For the past few months, I have been working myself up to try something new. January 1 and a person’s birthday are the socially conventional times to commit to Big Changes, usually in an abstract way without the scaffolding to follow through. Which leads me to the first post I’ve made about minimalism in a … Continue reading Sufficient and Rational Living
Tag: platonism
A Few Thoughts on Predecessors
A few weeks ago, Academia.edu sent me a notification to tell me that I hadn't ever read Edward Watts' "The Lycians Are Coming: The Career of Patricius, the Father of Proclus," a paper that speculated about Proclus' family and how it shaped his youth. Unbeknownst to Academia.edu, I had actually read that paper a few … Continue reading A Few Thoughts on Predecessors
A Few Passages for August
Here are a few passages that I've been thinking about as of late, and I thought I would share them just in case they are also interesting to some of you. Phaedo, 62b, trans. Brann, Kalkavage, & Salem: “For it would seem,” said Socrates, “to be unaccountable if put this way. And yet just maybe … Continue reading A Few Passages for August
Proclus in Tim. Book II, 376-378
the world in all its goodnessmoving from moment to momentits former waters first a memorythen a calm oblivion of generationsin a thousand years perhapswe will be young enough to saywhat did we learn amidst the ruinsof ourselves and the broken monumentswhat did we learn when displacedfrom who we are, before fatigueset in, as our bones … Continue reading Proclus in Tim. Book II, 376-378
Lighthearted Fun: Parmesan and the Parmenides 🍝
One of the things that has haunted me for years — and which might haunt you, too — is that the abbreviation for references to commentary of Proclus on the Parmenides of Plato is "in Parm." It is everywhere in the scholarly literature. Parm is also the way English refers to Parmesan cheese in some contexts. … Continue reading Lighthearted Fun: Parmesan and the Parmenides 🍝
Personality Differences and How We Mesh With Gods
In the early to mid 2010s, my mom visited me in my then-apartment every few months. She always visits me bearing fruit out of the conviction that my five-a-day can't only come from vegetables. One time some years ago, she was greeted by (the usual) meticulously-stacked glass Tupperware. I think that, that day, the fridge … Continue reading Personality Differences and How We Mesh With Gods
Scaffolding Platonic Theurgic Practice: A Primer
When embarking on an undertaking of getting to know Platonism and its commentary tradition, and especially when one is determined to deeply engage in it as one’s primary spiritual path, it can seem like a lot. “Writing is a sea / its reeds are a shore,” as Thoth says in the Conversations in the House of Life scribal initiation text. It takes courage, conviction, and good sense to penetrate into those waters and learn how to swim in them.
For Thinking about Seirai (Divine Series)
This entire post is something I created a while ago to serve as a starting-point for a discussion, and my main goal in posting it here is so that I have an easy way to refer to it (additionally, so I can link to this from something that I'm posting on the evening of the … Continue reading For Thinking about Seirai (Divine Series)
Teachers, Students, and Community: A Few Initial Thoughts
The title of this post is self-explanatory. Despite being a longer post (with section headers), it isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but part of an ongoing process to understand how people work and what it takes to develop a healthy baseline for thinking about both teachers and spiritual companions/friends. This post is going to combine … Continue reading Teachers, Students, and Community: A Few Initial Thoughts
KALLISTI 