Welcome! This newsletter comes to you direct from Salt Spring Island in Canada.
Inside this issue:
Still Writing
Melting Ancient Unguents
What Now?
Pandora Pop Up
Recommended
What is Up to Me
Hiding in my own Narnia, waiting for things to settle down before posting, I’ve written some pieces that almost immediately were out of sync with the times. So I waited (next week, next week), only to see more shifts and changes in events and contexts. Like you, I am either glued to the news or cutting off all contact with it. With all this change, I contemplate the old phrase, “What is up to us?”
With not much chance of anything settling down soon, I may as well keep writing. Others far wiser than me are following the tragedies and dangerous geopolitics, writing far better and more insightfully than I could. I’m just sensing and reporting back, both here and through my Wunderkabinett novel-in-progress. I’m also writing almost daily to discover other thought-kingdoms and places of being, journaling to express the rich fountain of the inner life. So watch this space - I may be posting more frequently again, and it may be more weird.
Wheel of Fortune
We need more light than ever these days. I will turn again to another place on the dial - for they say there are innumerable frequencies to choose from on this wheel of fortune. I spy with my little eye, something that is… bright! sunbeam, or light flash, or moonbeam on the tip of the nose.
The amazing unguent of Nefertiti, or the radiant oil of Cleopatra. They say that scented honey-wax-oil was molded and hardened into various lovely cone forms, which the women of ancient Egypt placed on their heads as decoration for special occasions. As an evening went on, the honey melted down, exuding rare scents throughout the banquet rooms, dripping all through their hairpieces. I think I hear the spoiled princess calling to her ladies, “Draw my bath of almond and goat’s milk, darlings, I’m a bit sticky this morning! Too much myrrh!”
What Now?
Superstitions, Customs and Beliefs was the name of the first Gatha Paper from the work of Hazrat Inayat Khan. In the time that I was involved in organized Universal Sufi activities such papers were read and studied in many small groups. Now, I see so many superstitions, customs, and beliefs surrounding every group - some to be smiled at, some to be puzzled by, and some to be baffled by, and others to believe with all our hearts.
Can we retrieve ancient ways by following fragments of text or image lost in time’s veils? How many of the customs we now hold as natural or meaningful were also perhaps retrieved from former fragments, taped together to make a crude approximation of the meaning? And what is up to us?
We can sense that the adjustments that will be required of us now will be even more than those of the past 3 or 4 years. Back then, when we recovered from the pandemic, we couldn’t return to what had been because of gaps in the narrative, blanks in the story. Events and relationships had been somehow redacted or replaced, like a magic realist novel in which entire towns disappear overnight, along with any memory of them.
In this rapid-release 21st century we are engaged in a dramatic existential transformation.
We are no longer in the grotto with the cave bear, not in the bark-boat at night with only night stars to guide us, nor anywhere near the beasts embodied in the wavy straw costumes of lost ritual, dancing down the street in an annual parade of mock horses and monsters.
Pandora Pop-up!
Surrounded by replicas, we look to retrieve ancient patterns that can somehow bring us another dimension of life. A mixed gift has been kept in storage for humanity - only to be opened by us now. We have shaken the package and guessed its contents wrongly most of the time. But now it is opening.
It’s been said before: AI is a version of Pandora’s box. Wind it up and here comes all-that-is just jumping out like a commedia del arte puppet, or innumerable such puppets that burst out, grow legs and arms and begin to imitate us to such an extent that we copy them, become like them, dance and sing like them. Losing our local accents, we imitate their sweet Siri tones and soon become more like them than they are. In the process, something has hollowed us out, as if these wild puppets feed on all the human qualities that they have been emulating in varying degrees of success. They become meta-human, and we begin to see them as our idealized forms. So now what? Are we having fun yet?
Paging Dr. McLuhan. You are needed at the information desk.
Good Things
I’m happy to recommend two new super-smart intellectual Substacks. Yes, they involve actual reading.
Nuria’s Substack - Articulate, poetic, erudite words from Nuria Belastegui.
Northern Wisdom - Thoughtful, complex essays from David Nowakowski. Spiritual, devotional, and intellectual life at the intersection of Heathen polytheism, Platonism, and more.
I hope you take some pleasure in reading my newsletter when it comes to you.
My notes on Platonism are collected here at Riffing on Eternity. I don’t send these posts out to subscribers by email; I link them here for anyone interested. Look for the latest: The First Father Sowed Fiery Love, and Light of Truth Emerging. Find more in the contents below.
The Egyptian image is from Wikipedia. Jack in the Box image made with Canva AI.
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I truly laughed out loud at the Paging Dr. McLuhan note!
Thank you, Carol good to hear from you again.