5 Trails I'm Exploring
6 December 2024
Hello Friends and Fellow Seekers of the Good True Beautiful!
Here are 5 Trails I’ve Been Exploring Recently:
READING: I finally learned the truth about the Council of Nicaea. This article, “The Nicene Myth,” came via a recommendation from Alan Jacobs’s newsletter. Jacobs is a distinguished professor of the humanities at Baylor University. He said the article “settles a few persistent myths about the Council of Nicaea. It's one of those events about which people always feel free to tell Big Lies.” Having now read the article, I have to agree. I was shocked to discover how many facts about this famous event in church history I got wrong, and how many more I had never heard.
LISTENING: “Meditative Music on Baroque Lute with Naochika Sogabe.” I often listen to various styles of instrumental music while I write. When I came across Sogabe’s music, I totally got lost in it. If you want to be transported away for a while, grab yourself a cup of tea, settle in next to a cozy fire, and just let the music take you. It’s more than three hours of tranquil artistry at play.
WATCHING: “Finding Meaning in a World Gone Mad.” This 15-minute interview with scholar & philosopher Ian McGilchrist was one of the most straightforward, sensible things I’ve listened to in a long time. McGilchrist is an Oxford literary scholar, a doctor in psychiatry and neuroscience, and the author of The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, and The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.
SEEING: As I continue to surf IG for photography inspiration, I came across this collection of evocative photographs. Each one is such a delight! I get lost in them.
PONDERING: “It's not a good measure of mental health to be well adjusted to a profoundly insane society." — Krishna Murti
What new trails have you been exploring lately? Share them with me in the comments!
Until next time!
Michael
P.S. In case you haven’t seen it yet, check out my recent essay here on substack:
https://open.substack.com/pub/drericamatluck/p/the-real-reason-were-so-tired?r=2k3pbf&utm_medium=ios
Pondering on a post from Dr Erica Matluck. These are extracts which are affirming, I trusting and challenging.
“Winter is the contraction that fuels the expansion...” Isn’t that beautiful? Can’t you just feel it!!
“It is a time for hibernation, protection, going inward & slowing our metabolism down to preserve life-force...”
“This is the time to ask why, and to sit in the silence waiting for the answer to come from within. This is NOT the time to fill our schedules with holiday parties, family obligations and end of year deadlines. This is NOT the time of year that we’re biologically designed to be OVER-eating & intoxicating ourselves to the point of missing out on the dream state! This is NOT the time of year to be traveling and opening ourselves up to the sensory assault of the outside world. This is the time of year to be storing fat and slowing down our metabolisms- to use LESS energy. This is the time of year to put up boundaries (physically and spiritually) to protect ourselves from the pathogens and spirits of cold and flu season.”
“This is the time of year for being, with the knowing that in the being is the seed of becoming.”
The being is the seed of becoming!!! Yes, it is