Anywhere

Settings dominated by noise hinder clarity of perspective, jarring the most even-tempered nature.

It is not necessary or desirable to shut out the world; what is prudent and essential is to restore and sustain a sense of balance and equanimity in one's life and surroundings.

This process, too, is an art.

Ancestral Shadows

Among the most imaginative of Christmas traditions in many places is the telling of ghost stories. 

Among the finest ghostly tales in the English language are those of M. R. James and Russell Kirk, and these are enthusiastically recommended to the reader.

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

~William Shakespeare


 

Virtue and The Good

Ideas flow throughout culture over time; some run dry, others permeate the social and cultural strata.

If what the philosophers say is true, happiness is a life of virtue according to reason.  Its pursuit engages the spiritual faculties, which are Reason and Free Will.  The Good being self-evident, all else is illusion, delusion, vanity, pride, conceit-- obstacles to the quest.