Showing 423 articles
Titian: Combining the Sensual with the Divine
Author: Siobhan FarrarNovember 19, 2020
Titian (c. 1488-1576) is arguably the greatest Venetian painter of the Italian Renaissance, who earned European-wide fame and recognition during his own lifetime. The collection of paintings referred to as his ‘poesies’ (a name he coined himself) delineate poetic pictures or poetry produced in painting and draw upon the Roman poet Ovid’s classic epic, Metamorphoses [...]
The Fall
Author: Angela DiacoOctober 25, 2020
The fall is a time of cozy contemplation for some, a sad time for others. No longer the far flung ecstasy of summer and preceding the hibernation period of winter (here in the Northern hemisphere at least!), it’s a time of slowing down to reflect. It’s no wonder the fall is called The Spring of [...]
Living the Samurai Myth
Author: Shraddha ShettyOctober 14, 2020
The word Samurai originally meant ‘those who serve’, although individuals of this elite warrior class in medieval Japan were also referred to as Bushi, or warrior. And Bushido was the code of morality which the Samurai were meant to follow, not just in battle, but also in day-to-day activity. Speaking of this code in his [...]
The Philosophy of Climbing
Author: Eddie SelbyOctober 1, 2020
“I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart, I love not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still. And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche (1844–1900) [...]
Myths of Africa: Deepening our Understanding of Life and Death
Author: Siobhan FarrarOctober 1, 2020
Africa is a vast continent with many different peoples and a diverse diaspora whose cultural and spiritual heritage has often been misunderstood and misrepresented through colonial and Western perspectives. The ability to move past assumptions and conditioning always presents a challenge, which requires that we aim to see the essence of human life and experience. [...]
Aesthetic Intelligence
Author: Sabine LeitnerOctober 1, 2020
We have probably all heard about different types of intelligence: kinaesthetic, verbal, logical-mathematical and lately also emotional and even spiritual intelligence. Recently I came across the term aesthetic intelligence and it inspired me to think about what this could mean in a philosophical and metaphysical way and why it might be important. From a philosophical [...]
Why Philosophy Matters in Times of Crisis
Author: Sabine LeitnerOctober 1, 2020
We seem to be living more and more in times of permanent crisis: terrorism, armed conflicts, unprecedented waves of desperate refugees, crises in practically every field of public life, including financial and economic, environmental, political, cultural, educational, institutional, (mental) health, etc. There is hardly any area which is not affected by some crisis in one [...]
The Magical Function of Rituals and Ceremonies
Author: Julian ScottOctober 1, 2020
From an esoteric point of view, a ritual is dependent on the existence of the invisible dimension. This invisible dimension consists of a spiritual-mental aspect, which is the domain of the archetypes or ‘living idea-beings’ spoken of by the Platonists; and an ‘astral’ aspect, which is an intermediate world between spirit and matter, just as [...]
Terra Preta, the Black Earth upon which Civilisations were Built
Author: Gareth KinsellaJuly 30, 2020
“Agriculture is the noblest of all alchemy; for it turns the earth, and even manure, into gold, conferring upon its cultivator the additional reward of health.” – Hebrew proverb In 1542, a Spanish conquistador named Francisco de Orellana set sail along the Amazon river with a group of his fellow countrymen, looking high and low [...]
Anne Conway: the Ultimate Unity of Spirit and Matter
Author: Siobhan FarrarJuly 30, 2020
Seventeenth century England was a time of conflict and rapid change, and it is under such conditions that Countess Anne Conway, one of the few female philosophers of her time, developed her clarity of vision and influence. From her home at Ragley Hall and mostly through letters, Anne Conway was in continuous dialogue with the [...]
The High City of Troy
Author: Nataliya PetlevychJuly 30, 2020
Long ago at the dawn of history, on a distant seashore near the sacred Mount Ida, stood a marvellous city, the walls of which were built by the gods themselves. It was there that Poseidon and Apollo did their penance labouring for king Laomedon on the orders of the great Zeus. The city was Ilium [...]
Post-lockdown Values?
Author: Sabine LeitnerJuly 30, 2020
“There are decades where nothing happens – and there are weeks where decades happen.” This Lenin quote might sum up how many of us feel regarding the events of 2020. Not that nothing happened before – in my view the last few decades contained quite a lot of events on a mega scale – but [...]