Reading: Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was a giant of Northern Irish poetry. He translated Beowulf into lively,  modern language. Heaney was an immensely popular ambassador of poetry. I have read a poem about strange fruits by Heaney before, and today I read again a detailed fruity allegory of our life: Blackberry Picking Late August, given heavy rain and sun ...
Meditation on Art
We want to breathe the art of wit when we sit for our meditations. Art, from the Art of Altamira to the the Art of the Deal, is, we don't shun this bold statement, first and foremost a celebration. We imagine anthropological researchers digging up objects with no evident usefulness. What to do with them? ...
Meditation on the sacred
May we think about the sacred without informing ourselves as thoroughly as possible about our species' rich religious traditions? Isn't our meditation predestined to be a desecration, a profanity, no matter what we might arrive at? Philosophical contemplation of the sacred seems to be implicitly critical of the religious authority that decrees what is sacred ...