Epitome

Episode 78 - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Part 2

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 19 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

More aphorisms and commentary from Balthasar Gracián, the 17th century Spanish Jesuit philosopher, offering counsel on surviving and thriving in the life of the court and society in general.

Episode 77 - Laotze - Dao De Jing - Passages 28-36

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Our fourth installment of 9-passage sections of the ancient Chinese sage's Classic of the Way and Its Excellence.

Episode 76 - What is Education?

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist, educator, and famous as "Darwin's Bulldog," for championing the revolutionary naturalist's theory of evolution, offers his definition and explanation of a liberal education.

Episode 75 - Cultivating Peace

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

A handful of maxims whose practice can bring quietude and tranquillity to life.

Episode 74 - Thanatopsis - Bryant

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

William Cullen Bryant's most famous poem, which translates from the Greek as "A View of Death," written when he was 17 years old.

Episode 73 - An Adventure in India - Voltaire

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 07:14:00 +0000

Greek philosopher Pythagoras, while sojourning in India, encounters an herb, an oyster, and a mob of Hindus bent on burning two men at the stakes for the perceived heresies of questioning religious traditional wisdom.

Episode 72 - Aphrodite & Ares - Homer

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

The story sung by Demodocus, singer of the court of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians, hosts of Odysseus after his raft washes ashore on the island of Scherie. How Aphrodite, goddess of love, cheated on her husband, Hephaestus, the gods' smithy, with Ares, god of war.

Episode 71 - Time Sonnets II - Shakespeare

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Six sonnets on the theme of time by the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. Music: John Dowland "Flow My Tears," performed by guitarist Jon Sayles. http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/earlymusic.htm

Episode 70 - The Artist - Maupassant

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

A short story from the French master of the form, Guy de Maupassant. A skilled carnival knife-thrower laments his misfortune to the sympathetic narrator of the tale.

Episode 69 - On Clothing by Henry David Thoreau

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

An excerpt from the chapter, "Economy," in Walden by Henry David Thoreau, where the philosopher expounds his thoughts on simple accoutrements.

Episode 68 - A Fable by Mark Twain

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

The great American storyteller, author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, offers this brief, moralistic animal tale featuring the cleverness of the cat, the skepticism of the ass, and the curiosity of a host of other animals of the forest.

Episode 67 - The Philosophy of Epicurus

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

This gentle ancient Greek philosopher lived a life of celibacy and temperance and taught that reason was to be used to enable people to judge with certainty what is to be chosen, and what to be avoided, to preserve themselves free from pain, and to secure health of body, and tranquillity of mind.

Episode 66 - Specimen Days by Walt Whitman - an excerpt

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 27 May 2018 10:00:00 +0000

From Whitman's entry on May 12. The narrative of a two-day battle, replete with details of the relentless fighting and gruesome carnage, the beauty of the cloudy sky revealing a silvery moon, and ending with a tribute to the thousands of unknown and unburied soldiers who perished in the United States Civil War.

Episode 65 - A Sobering Meditation

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 20 May 2018 10:00:00 +0000

A collection of quotations on mortality from various sources, famous and less known, classic and contemporary.

Episode 64 - Love Sonnets II - Shakespeare

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 13 May 2018 10:00:00 +0000

A second set of five sonnets on Love by William Shakespeare, in celebration of Mother's Day. Music: A madrigal, Amor mi sprona (bassoon & choir) by Alfonso Ferrabosco, Sr. Performed by Robert Rønnes.

Episode 63 - Laotze Dao De Jing 19-27

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 06 May 2018 10:00:00 +0000

EPITOME's 3rd 9-passage installment of this terse philosophical classic attributed to the legendary ancient Chinese sage, Laotze.

Episode 62 - A Cold Greeting

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

A selection from the collection titled Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories by Ambrose Bierce.

Episode 61 - Song of the Rolling Earth

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 22 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

In celebration of the 48th anniversary of Earth Day, EPITOME presents the words of Walt Whitman in "Song of the Rolling Earth."

Episode 60 - The Ages of Life - Arthur Schopenhauer

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on the perception of time at different phases of life.

Episode 59 - The Sermon on the Mount - Part 2

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

The conclusion of this core document of spiritual wisdom.

Episode 58 - The Sermon on the Mount - Part 1

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 5, 6, & 7 - King James Version - Part 1.

Episode 57 - An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness - Part 2

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Paramahansa Yogananda expands upon his experience of cosmic consciousness and expresses it in his poem, "Samadhi." Taken from the 1946 edition of Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi.

Episode 56 - An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness - Part 1

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 18 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Part One of Two - A realized yogi narrates his attainment of the highest state of consciousness - samadhi.

Episode 55 - How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

One of the Just-So Stories Rudyard Kipling actually told his daughter at bedtime. It was later included with a number of others in the book of that title. They are called by this name because Kipling's firstborn daughter, Josephine ("Effie"), insisted that they be told exactly the same way every time, "just so," or she would correct her father.

Episode 54 - Learning & Play

bomogo52@gmail.com (Bob Gonzalez) — Sun, 04 Mar 2018 11:00:00 +0000

The key to lifelong youth.