Extraordinary Discourse Podcast

More Of The Different Following our path is in effect a kind of going off the path, through open country. David Whyte Here's some interesting info to go with the inspiring words about Samuel Pierpont Langley and the Wright Bros: When Wilbur Wright was asked, in 1905, what the purpose of his machine might be, he answered simply, “War”. As soon as they were confident that the technology worked, the brothers approached the war offices of several nations, hoping to sell their patent to the highest bidder. The US government bought it for $30,000, and started test bombing in 1910. The aeroplane was conceived, designed, tested, developed and sold, in other words, not as a vehicle for tourism, but as an instrument of destruction. George Monbiot

Clips For The Creatively Maladjusted Cupitt's deeply performative and creative vision of religion asks us to place our faith in the incessant flux of language and discourse - signs and images being our earthly kingdom of eternal plenitude, an accessible realm in which we can exercise our spiritual liberation. At the very least, this is a religion that would chime with the most 'modern' (and perforce, postmodern) of our great play rhetorics - self-oriented play and imaginative play, directing a multimedia performance of the spirit. Pat Kane The Play Ethic

Mindhold By Mindhold "The psyche has many little pockets for tucking things away and sometimes it's a good idea to have a sort-out." Posted by COINNEACH SHANKS

Imaginal Cells Cledonomancy! In the occult of classical antiquity, cledonism, or cledonomancy, was a kind of divination based on chance events or encounters, such as words occasionally uttered. The word is formed from the Greek κληδὼν which signifies rumor, a report, omen, fame, name. Cicero observes that the Pythagoreans made observation not only of the words of the gods, but of those of men; and accordingly believed the pronouncing of certain words, e.g. the word incendium (destruction, ruin), at a meal to be very unlucky. Thus, instead of prison, they used the word domicilium (residence, dwelling); and to avoid Erinyes, said Eumenides. According to Pausanias, cledonism was popular at Smyrna, where the Apollonian Oracles were interpreted. He also mentions its use at the shrine of Hermes Agoraios in Pharae. An individual, upon whispering a question into the god's ear, plugged his own ears, left the agora, and then listened for the god's answer among the chance wor...

A Little Of This And A Little Of That …  When Solomon began to build the temple made of awakened intelligence, various materials begged to be part of it. Stones broke away and lifted off the mountain, singing, “Take us along!” Light shone from the mortar. The doorjambs and walls had lively conversation. The door knocker striking made music. Solomon’s mosque beyond matter is One that each of us must build. There’s no way to say how it Will look, constructed as it is of What we intend, and passionate action. Rumi (Barks)

Thought Coming Through The Walls Maybe our digital technology is still too new. Writing first appears on clay tablets around 3000 BC; it’s another 3,300 years before mankind invents the codex; from the codex to moveable type, 1,150 years; from moveable type to the Internet, 532 years. Forty years haven’t passed since the general introduction of the personal computer; the World Wide Web has only been in place for 20. We’re still playing with toys. The Internet is blessed with undoubtedly miraculous applications, but language is not yet one of them. Absent the force of the human imagination and its powers of expression, our machines cannot accelerate the hope of political and social change, which stems from language that induces a change of heart. Lewis Lapham Word Order: The Internet as the Toy With a Tin Ear Huffpost

People Saying Interesting Things Tour Carol Snow Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path  and then placed camellia blossoms there. Or -- we had no way of knowing -- he'd swept the path  between fallen camellias. My words itch at your ears til you understand them. Walt Whitman