Tag: Paul Wilkinson

The Music That Shapes the Soul: Owen Barfield, Original Participation, and the Future of Education

I’m incredibly fortunate to be a piano teacher and music composition instructor to students of all ages a few days each week. I also perform, compose, create content for YouTube, and write music education books. My time is spent nurturing the imagination. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge beautifully put it, “The primary Imagination I hold to be … a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.”

It’s quite common for younger students to study with me, in some cases because of the decline of music in schools and the lack of imagination in the curriculum.


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On Attending the “Plotinus and Barfield” Conference at the University of Cambridge

In September 2023 I attended the first conference on Owen Barfield held at Cambridge University. That weekend, Cambridge basked in the golden embrace of a radiant sun, the city awash in warmth and light. This year’s conference, titled Plotinus and Barfield: Emanation and Evolution, took place on 14th September, and the atmosphere in Cambridge was no different. As I wandered through the narrow streets toward the Divinity Faculty, I crossed over quaint bridges, where punting boats lay moored, poised for a busy day of guiding tourists along the river, offering them glimpses of the city’s breathtaking architecture.


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