Extraordinary Discourse Podcast

THIS and THAT and THE OTHER thing Jewish mystics used to believe that the world presents innumerable smashed pieces of vessels with divine light clinging to them. It is each individual's responsibility to rescue the captive sparks. Bonnie Friedman, Surrendering Oz

Orchestrated Polyphrenia Jack is an archetypal Cornish and English hero and stock character appearing in legends, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes, generally portrayed as a young adult. Unlike moralizing fairy heroes, Jack is often portrayed as lazy or foolish, but through the use of cleverness and tricks he usually emerges triumphant. In this way, he may resemble a trickster. Some of the most famous include "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Jack Frost", "Jack the Giant Killer", "Little Jack Horner" and "This Is the House That Jack Built". While these heroes are not necessarily congruous, their concepts are related and in some instances interchangeable. The notion of "Jack" is closely related and sometimes identical to the English hero John. He also corresponds with the German Hans (or Hänsel) and the Russian Iván. … Another definition of “magic tales” is a type of folktale characterized by its performance aspect. Classical...

Small Steps Toward Giant Leaps I got this image of myself as a flock of sparrows, alighting on the pavement, as though they were cast there like two handfuls of dice, landing in some truly ordered randomness and then hopping their hollow-boned selves from morsel to morsel, pecking at crumbs, coins, cigarette butts, the dried poo of other fowl, their multiple hungers combining to form a single feasting beast. Daniel Scot Tysdal Year Zero The Best Canadian Essays 2014

Mots, Bon And Otherwise SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Trying improbable and unprecedented combinations is your specialty right now. You're willing and able to gamble with blends and juxtapositions that no one else would think of, let alone propose. Bonus: Extra courage is available for you to call on as you proceed. In light of this gift, I suggest you brainstorm about all the unifications that might be possible for you to pull off. What conflicts would you love to defuse? What inequality or lopsidedness do you want to fix? Is there a misunderstanding you can heal or a disjunction you can harmonize? Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter September 9, 2015

(Re)Mixed Messages And beyond even that - the eerie experience of finally finding in myriad ragtag phenomena an underlying psychic connection, as if I've at last flipped over the fabric that made them appear separate, and discovered long strands of embroidery thread linking one design with the next. Bonnie Friedman, Surrendering Oz ]

Soundbite Diner Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable. C. G. Jung

Pieces De Resistance All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man. Henry David Thoreau or woman....