A few days ago, while preparing to sit down for the evening meal, I had thoughts about culture. What is culture, and how is culture created? Culture is not an aspect of Nature. We never expect to come upon culture in the wild. We find instinct prolific. Animals instinctively fight or flee when feeling…
Nature silently calls to us, always. Refreshment of mind is offered, a reorientation of spirit without charge, ours if we attend to the world of growing things, and animals that live around us, birds flying and singing, or the mouse living in a decaying stump. These living things are our contemporaries, yet their generations…
Yesterday we went for a walk in the woods, that is I and my son, with two grandchildren a boy of 6 and a girl of 5. The close proximity to life was thrilling, a reminder of how exceptional it is to observe, to be present when new life is emerging, expressing its efflorescence. …
The Growing Omnipotence Of The State All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State. 1789 brings Napoleon;1848, Napoleon III; 1917, Stalin; the Italian disturbances of the twenties, Mussolini; the Weimar Republic, Hitler. These revolutions, particularly after the First World War had liquidated the vestiges of divine right, still…
Another Sunday, the country is haunted by the coronavirus. States have been encouraged to “open up” in hopes that the virus, mirage-like will disappear with the advent of normal activity. I read in the New York Times Morning Briefing that some climate deniers and conservatives are saying the death toll numbers by the coronavirus…
“God without man is no more than man without God.” — GWF Hegel Individuality replaces faithreason replaces the biblepolitics replaces religion and the churchearth replaces heavenwork replaces prayerpoverty replaces hellman replaces Christ. …to conquer God,to make Him a slave,amounts to abolishing the transcendencethat kept the former master in powerand to preparing,with the ascendancy of…
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” There is always a curtain. There’s a lot going on that’s concealed, the necessary underpinning of what we experience as “normal” life. The supply chain for example operates unobtrusively, silently, efficiently. In times of social displacement, in the grip of anxiety which comes and goes,…
I participated in a video conferencing philosophy discussion group last night. Given the images, screen facsimiles of acquaintances, along with audio, it was an enjoyable session. I greatly miss the face to face, embodied dialog of the pre covid-19 era. It is unclear if or when we will return to the traditional mode of…
A magnificent morning. The social distancing, self quarantine precaution against coronavirus does not mean that sunlight, green grass, the budding trees cannot be appreciated. Indeed, for me this is the foundation of religion. I am alive. We are alive. We, the human community live, in relation to the cosmos, sky, land, the red tulip,…
Saturday. Today if I am fortunate I will find a Bonsai, a miniature tree trained to grow, beautiful, in a dish. You’ve seen them. The cultivation of Bonsai is an artform perfected in Japan, originating in China. A Bonsai is a fragment of nature, confined and cared for, in order to disclose the beauty…
