Welcome to Uncivil Savant

Welcome to Uncivil Savant. In late 2022 was drawn to write at Substack as my writer friends one by one migrated here and formed a neighbourhood that I wanted to join. Before coming here, my writing was mainly found in Dark Mountain, on my occasional T’ai Chi blog, and in private posts on the Long Table, which grew out of A School Called Home. Well, I tell a lie, as my writing has mainly been found in long conversations with friends over many months or years by email, as we shared our ideas, and wondered about our work in the world. Thanks to encouragement from friends, after five years stashing everything away on my hard drive I made a leap into sharing things publicly and created Uncivil Savant.

As a singer for a decade, years ago, I was used to presenting my lyrics and over 500 songs live on stage, or in albums, but that never felt as disclosing as does typing these words on a glowing screen and you receiving them silently wherever you are in the world. When I had a crew, a band, I was never just expressing my ‘self’, there was the power and joy of more than one person working together. Now it appears as though it is just me and my voice: acapella, if you like. This was one of the reasons behind always recording an audio version of the posts, a way for you to hear my real voice, and pick up some of the nuance that the written word cannot convey. But there is a band here, or rather a collective, in the links and ties of respect and interest that have evolved around here lately. When I write, I draw from my ongoing experience of intimate ties with the more than human world, family, land, friendship and the living traditions I am part of in arts, crafts, martial arts and philosophy. The embodied life, whether seemingly ‘alone’ or not, is always connected, always in the context of a living planet and a web of reciprocity. Remembering this is a cure for the Hubriscene Age.

I post about the embodied life every week on Monday mornings, UK time, bringing you new writing and essays from over 25 years practising and teaching T’ai Chi, following the Way

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I appreciate how hard times are for many people, so all the essay posts are free. Everyone can comment on all public posts.

There is a continuing series of Chi Kung posts (suitable for everyone) to express my thanks to my paying subscribers. In Autumn 2023 I will begin an occasional Zoom meet up for those paid subscribers who’ve been keeping up with the Chi Kung. It’s surprisingly good fun doing it together, even via screens.

Thanks for reading Uncivil Savant. Feel free to get in touch.