Sound in the forest

Towards dusk, after a heavy rainfall, I am walking past a woodlot burned over a year ago by a brushfire. A sudden cracking noise and I see a large cluster of bl...

Utopias II

Utopias are literary and creative brainstorms, imaginative sketches of how the world and society ought to be. Reading early works such as More, Campanella, or B...

Burnished light

The night is still and dark but for the circle of light on the page of the open book. A moth hovers while I read under the small lamp. For a moment, it perches ...

Utopias

Utopias are conceived as alternatives to the overwhelming control of power and authority. The premise of every utopia is the innate decency of each person given...

Poverty

Poverty is deprivation of material necessities (food, clothing, shelter), but a cultural or spiritual poverty also exists: deprivation of self-expression, auton...

Eremitism and Islam (2)

Like the other two major Western religions, Islam takes a pragmatic view of solitude and eremitism as temporary spiritual practices but ultimately having no spi...