Ancient World

In this episode we have a huge contrast to the proceeding canto, with more theology and a spiritual parallel to the history of Rome. We also learn about the differences between the things created directly from the Divine, and those things being secondary creations through intermediaries, and thus corruptible and lasting only temporarily.

In the episode we hear the full overview of Rome's history from the mythological origins with Aeneas, through the Seven Kingdoms, the Republic and Empire, to the new Holy Roman Empire and Charlemagne in 800 AD. 

In this episode we are getting a deeper learning of the spiritual meaning of Free Will and making Vows in the Medieval and Ancient World - as part of the overall process of understanding the Paradise and the Divine Essence.

In the episode we see how Dante is left with two big doubts after meeting with the souls in Canto III, and how Beatrice is helping him grow and understand. This sparks a new question in him, which intensifies the love from Beatrice. 

In this episode we go through Canto III in Paradiso in detail, where the Pilgrim meets Piccarda, a relative of his Wife, and the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, Constance. We are gradually learning more about the nature of the Heavens, and the souls that are living there. Dante has not yet learned that all the souls live in the Empyrean, but are reflected down into the spheres, according to their degree of receiving and emitting the Divine Essence.

In Canto 2 we learn from Beatrice how the Divine Essence is shining and spreading through the whole of the Creation in a variety of qualities, and blended with the heavenly bodies - like the moon.

In this episode we go into detail of the first song of the Paradise, where Dante is standing with Beatrice in the Garden of Eden, on top of Mount Purgatory - and starts rising upwards towards the heavens and the Empyrean.

Today we are going through three different articles/books - about the process of potential learning and knowledge from the imagination, the difference between the experience and perception of the Ancients vs. the era after the Renaissance, and how the Biblical Stories are implicitly addressing the challenge of making too concrete models of the transcendent. A deep dive into the mind, but rewarding topics for a richer and fuller understanding of the Ancient World!

In this episode we talk about how wonder and mystery can be driving forces towards more understanding and in themselves give both more knowledge and more wonder as things grow. They seem to at times be inexhaustible sources of joy of life.

In the episode we reflect upon the treasures of the past, and how learning to read symbolically could also expand and enrich the fuller experience of a symbolic deep of thinking, and living in the world. The brilliance and beauty of the Renaissance is one astonishing example and inspiration, towards this!

The excerpt from the Renaissance story from last summer is:

" Once the first travel memories had passed through the mind in brief images, I started considering the many stages of discoveries of growing up and becoming a fuller person, but also how there was something lacking in my own thinking. There was something missing like a foundation, an organizing principle, or a sort of deeper substance that could explain the world and the history that I could see everywhere around me, also in the little square I was sitting in. Most things were like little images, but without anything behind them, or without representing anything more symbolic or connecting them to a broader or deeper mass of a culture, or deeper values, or some representation of wisdom, knowledge, or corresponding to a structure of thought within myself. It was like looking at or experiencing nice things from earlier times, but more like symbols of historical times, than an abstract philosophical world. It was often just what I saw. And I knew that there was something that I was missing."