Evening under Lamplight Podcast

Dante exhausts himself after his first effort of climbing up the mountain, but meets an old friend, whose laziness contrasts with Dante's exertions.

A short beast fable set in Samoa, exposing snobbery that leads to ironic misconceptions.

Dante and  Virgil meet up with a new group of souls, who seem to act like sheep in a flock as they let go of the impulse to act individually and get used to being part of a community.

A complex, and bitter, fable about naively misplaced trust, and its consequences.

A very short fable about provincial pride, inflated egos, and a fatal lack of tactfulness.

Dante and Virgil meet a shipload of new souls coming to the mountain, one of whom is an old friend of Dante's. There is singing, and beauty, and a rush to the mountain at the end.

A longer fable, addressing the controversy between science and morality, or head and heart - a bitter but comic tale in the manner of Jonathan Swift.

We begin Series 4 as we follow Dante and Virgil as they come up to and ascend Mount Purgatory, a story dramatising what we do when we cleanse ourselves of the stains within us. Come along: the scenery is beautiful, the encounters are striking, the wisdom resonates. And we can do it together as we read/listen. In Canto 1 we meet the mysterious figure of Cato, their first encounter, the Guardian of the Gate.

A short, timely fable, about devastating fires in California (back in 1879), and about how projecting our fears onto the future can keep us from any kind of action.

Here's another fable about thinking too much in a time of crisis, but it also expands into a consideration of just what makes each of us valuable and worthy of compassion. But watch out: there's another unexpected and perhaps disturbing ending here.