process and Inquiry', finished in 1995. Since then he has gone on to become the builder of Cafe Eutopia, a fantasy author, inventor, sculptor, bookbinder, etc. So, Peter knows the process of creation from the inside, as well as theoretically, and uses some examples from his life to help explain the theory.
The IdeaTree diagram throws light on all areas of life, since life IS process. It also makes it clear just how people who specialise in the creative 'zone', can fit in with the other essential aspects of life and work, in a dynamic balance. Creative people do not have to be isolated and frustrated! They have an essential place in the cycle of growth of any group, society, business, or nation. Now more than ever, as our global economy becomes more and more dynamic and fast-evolving, the creative zone is in hot demand. Yet there is still fear and suspicion of creativity and the people who go in for it.
This book aims to help change that by showing that creativity is an essential aspect of all life, yet it does not exist in mysterious isolation, but is simply the second of the four phases of all process: Input, Novelty, Reaction and Output.(The fifth part of the IdeaTree diagram is the 'Status Quo', made up of all the successful cycles of creation which have happened already. The Status Quo 'feeds' the process, while the new cycles are emerging.)
These big concepts are distilled into this clear little book, making a deceptively simple tool for revolutionising the way we think - and create.
by
Peter Harris
$0.99
We assume we know what love is, and that we just 'need more of it in the world', but we have huge emotional and mental obstacles to actually attempting to be 'more loving' ourselves. Here are 7 things love ISN'T, and the one thing it IS - and it's probably not what you think. Once we're clear on what love is, we can be much more relaxed about practicing it in real life - starting with a stone...
This book examines love from a logical and process point of view, and looks also at the psychology and philosophy of it. There is some discussion and critique of religious assumptions about love, too.
This book examines love from a logical and process point of view, and looks also at the psychology and philosophy of it. There is some discussion and critique of religious assumptions about love, too.
The God Proof: A new statement of the Cosmological and Ontological Arguments for the reality of God
Sep 20, 2019
by
Peter Harris
$0.99
The first intention of this short book, after a hopefully reassuring personal introduction and disclaimer, is to give a concise account of the most compelling reasons to believe in the reality of God, using nothing but 'natural reason'. The second intention is to delve a little into the psychology of belief and disbelief in a Supreme Being/First Cause/Absolute/Ground of Being, and argue for 'mere theism' as a rational, mind-expanding, exciting adventure into the infinite timeless intelligible realm that this spacetime world floats in, is ordered by and evolves into - and a foundation for a rational, humane civilization. I say a little about religion in relation to this, and wrestle a little with the question of how to proceed when you (like me) really don't want to just rush into the nearest church, mosque or temple. I touch on the inevitable 'Argument from Evil', which is the big objection to belief in God, or at any rate a 'good' God. Is it a fatal objection? Do not answer that question until you have read this book!
Out of Edartha (The Apples of Aeden)
Nov 29, 2012
by
Peter Harris
$3.99
(Volume Three of the Apples of Aeden epic, Volume One being 'The Girl and the Guardian', and Volume Two 'The Rebels of Aeden'.)
Shelley is back on Earth. But where is her grandfather and the stolen Heartstone? And who is the sinister Dr Leith? The Athmadites are closing in, and a dithery Englishman is the only person who believes her story. In fact he is the only person who believes she is sane.
Meanwhile Quickblade was meant to rescue the prisoners in the Dark Labyrinth, but now he needs rescuing himself. His only hope is a blue fungus addict called Moonwit - and a strange invention built by Flash and the Boy Raiders.
The Boy Raiders set off on Biteback, their most daring raid of all time, while Shelley and Quickblade seek to return the Jewel to the Tree. Their way leads to the bottomless Springs of the Wouivre, where even the Frozen Army cannot help them...
Shelley is back on Earth. But where is her grandfather and the stolen Heartstone? And who is the sinister Dr Leith? The Athmadites are closing in, and a dithery Englishman is the only person who believes her story. In fact he is the only person who believes she is sane.
Meanwhile Quickblade was meant to rescue the prisoners in the Dark Labyrinth, but now he needs rescuing himself. His only hope is a blue fungus addict called Moonwit - and a strange invention built by Flash and the Boy Raiders.
The Boy Raiders set off on Biteback, their most daring raid of all time, while Shelley and Quickblade seek to return the Jewel to the Tree. Their way leads to the bottomless Springs of the Wouivre, where even the Frozen Army cannot help them...
The Rebels of Aeden (The apples of Aeden Book 2)
Sep 7, 2012
by
Peter Harris
$3.99
In Volume One, "The Girl and the Guardian", Shelley Arkle ended up alone in the terrible Valley of Thorns, with only a half-crazed Third-lifer, the serpent Thornfoot, to help her. Now Thornfoot seems to be her only hope. But his idea for escape looks more like suicide to her…
The stakes have been raised much, much higher for Shelley; Korman the Guardian who was her faithful companion and guide has been captured by the Aghmaath and enthorned beside the Lady Ainenia, the representative of the Goddess on Aeden. Shelley, it seems, is now Aeden's only hope. She must find the magical school of Ürak Tara, deep underground, lost in the mists and mindwebs of the forests of the Northern Arm. Only there can she be initiated as the Kortana. But will Noestes the Master welcome as a student a strange girl who thinks she is the Chosen One, the Jewel Caller who will find the lost Heartstone? And if he does, what is his real agenda? The sinister Tenth-Worlders have been active even in this last refuge of the faithful to the ancient Order of the Makers... Yet at this school Shelley will meet new allies and friends who still hope for the coming of the Kortana, and are willing to believe in her.
Meanwhile Quickblade the leader of the Boy Raiders has sworn to meet her at Ürak Tara, no matter what stands between them. And he is about to pay a terrible price as the Raiders' campaign goes horribly wrong. The two star-crossed lovers are determined to seek the lost Jewel together. But are they ready for a challenge even more deadly than the mindbolts and scythes of the Dark Travellers - a challenge to their faith in each other, and love itself?
As the thorn spores and mindwebs cover Aeden, the Tree of Life is compromised and hope turns into despair, is there any place of refuge left? Can love overcome even death? Shelley and Quickblade - and the friends they have led into mortal danger - are about to find out. Prepare for a rollercoaster ride into depths and heights Shelley - and Quickblade - could not have imagined until now.
The stakes have been raised much, much higher for Shelley; Korman the Guardian who was her faithful companion and guide has been captured by the Aghmaath and enthorned beside the Lady Ainenia, the representative of the Goddess on Aeden. Shelley, it seems, is now Aeden's only hope. She must find the magical school of Ürak Tara, deep underground, lost in the mists and mindwebs of the forests of the Northern Arm. Only there can she be initiated as the Kortana. But will Noestes the Master welcome as a student a strange girl who thinks she is the Chosen One, the Jewel Caller who will find the lost Heartstone? And if he does, what is his real agenda? The sinister Tenth-Worlders have been active even in this last refuge of the faithful to the ancient Order of the Makers... Yet at this school Shelley will meet new allies and friends who still hope for the coming of the Kortana, and are willing to believe in her.
Meanwhile Quickblade the leader of the Boy Raiders has sworn to meet her at Ürak Tara, no matter what stands between them. And he is about to pay a terrible price as the Raiders' campaign goes horribly wrong. The two star-crossed lovers are determined to seek the lost Jewel together. But are they ready for a challenge even more deadly than the mindbolts and scythes of the Dark Travellers - a challenge to their faith in each other, and love itself?
As the thorn spores and mindwebs cover Aeden, the Tree of Life is compromised and hope turns into despair, is there any place of refuge left? Can love overcome even death? Shelley and Quickblade - and the friends they have led into mortal danger - are about to find out. Prepare for a rollercoaster ride into depths and heights Shelley - and Quickblade - could not have imagined until now.
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