I’m writing on one of those days in England which is almost impossibly crystal clear blue, when perfection seems to permeate the very atmosphere. The day being so bright, I just had to get outdoors for a short while and found myself walking through an ancient cemetery not far from where I live and work in Islington. I’d never been there before.

To my surprise I came upon non other than William Blake’s tombstone, and found myself reflecting on this extraordinary spiritual visionary and artist’s life, a person who has always been an inspiration to me and was so far ahead of his times.

The simple gravestone, where he was buried with his wife, is under the canopy of the huge spread of a sinewy fig tree. There are figs on the tree and I was looking for a ripe one when I thought of my eating a fig and how the fruit would be nurtured from the ground from which it arose i.e. the elements from the deceased, including William Blake himself! As it happens, there was no fruit within reach and figs don’t tend to ripen well in our climate anyway.

But then I thought, rather than just this materialistic continuation and development of the past into the present through myriad physical forms, more significant from the point of view of us evolving human beings, is the way in which true pioneers in spirit, thought and culture have, by their living example, created the consciousness and culture which we are the beneficiaries of. And how a visionary like William Blake inspires us to reach for as yet uncreated potentials. I do wonder what William Blake would be doing, if he were alive in the England of 2009?!