For some reason a tire in the water has me disgusted with my meditation spot, and I haven't been in a while. Today there was a can and two bottles bobbing in the water. You can avert your gaze from litter, but it's distinctly ugly. The sky is beautiful, the waves, the birds.
I'm reading Devotions by Mary Oliver, but I'm past my posting online about her. This book is a greatest hits, and there are a few books that got away from me, and I haven't read. It's like you have to listen to all the albums first before you listen to the greatest hits album.
I've decided to do a bit of a Lucretius kick today. Born 99 BCE, he lived to 55 BCE, 44 years. De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) is his one surviving work. There is not much know about his life, and the various rumors that come down to us aren't convincing. It is the a book on Epicureanism: "Epicurus was an atomist and materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to religious skepticism and a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, and its main opponent later became Stoicism. It is a form of hedonism insofar as it declares pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal. However, the concept that the absence of pain and fear constitutes the greatest pleasure, and its advocacy of a simple life, make it very different from hedonism as colloquially understood."
In his poem, It seems he gives a material interpretation of reality to avoid the contradictions and upset from believing in the gods.
There's an old translation on Librivox. And plenty of videos on YouTube. Here is one.
