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Word Gems self-knowledge, authentic living, full humanity, continual awakening
Aristotle Categories – To know anything, first classify what it is. Reality becomes understandable when we group things, notice their features, and see how they fit together. Constitution of the Athenians – Here’s why this constitution works. Aristotle shows how the Athenian state runs, what makes it function, and what structures best support a flourishing society. De Anima (On the Soul) – The soul makes a body do all the things living bodies do. Not a ghost in a machine, but the full set of capacities that let a being grow, sense, move, think, and act as itself. Eudemian Ethics – Happiness is living a virtuous life guided by reason. Flourishing comes from practicing excellence in thought and action, moment by moment, over a lifetime. Generation and Corruption – Change is about how things come into being and pass away. Things transform while underlying reality persists, revealing nature’s patterns and rhythms. Metaphysics – To truly understand a thing, we need to see what it is, what it does, and the natural course it unfolds toward. A deep look at what underlies reality, why things exist, and how they develop according to their nature. Nicomachean Ethics – What is the best life imaginable? How can we make life an adventure and truly fulfilling? Happiness and human flourishing come from acting with virtue, exercising reason, and embracing life fully in every choice and moment. On Interpretation – Nature is innocent and beyond labels, but what we call ‘truth’ or ‘falsehood’ emerges only when we put it into words. Language frames reality, allowing us to judge, reason, and communicate. Physics – The rational mind understands nature when we see things move and change, along with their causes and effects. While our intuition experiences life directly, reason lets us trace patterns, connections, and the principles behind what happens. Poetics – Just as math and science use models, art creates models of human life. Through tragedy, comedy, and story, we explore happiness and suffering, meaning and purpose, gaining insight into the rhythms of human experience. Politics – Man by nature is drawn to community and fellowship. Human fulfillment grows when we live with friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens, exercising our social and ethical capacities and finding shared purpose. Posterior Analytics – This is reasoning ‘after’ we have the blueprint for analyzing. Uses the rules of “prior analytics” to understand how the world works. Prior Analytics – This is reasoning ‘before’ we look at the world. The foundational blueprint of how analysis must work. Rhetoric – One's discovered truth skillfully shared with others. What matters is not merely what is said but the state of soul in which it is heard.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Aurora Leigh The Cry Of The Children Sonnets From The Portuguese -- "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." Robert Browning Andrea del Sarto -- A man desires, far more than eros, his mate participate in his life's work - his ideals and very soul. This is the meaning behind the famous words, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church Caliban upon Setebos Dramatis Personae Fra Lippo Lippi Men and Women My Last Duchess Porphyria’s Lover Prospice Rabbi Ben Ezra The Ring and the Book Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
Anne Brontë Agnes Grey The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre The Professor Shirley Villette Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights selected poems Christian Leaders (Early to Medieval) Peter Abelard Sic et non (Yes and No) — collection of contradictory theological authorities arranged for scholastic analysis Thomas Aquinas Commentary on Peter Lombard's 'Sentences' Evil God’s power Summa contra Gentiles Summa Theologiae The soul Truth Virtues Athanasius of Alexandria Anselm of Canterbury Augustine of Hippo Confessions On Continence On Dialectic On Holy Virginity On Marriage and Concupiscence On Nature and Grace On Seeing God On the Catechising of the Uninstructed On the Good of Marriage On the Good of Widowhood On the Immortality of the Soul On the Profit of Believing On the Soul and its Origin On the Spirit and the Letter On the Trinity The City of God Bernard of Clairvaux Bonaventure Gregory of Nyssa Irenaeus Isidore of Seville Jerome Origen
Paul of Tarsus Galatians – the first document of the NT. Paul asserts, the law was like a Greek household slave whose duty it was to take a child to school; but after graduation, the spiritual intent behind the law controls. And so, all legalism, all rule-book religion, all rituals, mere images and "training wheels" of truth, are now passé. Paul emphasizes “all” religion, both Gentile and Jewish-based, all obsolete, in favor of "life in the Spirit”, the sanctified mature mind of wisdom. External rules, carrot-and-stick, are for children, he says, the puerile mind; it's like staying in the nursery, memorizing your ABCs - this has no value when the rule's intent is now embedded, part of the software, one's freely chosen life-view, heart, and goals: "against such, there is no law", the apostle declares. Pseudo-Dionysius Tertullian
T.S. Eliot Ash-Wednesday Four Quartets Gerontion Journey of the Magi Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats Prufrock The Hollow Men The Sacred Wood The Waste Land Tradition and the Individual Talent Sextus Empiricus Overview of his works defending Pyrrhonism -- He’s asking whether human beings can ever reach justified certainty about reality, or whether: “for every argument, an equal argument can be set against it.” Homer Iliad -- The first major work of Western literature. Examines human behavior under extreme conditions of war: heroism as lens for understanding human nature, duty, and courage. Odyssey -- Can one fully reclaim selfhood and home after long disruption? Odysseus’ perilous journey home after the Trojan War. What is the meaning of home and identity in a world governed by chance and suffering? Homeric Hymns: Major Demeter -- How can life continue after irreversible loss? What happens when loss seems to define the structure of reality itself? There is recovery, but with loss of innocence. Apollo -- What does it take to come into one's abilities? Apollo rises from exile and vulnerability to claim power and mastery -- the struggle to create order from chaos. Hermes -- How cunning intelligence makes its way, gets what it wants, in the world. It is the mind that survives by deception, disingenuous wit, rather than force. Aphrodite -- The myth features Aphrodite not as the “goddess of love” but a force of erotic madness, irresistible and destabilizing, disrupting reason and order. Homeric Hymns: Minor -- Introduces Dionysus, the patron of wine, and other gods. Epic Cycle -- Origin to aftermath of the Trojan War.
Emily Dickinson Several of her major poems analyzed -- "I felt a funeral in my brain" Ralph Waldo Emerson Several of his major essays analyzed – Man, linked to the divine, in his own star, his own source of truth and light.
Greek Playwrights Aeschylus The Oresteia -- Can violence ever end? Can we escape blood feud? move from primitive retaliation to institutional justice? instinctive vengeance to moral order? The Persians -- When pride meets catastrophic reality. The cost of overreach and hubris. Can wisdom and human greatness emerge from total loss? Prometheus Bound -- Human ascent comes by someone’s willingness to suffer for the future. Civilization advances by principled disobedience, defiance against monopolies of power. Who yields first: tyranny or moral intelligence? Aristophanes The Birds -- This comedic play imagines a society where humans and birds collaborate to seize control of the sky, and reality itself, to challenge the power of the gods. The Clouds -- What societies do to one who undermines status quo with new ideas. They laugh at him, fear and misrepresent him. And, if they can, they destroy him. The Frogs -- Can great art rescue a civilization in decline? Can a morally and culturally exhausted society be saved by renewed emphasis on heroic art? Lysistrata (She Who Ends War) -- Women refuse sexual relations until men agree to end war. The addiction to cycles of destruction, the inertia of bellicose systems. Euripides The Bacchae -- Why are we fascinated by evil? The outwardly buttoned-down, repressed person, secretly conflicted, desires to participate in libertinism. What we fail to integrate lies unprocessed to eventually assert itself. Hippolytus -- Forbidden desire cannot be negated by prescriptive decree ("thou shalt not") – which makes the forbidden apple a trophy -- but is finally neutralized only by clear-eyed integration and acknowledgment. Medea -- Any unenlightened individual, if sufficiently threatened, is potentially capable of any atrocity. Each person harbors “seeds of evil”, which, if unintegrated and unacknowledged, wait for a triggering event. Moral identity is not solid essence but maintained equilibrium. The Trojan Women -- What happens after war's victory? - women waiting to be enslaved, children killed, homes and families erased. What does “victory” mean in this dehumanization? Can civilization itself endure? Menander Aspis (The Shield) -- A society treats appearances as evidence of truth. How fragile is human judgment when it relies on external signs rather than lived truth. Dis Exapaton (Double Deceiver) -- What happens when reality is constantly manipulated through speech and schemes? How humans navigate life by false appearances. Marriages built on trust -- that is never guaranteed. Dyskolos (The Bad-Tempered Man) -- What happens when a hostile loner, one who has rejected society, is suddenly forced back into human community? Epitrepontes (The Arbitration) -- How truth emerges when human perception is unreliable. Can justice and truth be restored when all evidence is indirect and fragmented? Misoumenos (The Hated Man) -- A soldier can survive war, but not necessarily love's rejection. The universal fear: What if I cannot make myself known? - misunderstanding can imprison the soul more completely than force. Perikeiromene (Girl with Hair Cut Short) -- How love is destabilized by jealousy, wounded pride, and false perception. How love turns to rage by misinterpretation, by acting on what we fear rather than what we know. Samia (Girl from Samos) -- Mistaken appearances override trust. Humans often do not see facts but interpret through fear. How quickly love collapses under suspicion. Sikyonios (Man from Sicyon) -- Is identity what society calls us, or what truth eventually reveals? A story about who a person truly is when social labels prove false. Sophocles Antigone -- What is society for? order alone, or justice? Can a state survive if power silences conscience? Does human law override moral truth? Oedipus at Colonus -- What becomes of a human life after total ruin? Does it end in shame or transformation? Oedipus Rex -- A king discovers he himself is the murderer he seeks. Pursuing truth can = a terrifying unveiling. James Joyce Ulysses -- A single day of one man's life in stream-of-consciousness. Mirroring The Odyssey, Ulysses explores how ordinary existence can reflect epic human quests – a search for home and identity. John Keats Several of his major poems analyzed – “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Friedrich Nietzsche The Antichrist -- The Church is now Antichrist, the great denier of Jesus, even while proclaiming him and posturing as his supreme earthly agent. Orthodoxy not only stultifies human expansion but has devolved to a system of rule-by-guilt, fear-based dogma, and quest for worldly power and mammon. Beyond Good and Evil -- There is a genealogy of moral view. We inherit concepts of right and wrong from the tribe. This can be overcome, but how few escape that box. The Birth of Tragedy -- Great art arises from the union of order and chaos. Greek tragedy is the synthesis of Apollonian perfected form and Dionysian wild abandon. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is -- A thinker must interpret himself as well as the world. Nietzsche’s self-reading and retrospective account of his philosophical mission. The Gay Science -- How to live joyfully in a world where inherited meaning has decayed but continues to haunt the mind. How can humans affirm life and create values when old moral and religious authority has lost power, yet continues to shape thought, emotion, and culture? On the Genealogy of Morality -- Morality has a history, and its origins reveal its purpose. A historical excavation of resentment, guilt, and the inversion of values. Human, All Too Human -- What if our highest ideals are not divine truths, but human constructions? Trace ideals back to human motives. An explanation of morality, religion, metaphysics, and art as products of psychological needs. Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Become who you truly are, engage human flourishing, by overcoming the darkness within. The human being is not an endpoint but a bridge toward self-transcendence and higher possibility. Twilight of the Idols -- Which inherited values – the ‘idols’ -- have made human life weaker, smaller, and less truthful? He asks whether the old morality is life-affirming -- or life-denying, expressions of weakness, fear, and resentment.
Plato Apology - "The unexamined life is not worth living". Socrates shows that philosophy is a moral duty: questioning, reflecting, and seeking truth matters even in the face of death. Charmides - What does it mean to be inwardly well-ordered and truly sane? Is it quietness, modest behavior, and self-control — or something deeper, a soul aligned with self-knowledge and right measure? Cratylus -- Can language can be trusted as a pathway to truth? Words and names merely point; they do not constitute reality. Crito - When is civil disobedience justified? Socrates refuses to escape from prison, choosing to obey the law rather than break it. True virtue can demand personal sacrifice, showing that acting justly sometimes means putting principle above convenience. Euthydemus - Winning arguments is not the same as finding truth. Sophistry may dazzle, but genuine understanding comes from honest reasoning, not clever tricks. Euthyphro - What is religious rightness? Conformity to rules, or alignment with principle? Socrates challenges us to think: is piety about following commands, or about understanding and living according to the true nature of goodness? Gorgias - When does persuasion become corruption? Rhetoric can serve truth and justice, or it can manipulate, flatter, and pursue power. Plato contrasts speech that heals the soul with speech that merely wins. Ion - The true poet puts into words what others can barely feel. He may not fully understand what he has seen, but his gift is to show beauty and deeper truths to those who cannot yet see them for themselves. Laches - All virtue must be based on knowledge. To act well, we must understand ourselves — our desires, limits, and character. Courage without knowledge becomes mindless or rash, and other virtues fail without insight guiding them. Laws - How do we build a just society that outlives any one ruler? Plato turns from ideal theory to practical order, asking how laws, institutions, and education can hold a community together across generations. Meno - Learning is remembering. It’s awakening knowledge already within us. This idea connects to Aristotle’s emphasis on first principles, the foundations of reality, which begin with what the mind can recognize and recall. Parmenides - What is the nature of being: made of parts, or a unified whole? Unexamined assumptions can quietly warp our reasoning, creating arguments that seem logical but misrepresent reality. Phaedo - What happens to the soul after death? Socrates shows that the soul is immortal and seeks truth beyond the body. Philosophy prepares us to live rightly and face death without fear. Phaedrus - Love is a spiritual ascent toward truth and beauty. Seeing beauty in the beloved sparks memory of the ideal Beauty and the divine. Desire and inspiration move the soul beyond ordinary thinking, revealing insights that reason alone cannot reach. Philebus - The good life is not just the pursuit of pleasure, but the right ordering of all good elements. True human flourishing comes when enjoyment, knowledge, and every positive part of life are arranged under the guidance of reason, so that each supports the others and wisdom shapes what we value. Protagoras - What is virtue and can it be taught? No, not directly, but the willing student might be led to choose it. The Republic - Is it possible to create a governmental structure that will not degrade over time? The best life and society emerge when personal virtue, social order, and wisdom are rightly aligned, creating balance within and between people. Sophist - The sophist manipulates appearances and definitions, in a battle to define reality. Sophistry may dazzle and persuade, but real knowledge is rooted in understanding, not clever tricks or empty show. Statesman - Ruling requires knowledge of law, measure, and proportion. Effective leadership blends practical skill with wisdom, balancing laws, social needs, and the proper use of power. Symposium - Love leads the soul upward, in progressive steps, from physical desire to contemplation of the divine. True love inspires the soul to move beyond mere attraction, guiding it through higher levels of beauty, intellect, and spiritual insight. Theaetetus - What counts as knowledge and truth? Some have said, “Man is the measure of all things,” suggesting each person has their own truth. Plato asks: is reality something we can vote on, or is there a standard beyond opinion? Timaeus - The cosmos appears to have been crafted by an intelligent artisan. The universe operates according to rational principles; everything has its place and purpose.
Pre-Socratics Alcmaeon of Croton: He is the first to locate intelligence in the brain. And then asks, if I can move my body by my own agency, how far does this power extend? – all the way to immortality? Anaximenes of Miletus: We confront a world of endless change. How does something change, often predictably, into another? Is there order beneath flux? This is the first major attempt to explain nature as a continuous process. Philolaus of Croton: Why is reality ordered instead of random? If the world is pure flux, nothing can be known. If the world is structure, knowledge becomes possible. Pythagoras: The divinity of number governs reality, harmonizing cosmos and soul. What if the fabric of truth, ethics, and human essence could all be understood through number, proportion, and harmony? Melissus of Samos: He begins with, what truly is cannot come into being or pass away. If something were generated, it would have to come from what-is-not, which is impossible. He asks whether change, plurality, and motion are illusions - true reality must instead be a single, unified, infinite, and ungenerated whole. Xenophanes of Colophon: Are gods merely humanity reflected back at itself? What if what we worship is ourselves enlarged? Human beings anthropomorphize the divine.
Troubadours of Occitania 100+ poems analyzed -- courtly love of 1200 AD William Wordsworth Several of his major poems analyzed – including his magnificent Ode To Immortality: “trailing clouds of glory do we come from God… apparelled in celestial light, the glory and the freshness of a dream.” Xenophon Anabasis Apology Constitution of the Spartans Cyropaedia Hellenica Memorabilia Symposium
The in-flight vaults of Notre-Dame Cathedral
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