I was yanked by the hair by this passage from The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. It’s hard to read without the uneasy feeling that Lewis looked down his nose at the working classes and the uneducated, but grappling with that feeling is part of the joy of reading and marveling at it. Above all he is calling for us to become individuals, just as Sardello does, and to allow the same in others.

I think this has great implications for our politics as well as for our spirituality. It makes me sad that so much of what Lewis suggested could happen is happening today, when, as Yeats wrote, the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity. At the same time, to see the situation summed up so well by such a masterful devil as Screwtape is a treat. I’ve abridged this while reading, so please find the book and read “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” through for yourself.

‘Round this part of this neighborhood of this city, the City Slackers are pretty widely known characters. They’re a well-married couple, and though they have no children, their friends and relations substitute quite well. Sure, Slick and Slack have their peculiarities (as you may detect in this episode), but what’s a little mess among good friends?

{Featuring the talents of Anne O’Saunders, JB, Nan Fontaine, M. G. Lovebody, P. Janewoody, Kris Gardner, and Slick and Slack}

Well, friends, let not it be ever said that we, your hosts, were cursed by lack of courage or surplus of talent. Treading the ground trod by Shakespeare and probably a bunch of other people before us, we pay humble tribute to stage drama and the radio shows of old with this presentation and a few more to follow. We hope therewith to plumb the depths of human emotion and cast a glowing light on the hidden caverns of the heart.

This play features Barry Veganham and JB and is narrated by Slick. We look forward to your comments.

Dipping back into Love and the Soul by Robert Sardello. This reading has many things, including bone-chewing by the dogs and me doing my best Michael Toms voice (stuffy and nasal). If you can get past those features, you’ll hear about individuality—a sense of the I; how a sense of purpose can well up from within; the heart as an organ of perception; and a bit of Strange Boat by The Waterboys. All this for free!

Here are some excerpts from an astronomical calendar for 2011, written by Brian Keats. (His web site is www.astro-calendar.com.)

While these passages mostly relate to the Moon, I particularly like the part where he asks us if we can develop a feeling, not just a thought, for the Earth as a living being. I believe we will only “save the Earth” when we relate to her as a living being and part of us. Without that feeling, we are only acting out of an abstract principle, and that has no real power to move us.

Gratitude – positivity – trust in the world – cultivating these qualities helps bring about forces that teach us about our own destinies. These are forces that can also be healthy for our teaching, our politics, and who knows what else. The reading is from a small and readable book, Coping with Karma by Joop van Dam

(Music from the magnificent piece Thunderhead by Dalglish & Larson).

This passage seems appropriate for the beginning of autumn. It’s from David S. Mitchell’s essay “Evil: Our Dance Partner through Life,” which appears in the compilation The Inner Life of the Earth. It’s a look at the condition of being human, which includes the chaos of living divided between our worldly and spiritual natures, and the necessity of what we call “evil” for the development of the world.

Here is a mind-expander that makes a good example of that “both/and” thinking that I like. In this passage from The Changing Countenance of Cosmology, author Willi Sucher compares a Sun-centered (Copernican) view of the cosmos and an Earth-centered view. Of course, in terms of pure astronomy we know that the Earth and other planets orbit around the Sun; but in terms of astrosophy the Earth plays a central role as the place where material development is most fully realized by the spiritual beings.

So…using all the advances that math and physics have given us in understanding the workings of the planets…we now have to direct our thought to the spiritual workings of our existence…become more Earth-centered in our thinking, so to speak.

Back to reading again after a spring-induced absence. It takes a rainy weekend to get me and my attention back inside!

Here is part of a lecture by Rudolf Steiner on the mission of our world.

Here’s a story of an initiation ritual told by our young friend Tom. It’s too bad the club wasn’t one he really wanted to be in, because as initiation rituals go, this one sounds like fun!