The Vancouver Chat (Reboot!)

The Dark Night - St. John of the Cross

Sun, Mar 15 · 2:00 PM PDT

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This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/297429753

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) was a 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet, ranked among such great intellectual and philosophical theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. After 1567, when he joined with Teresa of Ávila to institute reforms in the Carmelite order, opponents of the reform had him arrested, imprisoned, and subjected to public floggings. His ordeal lasted for nine months, but it provided the foundational experience for much of his subsequent poetry and spiritual writings.

"The Dark Night" ("Noche Oscura," c. 1577) is his poem and commentary of the same name, a masterpiece of mystical Christian literature. He coined the term "the dark night" to describe a painful series of purifications on the spiritual journey towards union with God. In the first phase (the night of sense), the soul begins to practice self-denial and detachment from worldly desires. In the second phase (the night of spirit), the divine light reveals the soul's own imperfections and sins. During this process, the soul suffers great anguish, feeling abandoned and forsaken, but perseverance promises an ultimate revelation of peace, love, and knowledge of God.

The writings of St. John have influenced centuries of theologians, philosophers, artists, poets, and psychologists. The concept of "the dark night" has been adopted to mean an intense period of personal crisis, emotional hardship, and/or deep introspection. Joseph Campbell states "The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed." Night-evoking places--e.g., the abyss, a cave, prison, or belly of the whale--are regarded as both tomb and womb, death and renewal, on the way through Campbell's hero's journey.

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."

Music Listening Session #7 — The Strokes’ Is This It (2001)

Sun, Mar 15 · 5:30 PM PDT

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Few albums in rock history can match the instant, game-changing impact of Is This It in 2001. Seemingly overnight, rock ’n’ roll turned grittier, haircuts grew shaggier, and the secondhand-blazer section at your local thrift store got a lot more crowded. It’s hard to separate The Strokes from the wave of like-minded turn-of-the-millennium bands at home in New York City (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, TV on the Radio) or further afield (The Hives, The White Stripes, The Libertines), but Is This It bore a singular mix of grime and glamour that felt like a sea change. Most importantly, carefree kiss-offs like “Someday” and “Last Nite” refashioned the left-field sounds of previous generations — the streetwise swagger of The Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop, the wounded romanticism of The Smiths and early Cure — into immediate, dance-floor-ready pop music that shaped the sound and aesthetic of a new era.

(Article: 'Is This It' At 20: How The Strokes Redefined Rock)

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New-ish series! Join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to listen to and discuss some of the greatest and most important albums of all time across different genres and eras. After each track we'll pause for a short discussion where we can share our thoughts and reflections or what the music has meant to us personally.

I'll have lyrics up via Zoom's screen share.

For our 7th session let's listen to The Strokes’ Is This It — has it really been 25 years since this album came out??

Albums we've previously discussed:

1. Nirvana's Nevermind (1991)
2. Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (1982)
3. Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush (1970)
4. Radiohead’s OK Computer (1997)
5. Joni Mitchell’s Blue (1971)
6. The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (1966)

We'll be joined by many other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/313678440/

Check out other music, film, and poetry discussions in the group every Sunday and occasionally other days.

Potential future listening sessions:

• Marvin Gaye
• Stevie Wonder
• Bob Dylan
• Pavement
• Wilco
• The Beatles
• David Bowie
• Sonic Youth
• Kraftwerk
• Massive Attack
• The Velvet Underground
• Patti Smith
• Aretha Franklin
• De La Soul
• Prince
• Lauryn Hill
• Aphex Twin
• The Pixies
• Sex Pistols
• The Clash
• The Smiths
• Joy Division
• Primal Scream
• DJ Shadow
• Public Enemy
• Talking Heads
• Fleetwood Mac
• Arcade Fire
• Kendrick Lamar
• Dr. Dre
• Sly and the Family Stone
• The Streets
• Built To Spill
• R.E.M.
• Bjork
• Nine Inch Nails
• Sufjan Stevens
• Dusty Springfield
• Otis Redding
• ETC...

Designing The Perfect Society – 1on1 philosophical & political WORKSHOP (COH)

Sun, Mar 15 · 6:00 PM PDT

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IMPORTANT NOTICE:
To be the speaking participant you must RSVP via Calendly.
The link to my Calendly calendar is available in my Egora profile:
http://egora-ilp.org/philosopher/Cezary_Jurewicz

All others are welcome to join to listen, use the chat, use the breakout rooms, and comment at the end.

About Citizen Office Hours:
If the Citizen is to be the highest authority in democracy, should we not have office hours to make ourselves available and accountable to our fellow citizens? The answer is YES – yes, we should.

Also, in democracy, there is no power without responsibility. If the citizens do not accept the responsibility of being citizens, then we do not really have any power – the power we might think we have is illusory. Therefore, all responsible citizens should make themselves available at their own "Citizen Office Hours" to build our democratic power through collaboration.

This event is a publication of my Citizen Office Hours. I am making myself available to discuss any of my or your ideas published in Egora. Egora is a platform for efficiently developing and effectively sharing our political philosophies with each other. Please be already registered for Egora before our meeting and at least somewhat familiar with my Ideological Profile so we can have a proper and thorough discussion. If you share your Ideological Profile in the comments in advance, i will take some time to study it before our meeting (ideally, the audience will do so too). Here is the link to my profile again:
http://egora-ilp.org/philosopher/Cezary_Jurewicz

FTI: Presentation: Trump & non Trump supporters on Transgender issues

Tue, Mar 17 · 3:45 PM PDT

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We will take the facts and conclusions from the perspective of trump supporters and non trump supporters put together during the prior week’s workshop, and share both the Trump and Non Trump perspectives on the topic for the audience to create their own conclusions.

Format:
Lecture and discussion

Note:
Social time for our community 15 minutes before the presentation.

To get familiar with our past events, feel free to check out our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmixGB9GdrptyEWovEj80zg

After registering via zoom, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We publish our event recordings on our Youtube channel to offer our help to anyone who would like to but can’t attend the meeting, so we need to give this clause. If you don’t want to be recorded, just remain on mute and keep your video off.

Here’s our legal notice:
For valuable consideration received, by joining this event I hereby grant Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns, the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use and publish any and all Zoom recordings for trade, advertising and any other commercial purpose, and to alter the same without any restriction. I hereby release Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns from all claims and liability related to said video recordings.