On Chrysippus' and Marcus Aurelius' Cylinders and Other Images

The Marcus Aurelius' seminar was the second best I have ever given. Pure pleasure of learning was mixed with pure pleasure of teaching. Particularly interesting sessions, if I have to choose only two among them, were the ones devoted to the metaphor of the cylinder, as applied by Chrysippus and Marcus Aurelius, and the one on the notion of time and the present moment in early Stoa (the subtle work on the meta-physics of time and grammar) and the primacy of the present moment in Marcus Aurelius.

Classes came to an end and a marvellous interdisciplinary conference on psychotherapy took place in Glasgow. On the way back and over the ocean, I was enjoying reading Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales, Sir Conan Doyle, Alasdair MacLean and Joseph Jacobs. Some stories float like bubbles that are carried away by the evening breeze. Some others, like the Scottish, root in the earth instead, haunted by the past narratives and pregnant with the future retellings.

Time has been unraveling like a spring flower whose scent anticipates Easter.

Bellini's Madonna in Kelvingrove Art Gallery (Glasgow).
One of those blues that one would like to gaze at in all eternity

PS: It was possible to say goodbye to Europe and return to London Ontario after Glasgow. Things might prove to be slightly more difficult with Paris later this year.