The goddess of the harvest has graciously bestowed two gifts upon us, (a) the fruit which pleases Dionysus so much, but which won’t keep, and (b) the produce which nature has made fit to store.”Plato, Laws, trans. Saunders, 844d A year or two ago, I started seeing something on my social media feed about something … Continue reading Dionysos, Altered States, and Adaptogens
Tag: platonizing
A Cool Theological Moment in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes
There is a moment in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes that I didn't notice before, but once I did, it filled me with excitement, so I want to share it as an example of something theological in the hopes that the inspired words of the poets excite your minds, too. [Hermes] chose a stout branch … Continue reading A Cool Theological Moment in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes
Plato, Republic, 617d-619b
How many times has each of us, upon the meadow, eagerly sought after what we erred was best? How many times have we been conquered and seen the luxuries of the uncaring rulers, thinking — yes, that is a better life, I will take that? How many times have we nourished unjust actionsand cultivated resentment … Continue reading Plato, Republic, 617d-619b
Reclaiming the Self Unadorned; or, Fleeing Pandora’s Division
Inspired by Porphyry’s letter to his wife Marcella, stories of Pythagorean women, Plato’s Gorgias and Alcibiades, Olympiodorus' comment on gender equality in his Gorgias commentary at 18.9, the myth of Pandora, things that happen in meditation that are not wholly communicable, and thoughts I have while doing dishes on why I haven’t worn makeup since … Continue reading Reclaiming the Self Unadorned; or, Fleeing Pandora’s Division
Every Goddess Is Good
“Prayer to All of the Gods I” was designed to incorporate deities whom I judged to be important to acknowledge overtly in prayer. The choices of Gods grew out of previous decisions that I made while writing Acts of Speech (availability info here), specifically for the poems addressing public speech, good conduct, and civility. There is a … Continue reading Every Goddess Is Good
I Pulled the Prayers to All of the Gods Into eDevice Formats for Free, In Case You’re Interested
This short ebook (is it actually a zine? is that how those work?) contains the three prayers to all of the Hellenic Gods that I published on this site in January and February (a modified version of I, the compact II, and the very Platonizing III). The prayers draw a lot of inspiration from Plato … Continue reading I Pulled the Prayers to All of the Gods Into eDevice Formats for Free, In Case You’re Interested
Two Quotations — van den Berg on Proclus not being Athenian and what that means for sympatheia and Proclus’ prose prayer to the Gods in the Parmenides commentary
This week, after over a month of waiting, my Brill MyBooks came in. One of the books was Iamblichus' De Anima — or, after the front cover, shall I say <html>Iamblichus' De Anima (yes, literally, I guess he was in fact Very Online) — and the other was a MyBook print-on-demand of Proclus' Hymns by van … Continue reading Two Quotations — van den Berg on Proclus not being Athenian and what that means for sympatheia and Proclus’ prose prayer to the Gods in the Parmenides commentary
Prayer to All of the Gods III
This is the last of the three prayers that I wanted to write in 2021 — hopefully, a decent enough go at it. It's the most Platonic of the three (but, let's be blunt, that's all of them), and it was a good exercise in hammering out where I solidly understand Proclus' Platonic Theology and … Continue reading Prayer to All of the Gods III
Two Books
If you have been wondering what A CASTING OF LIGHT and THE SONG OF PROCLUS, compiled by Guy Wyndham-Jones and published by the Prometheus Trust, contains, this post provides some helpful information about the format, arrangement of quotations, and other elements, with a few photos for clarity.
KALLISTI 