September has been a very challenging month. At the end of August, I had blinding pain in my skull on one side and behind one ear. A rash started developing on my forehead, and it ended up being shingles. Yoyo has taken to sleeping in front of my shrine. She curled up by my knees … Continue reading September 2022: Hitting a Hard Reset
Tag: platonizing
What about *my* religious beliefs? — and a passage from Iamblichus
Today, there will be a lot of outrage about the Supreme Court decision about abortion. It is already overwhelming, and I am not even on social media — just in the family group text, a chat room related to my alma mater, and so on. My mother is the one who alerted us, actually, in … Continue reading What about *my* religious beliefs? — and a passage from Iamblichus
Why worship Gods?
And now for the text version, which might be better here — WordPress degraded the image quality of the infographic. Why Worship Gods? Platonists are fond of saying that the world is full of Gods, quoting from a pre-Socratic philosopher named Thales. Platonists like Proclus add that everything prays, each in its own way, just … Continue reading Why worship Gods?
Platonizing Alan Watts’ “Spectrum of Love”: A Listen-Through
Spotify introduced me to Hælos' Full Circle last year — first, via a song called "Alone," and then a transitional piece called "Intro/Spectrum." Perhaps I had heard the piece before and had just skipped it. I know that it started appearing on playlists in November 2021, when I noticed it for its poignant words — spoken, set to music, from some kind of lecture. This post analyzes that lecture through a mildly Platonizing framework.
Here, Below
Among the milkweed and sedge, horizon line far from our estimation, we lay under the neverday sky, tugged by what were not autumn breezes. What course is best to pour open, we thought — each of us so certain in our answers when we rose to descend — whiplike checks of boxes, dealbreakers. Who is … Continue reading Here, Below
For Apollon, the Mousai, Mnemosyne, and Hermes
In November (or possibly late October), I wrote this poem to offer to the Gods while doing exercises to improve my grasp of formal poetic meter and rhyme — sitting down at my dining table, noise-cancelling headphones filled with ethereal meditative cello music by the artist The Wong Janice. I was reminded in passing, through … Continue reading For Apollon, the Mousai, Mnemosyne, and Hermes
More Binds than Separates
we are not so different when they break you apart I will be here to collect each piece not to soothe your naked heart but to give closure to now-ashen limbs recollecting the time I sang for you and your tears fell like overripe grapes from their twisting, tangled vines I wrote these verses while … Continue reading More Binds than Separates
The Phaedo, piety, and public health
While reading some passages about the relationship of the lover of wisdom to the body in Damascius’ commentary on the Phaedo this week, a mesh of associations captured me like a net, and I started thinking about something I first encountered as a teenager — the idea that, if we fall ill, or if something … Continue reading The Phaedo, piety, and public health
Getting Close to the Body with the Phaedo in Tow
At Phaedo 64a, Socrates — who will shortly be given hemlock by his executioner — begins one of many famous parts of this discussion by saying that “those who happen to have gotten in touch with philosophy in the right way devote themselves to nothing else but dying and being dead.” What follows is a … Continue reading Getting Close to the Body with the Phaedo in Tow
KALLISTI 