Authoritarian Regimes Don’t Take in Feedback from Below (Clip)
The lack of taking in feedback of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. With many adherents of these ideologies, anything is justified. We are reflecting on Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood, where the out...
19 Sep 20252min
Jonathan Pageau's "Rapunzel," Summary and Discussion
An old woman lives alone in a small cottage in the woods, with bitterness and her rapunzel cabbages as companions. She prizes the plants, however, attending them relentlessly. Now a newly-married wo...
14 Sep 202554min
Hoarding Your Inner Gold, or Knowing How to Use It: “Spirit in the Bottle” (Clip)
Going into wholeness or connection, on the one hand, or solipsism and individualism, on the other hand. It seems one can find one’s way to solipsism if one does not “return to school,” and patiently ...
12 Sep 20252min
The Brothers Grimm’s “The Golden Goose”
LL and I read and discuss this lovely folktale. A man had three sons, the youngest called Dummling (Simpleton), who was mocked and sneered at. The eldest son wanted to hew wood in the forest, and hi...
8 Sep 202533min
Robin Hood’s Origins, Little John & The Trickster
We summarize Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood’s Prologue, on the green-clad Robbing man’s origins and his meeting, being beat by, and joining forces with Little John. Then we discuss Robin Hood as a proper r...
1 Sep 20251h 45min
Awakening and the Need for Some Kind of Grounding (Clip)
Robert Pirsig, of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” also had an awakening experience, where he said he was in touch with “quality,” the key concept of his metaphysics. But he ended up hosp...
31 Aug 20252min
“The Spirit in the Bottle” from The Brothers Grimm
A poor woodcutter sends his son to the high school to have a better lot in life, but the money runs out before the son can complete his studies. He returns home and embarks on his father’s living wit...
26 Aug 20251h 55min
Mystical and Awakening Experiences
We discuss mystical experiences and higher states of consciousness. We start with an awakening account of a Japanese business executive and Zen student, referenced below. Higher states of consciousn...
20 Aug 20251h 35min
