The song of the breeze of the morning in a field peopled with fragrant flowers is one of the many delights in having life. And the song of the breeze is, to those who pause to listen, the voice of eternal wisdom. Listening to the morning breeze is for me an almost daily occupation from…
Why We Remember Forgotten Patriots Many states and localities commemorate African American History Month. The wisdom to be derived from the commemoration is necessary and useful. Yet, we must remember our history, I say “our history,” because the history of these United States is not coded by color, is not sub-divided by gender; the accomplishment…
The bird learns to fly by being pushed from the nest. Sea turtles know they must run to the ocean. Baby ducks ride mother’s back until learning by example to swim. The tadpole grows legs and hops; the caterpillar grows wings and flies; what must the finger-painter grow to become a picture-maker. Certain you have…
Fellow Americans: You might be surprised to learn that you are Greek, in the first instance; that you are Roman, a child of Lucius Junius Brutus; that you are Catholic, even if atheist; that you ascend from victories in the Art of War; that you, fellow Americans, are Hellenocentric, even if citizens of the One…
The homes of the gods are most often constructed near their sacred springs, the site of their miracles, their births, or the location of some occasional visitation. Most often, at home, there was a table for feasting, then, as now, known as an “altar”. There was a porch, maybe two, and within the main room…
The dancing step, the telling gesture, memory in movement; we can imagine the joy, the ritual, the sacrifice to God in our days cave-safe, firelit some 40,000 years before this day, creatures as now we are yet without advantage, without these past millennia of humane tradition, the gift of thought, the accumulation of wisdom that…
Perhaps, while on tour through what has become Europe, or perhaps in close study of history, or maybe upon the occasion of visits to museums of art and of curiosity you have discovered the diligent, passionate work of the cudgel men, those who knock the heads off of Pagans, off fellow Christians, off the body…
Preface III: Our Classical Heritage A Brief, “Very Brief” History of Ideas *** WHERE TO BEGIN? Picture in your mind’s eye—that eye of the soul which knows not only everything beneath the sun, but everything beyond the sun (from eternities before time, into eternities past the ending of time)—a statue by Polykleitos, let us say,…
