A Well-Pointed Individual

Overheard from a Teaching Surgeon at Yale that " The Greeks" ( from the classical period ) often were masters of more than one discipline - a mathematician would also study philosophy (love of knowing) and theology (knowing the gods). Questions and considerations of these early thinkers showed a healthy functioning brain.

If our current day emphasis could be upon honoring the questioning mind, the holistic model held up to us by Greek scholars might emerge. People's ability to reason without knowledge was honored in early democracy. Read Paul Woodruff's: First Democracy.

Honoring the joy of one's active mind probably delivers an impetus to tackle a wide variety of information. That's fodder for more creative thought and nourishment for the soul. Plus, participating in a broad community of folks who wish to share thoughts, questions, and conclusions with each other expands one's identity as a human being.

You'd be surprised at the number of ideas which fed the mind of the author of The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown uncovered a body of research and conjecture which coalesced in his book resulting in the controversial movie. Some of the ideas examined by Brown arise from "innocent" questions which, when examined could bring down some elemental beliefs of one very influential world religion.

Da Vinci is known for his broad interest in his world. A quick review of his notebooks sparks one's own imagination, and frankly, one's pleasure in eavesdropping upon his reasoning at work. Catching the spark from another's spirit just might inspire another painting, or design for a thrilling mysterious secret.

Beauty was a force for the artists working in the Italian Renaissance. And Venus was the goddess embodying the varying qualities of beauty. Hidden in the accrued attributes of Venus is the number 5. As the planet Venus travels across the sky in her almost perfect circular orbit around the sun, from Earth, she leaves the impression of a five-pointed star. Her fruit, the apple, has a star hidden within it. Artist/architects of Da Vinci's age were also practitioners of practical arithmetic. A five pointed star is interesting as a math problem, and as an architectural achievement. Da Vinci seems to be looking for mathematical similarities, most obviously in his study in proportion of Vitruvian man.

As the star is useful as a symbol for practical practice, it can also inspire suppositions. What is the function of the human head? (Thinking/reason.) The right hand? (Conscious attention.) The left hand? (Intuitive informing.) The right foot? (Physical action.) The left foot? (Creative wisdom.) Or, what are the five functions of the human being ? Mind, Emotion, Body, Spirit, Intuition is a list I like. Carl Jung (p. 156) reminds us that our motion on earth is not toward perfection but wholeness and equilibrium self-regulated by the psyche. The Greeks associated organization and seeking order with Psyche. Her efforts to appease Venus were finally rewarded by immortality by the Olympians.

Back to the Yale surgeon: Clinical Professor of Surgery, Sherwin Nuland. How our being is organized is a continuing mystery. Nuland has devoted a good deal of his career in understanding a central organizer, the human brain, especially as it operates in concert with the whole body. He advocates deep respect for the health of the brain, for it is the most complicated organ that we know.

The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn

An idea. You are at the end of your rope. Maybe not today, but perhaps someday. Keep this under your hat. Read Henry Miller. Preferably an old edition you find lying around somewhere. Probably somebody hid one in a closet, because Miller was banned for a long time. That's how my first Miller book came into my hands. In 1973 I bought a house owned by a university professor. While I was cleaning, readying to move in, I found Tropic of Cancer tucked behind a hot water heater in its own small dark closet. At the time I was divorcing for my own sanity, yet I was feeling rather out on a limb. I was basically risking everything. And Miller was saying, "Go ahead. Everything ain't anything anyway." There is where life began. Maybe that is where it can begin for you, too!