Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Thou great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confined
To know but this, that thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will:
What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than hell to shun,
That, more than heaven pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives,
To enjoy is to obey.
—Alexander Pope, from “The Universal Prayer”
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.
—Wm. Shakespeare, Sonnet 33
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lads and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
—William Butler Yeats, “The Song of Wandering Aengus”
***
’T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
One music with a thousand cadences.
—Amy Lowell, “Listening”
***
Once upon a time, way back in the 1990s, I studied journalism and media, and the famous saying of Marshall McLuhan, that “the medium is the message,” which I didn't entirely comprehend at the time, has since proved to be, in my view, an immensely important, fundamental truth, especially as it concerns young, developing human beings.
In other words, when considering the impact of media, the primary influence is not the "content" so much as the means of communication, be it a book, a radio program, television, film, or . . . the internet, which, in a way, combines, or mimics, all previously-known media in a new form.
(Around here, you may have guessed, we quite like books, the best and most durable of mediums, of which we have several new, or new-again, featured this week.)
With McLuhan in mind, I have been somewhat ambivalent about “broadcasting” human voices over the internet—call it a podcast—and thus entering even more deeply into a relationship with an increasingly ubiquitous medium that seems to desire an ever-more complete integration with human consciousness. . . .
However, always aiming for a balanced view of things, and as people here and there continued to suggest that we do something along these lines, I considered the possibility, aware also of the more positive aspects of the medium, the reality of its current presence in the cultural sphere, and the need for its ultimate redemption. Eventually, with the help of a trusted producer-collaborator, I decided to do it; to make a podcasted audio “show,” but based on certain self-imposed conditions and intentions:
in-person human conversations only (no “zoom” calls; conversants meet face-to-face)
audio only, and of the highest quality, given our recording circumstances (at our offices, not a studio)
we “wing it”: any questions or prompts on my part, are born out of a genuine human interest in my "guest" and what they know, feel, or believe to be true (no pre-conceived formulae or agendas, ideally)
We call it “Aleatory Encounters,” even though, just as Mr. Dylan sings, “I don’t gamble with cards and I don’t shoot no dice.”
You can expect a new episode every three weeks for the rest of the year.
This first episode, the human-machine interface w/ Joe Allen, appropriately enough, deals quite directly with these and many more questions, challenges, and possibilities of our human-technological age. Let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading, always, and this time, if you like, thanks for listening.
Keep in touch, John-Scott
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
—Emily Dickinson, " He ate and drank the precious words (1587)"
I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
‘That must have been the Sun!’
—Emily Dickinson, from “I’ll tell you how the Sun rose”
***
Blessed Easter Greetings from all of us at Steinerbooks!
With gratitude for your support and care, and warmest of wishes,
—JSL
It was an April morning: fresh and clear
The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,
Ran with a young man's speed; and yet the voice
Of waters which the winter had supplied
Was softened down into a vernal tone.
The spirit of enjoyment and desire,
And hopes and wishes, from all living things
Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.
The budding groves seemed eager to urge on
The steps of June; as if their various hues
Were only hindrances that stood between
Them and their object: but, meanwhile, prevailed
Such an entire contentment in the air
That every naked ash, and tardy tree
Yet leafless, showed as if the countenance
With which it looked on this delightful day
Were native to the summer.—Up the brook
I roamed in the confusion of my heart,
Alive to all things and forgetting all.
[ . . .]
—William Wordsworth, from " It was an April morning: fresh and clear"
What Are We Really Eating?
Practical Aspects of Nutrition from the Perspective of Spiritual Science
Otto Wolff
Dr. Otto Wolff—known to English-language readers through his home remedies—offers a clear description of the foods we eat and what we should really look for in them.
Scientific investigation of nutrition has led to increasing industrialization of food production. Vast numbers of details are known, but industrial processing is causing the force of food to be progressively lost. This makes people feel unsure about which foods are still healthy today.
Otto Wolff’s aim is to enable consumers to form their own opinion about the food they eat. He takes guidance from the principle stated by Angelus Silesius:
“The bread is not our food; what feeds us in bread is God’s eternal word, is spirit, and is life.”
Dr. Wolff shows that it is not the physical substances as such that feed us, but the force of life in our foods. The knowledge that life is transformed light has been completely lost in modern agriculture. However, viewing food as it is in biodynamic agriculture can help us gain true insight and understanding of food quality.
“Today we are in the middle of the problems that this book
warned of when it first came out in 1996. The life forces of
people, and especially of young people, are getting ever weaker….
What can bring life and light to people again? Things that contain life and light. And this also has to do with food, which should be full of these forces.”
— Daphné von Boch, MD
Also of interest
From the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation
Mystery Centres of the Middle Ages: The Easter Festival and the History of the Mysteries
Translated by Mary Adams
10 lectures in Dornach, Switzerland, Jan. 4–13 and Apr. 19–22, 1924 (CW 233a)
READ MORE
And as an age is now approaching which will again be an age of greater spirituality, we must begin to develop what in our present state of dullness we have not developed. But above all it will be necessary for knowledge, for intuition, for experience of the spirit, that can be gained through contemporary initiation, to encounter the esteem and reverence gained through freedom. Without appreciation, without reverence and true knowledge, a spiritual life is really not possible. We make a right use of these festival seasons when we employ them to develop, and in some small extent to implant in our souls, this feeling of appreciation and reverence for what is spiritual that has evolved in the course of human history; when we endeavor to learn as intimately as possible how and why external historical events point to spiritual facts, and carry over what is spiritual from one age into another. . . .
—Rudolf Steiner, lecture of April 22, 1924 (CW 233a)
© SteinerBooks 2024
