“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness.”~ Matthew 23:27. We are redeemed by what we are, not by what we do. To sense the permeation of spiritual and material as … Continue reading The Desert Approaches
Tradition
What Hovers Over the Waters
A few weeks ago in a grocery store I saw a man wearing a shirt that said: “Your actions define who you are.” What came to mind was what James Allen countered with: “The aphorism, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,’ not only embraces the whole of a man’s being, but … Continue reading What Hovers Over the Waters
What to Make of the Flowers
“When the world seems to tremble on its foundations, a glance cast upon a flower can restore order.”~ Ernst Jünger, Journal 1945–1948. Aristotle, and some 1,500 years later Aquinas, would call the vegetative soul the most basic aspect of the living hierarchy, with Plato too before them attributing the ‘appetitive’ aspect of the tripartite soul … Continue reading What to Make of the Flowers
Man the Animal
Science and the materialists say we’re apes. Traditional teachings say the same, to a point. This shouldn’t be an observation that alarms anyone, though of course it’s a common tendency to desire to be special and view oneself as somehow separated from the animal; and we are, ideally. Part of what sets us apart from … Continue reading Man the Animal
Epiphany of Being
Correspondence "Becoming is not a contradiction of being but the epiphany of being" ~ Ananda Coomaraswamy. Traditional teachings say that our empirical, material world is a reflection of the spiritual from which it receives all of its reality; or in other words the metaphysical manifests itself in the world. Everything in existence expresses this in … Continue reading Epiphany of Being
Sum Ergo Oro 