A talented, inventive Britsh folk-rock band who peaked in the early 70’s called Pentangle, and who loved delving deeply into centuries-pld folklore to uncover material to interpret…
Category / Agora
A Conversation Overheard Near the Moon
Overcoming The World
I don’t believe or disbelieve these things. Those kinds of stances towards such lofty happenings seem demeaning and facile and dismissive to me. Rather, I sense that there is truth in them. And accept the burden of working upon ‘self’ to evolve matters such that more is gradually illuminated. This feels like a personal responsibility to me. I wouldn’t call it religion; that obscures the reality.
“Fragmentation Creation Events”?
At 50
Seeing One’s Seeing
Gender, Athletic Competition, & AI Chess
A recurring idea from Jaron Lanier (“You Are Not A Gadget” – 2010) goes like this: “It isn’t really a question of whether AI can get smarter than humans. It is more whether humans will collectively (unconsciously) agree to make themselves stupid enough to descend to the same level as artificial intelligence”. I’ve paraphrased but you get the idea. What does this have to do with the social debate over transgender athletes?
A Dream (2026/03/18)
True, not fictionalized, to the best of my recall. (Because the memory function rapidly deteriorates immediately upon crossing the membrane from sleeping to waking — the sudden influx of sensory inputs taxes one’s will in an overpowering way.)
Unobvious Portal
_______RS
Notes: This haiku arose while reflecting upon and re-reading Gertrude Reif Hughes’ thoughtful and stimulating foreword to Rudolf Steiner’s monumental text “The Philosophy of Freedom” (sometimes translated as “The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” — which gives an insight into the intended meaning of the term ‘freedom’). The book was written in 1893-1894 but the foreword was from a later edition, published in 1995. The book is very far from a typical philosophical work, which would turn many souls off, including myself in many ways. But if you pay it true and engaged attention — this book is still riveting and uniquely fresh. I have looked at it five or six times in life, always at least five or ten years apart, and it is every time a novel revelation. In contemplating the haiku, it is crucial to bear in mind that the act of noticing being referred to is realtime, in the moment! Not something realized a bit later, even a few seconds later, after the deed, relying upon memory.
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Mrs. Markey’s Sentient Fiddle – (scene 13)
A Novella in installments, tracing the intermingling autobiographies of a boy and a violin, spanning over a century. The previous episode is right here. To find any episode, look here.

(The protagonist posing with some old friends: a Japanese shakuhachi, A Zimbabwean mbira, and a good ol’ American jaw harp.)
(13) – Widowed in the Cupboard, NJ, 1959









