William Blake shows the inner drama of Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids: the wise five with oil sending the foolish to the dealers. For the Last Judgement is this, Blake said: knowing that your light reflects the Light of lights - possible to realise in any and every moment.

This author gets to the essence of mysticism, Mark Vernon finds churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/…

William Blake’s Thel speaking with the Lilly, from The Book of Thel. Which raises questions. Do flowers speak? If so, how? Poetic gesture? I think Blake knew the communication as real, with a key being to approach trees, plants and fungi as fellow, but distinctive, intelligences.

William Blake died on 12th August 1827. So today: “The Soul Hovering over the Body Reluctantly Parting with Life”. Blake insisted that the body is the aspect of the soul perceived by the senses. The reluctance at death is, therefore, of shock or loss: the body becomes a corpse.

William Blake’s “The Sun In His Wrath”: an image of a heatwave in Albion. Darts streak from a fiery sky, tracked anxiously by the spirits of the oaks. Simultaneously the human lovers are glad of the day, sheltered by the trees and a cooling expanse of water. Unless it’s a flood.

Oaks carry meaning. But in William Blake’s day, during the Napoleonic Wars, millions of oaks were felled. The full canopy of a mature tree, therefore, spoke of lost, peaceful times. Pollarded oaks, too, were humanity in harmony with nature and itself: oaks used but not wasted.

Watching light dancing on water feels like seeing a kind of joy, and breathing it. [A breath in is a spontaneous response to the sight.] The sparks are not only outside oneself, springing from one element meeting another, but inside oneself - “kissing the joy as it flies”.

Two William Blake’s for Lady Day - one a Dormition, the other an Assumption - showing what you might called his orthodox doctrinal freedom.

How poetry can save us. William Blake and Owen Barfield on the chariots of fire. A new essay at my Substack, A Golden String. open.substack.com/pub/markvernon…

Rainbows form regularly in William Blake’s images, shining with new life. A couple of days back, Mary’s Dormition was crowned by a rainbow. Here Blake makes the general point: chrysalis-like death is a precursor to butterfly-life: once a natural body, raised a spiritual body.

The thing about Urizen - William Blake’s god of rational, balanced, evidenced, controlling will - is that he intends well. So he strains at the chains of analysis, sensing that there is likely more, and weeps, not knowing what else to do. Self-confidence often haunted by despair.

“This impressive study by Mark Vernon addresses the many paradoxes of the artist – and enables the reader to find the thread of coherence in his thought.” A nice discovery - justbeautyportal.com/just-art/the-m…

From the train through the North East on a brilliant sunny day…

William Blake's Ghost of a Flea is a case study in his visionary sight. Look through the eyes not with them, he said: deconstruct perception. Then allow feel, learning, associations to impress upon you. The bloodsucking nit merges with the soul "by nature bloodthirsty to excess".

Make a note if you’re in Hampstead on 23rd September! Waterstones waterstones.com/events/an-even…

We talked philosophy, spirituality and imagination. See sociologygroup.com/awake-to-the-i…

A William Blake Ezekiel-inspired chariot image today, combined with a Michelangelo parody. For God reaches to Adam not in creation but expulsion from paradise. And moralising horses of instruction pull the fiery chariot, not four living creatures. “Religion to destroy religion.”

Today, my top William Blake Book of Job illustration. Job has suffered the undoing of his settled piety and, selfhood annihilated, as Blake puts it, is able to see the remarkable truth: “God becomes as we are that we may be as he is”, amplified by copious quotes in the margins.

Great talking with Jason Whittaker, a lover of William Blake. youtu.be/SOTzj7plNfQ?si…