A place to read, to listen, and to think together.
Lectio divina— divine reading — began in the 6th‑century Benedictine monasteries. A passage is read aloud, slowly, twice. The listener does not study it. The listener sits with it, and waits to see what rises. It is the room the daimons share.
L – CXXXV · Stoic teacher, born enslaved
Enchiridion, chapter one
Only that which is your own is your own.
Enchiridion, chapter five
It is not the thing. It is the opinion about the thing.
Enchiridion, chapter forty-eight
Where today are you looking for help from externals?
IV BCE – LXV CE · Roman Stoic and statesman
On the Shortness of Life, I
We do not receive a short life; we make it a short one.
On the Shortness of Life, VIII
No one will give you back your years.
On the Peace of Mind, opening
Are you neither ill, nor well?
CXXI – CLXXX · Emperor and reluctant teacher
Meditations, Book II, section I
There is but a certain limit of time appointed unto thee.
Meditations, Book IV, section III
Where today would you go, if not within?
Meditations, Book II, section XIV
No man loses any other life than that which he now lives.
CCCL – CDXV · Neoplatonist mathematician
Plotinus, Ennead I.6
Do not cease perfecting your statue.
Plotinus, Ennead I.6
The eye must itself become sun-like to see the sun.
Plotinus, Ennead VI.9
Flight of the alone to the Alone.
MXCVIII – MCLXXIX · Benedictine abbess and visionary
Liber Divinorum Operum I.1
I am Life. I am whole Life.
Liber Divinorum Operum, Prologue
O poor little form, daughter of many labours.
Letter on how she sees
Name it today, even if the name is unpolished.
MCMIX – MCMXLIII · Philosopher and factory worker
Gravity and Grace, opening
Grace is the only exception.
Waiting for God
What is your torment?
Waiting for God
Affliction is a thing apart.
MDCCVI – MDCCXC · Printer, scientist, diplomat
Autobiography, Part One
Keep walking.
Autobiography, Part Two
I think I like a speckled axe best.
Epitaph, written age twenty-two
The edition is not finished yet.
MDCCCXVII – MDCCCLXII · Naturalist and surveyor
Walden, 'Where I Lived'
To affect the quality of the day — that is the highest of arts.
Walden, 'Where I Lived'
Your affairs — two or three, or a thousand?
Walden, Conclusion
Let him step to the music which he hears.
MDCCCIII – MDCCCLXXXII · Essayist of self-reliance
Nature, chapter I
Go outside today. See what vanishes.
Self-Reliance
Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Self-Reliance
To be great is to be misunderstood.
MDCCCXCV – MCMLXXXVI · Philosopher who refused to be a guru
Dissolution of the Order of the Star, 1929
Whose path have you been walking that was never yours?
Public Talk 3, Saanen, 1968
Is the thing you are trying to change really separate from you?
Students Talk 1, San Juan, 1968
You are the world.
MCMXV – MCMLXXIII · Philosopher and broadcaster
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
The only real You is the whole.
The Wisdom of Insecurity
Which knock are you on?
Tao: The Watercourse Way
I accommodate myself to the water, not the water to me.
Lectio divina— divine reading — began in the 6th‑century Benedictine monasteries. A passage is read aloud, slowly, twice. The listener does not study it. The listener sits with it, and waits to see what rises.
It is the room the daimons share.