Words, in their way, might help us see the objects of creation, those creations which grow in beauty from the mind of man. Statues, pictures, et cetera, we understand by words, those vessels of ideas before, beyond the things themselves. Words contain the universe, a universe which knows itself by the mind of man. We…
Book III of “Eden to Ohio” Colonization, Eden, Apples, Apple Cider * * * Aristotle composed many books, many lectures, most now lost. Among those lost, the dialogue “Alexander, ‘On Colonization’”. You might remember that an eager occupation of Aristotle’s Lyceum and of Plato’s Academy was the production of constitutions for those Greek colonies which…
Book III of “Eden to Ohio” Chapman, Appleseed, Swedenborg, Colonization * * * At memory’s farthest reach, my people touch Ohio, Appleseed country, before that, none now living can say. We have photographs, well, drawings, really, most of what was photograph has faded leaving the outlined highlight of handsome, strong willed citizens. One such picture,…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 4: Homeric Hymns * * * IN JOY, in praise we lift our voices to God, all of them; we lift our voices in communion with the life-giving force of the universe; in song we participate, we join in meaning, one with the Divine. Listening back from…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 3: Introduction, Homer, Iliad * * * THE SOURCE of our religious imagination is HESIOD, more than any other author he codified the liminal character of our nature, the traditions of our cults, our ritual practices, et cetera; yes, even into Christianity, that Roman assumption of Yahweh,…
Bunyan’s Chores, A First Fancy: Ax in Hand. Perhaps you learned of Paul Bunyan from stories in books mother-read or father-read at bed-time, in rainy-day books you read to yourself, or by pass-the-time tales when in-the-car with family. Perhaps you stood in the shadow of a gargantuan Bunyan statue, or rode on the wide back…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 2: Homer, Odyssey * * * Sing through me, O Muse, of the man of many turnings, many devices who off-course wandered time-and-again after plundering the citadel of high walled Ilium. Many cities he saw, many men, and learned their minds; many pains he suffered in woe,…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 1: Introduction, Homer, Iliad * * * μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆοςοὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε Here begins our literature, and all that came thereafter: Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses Fagles, Robert. The Iliad. New…
