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.