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Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Scoop Contributor
Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.
His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.
lefevremartin77@gmail
Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 18]
What Comes After Obama, And America?
Monday, 7 November 2022, 11:18 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
[It gives me no satisfaction to re-publish this column in Scoop from nearly 13 years ago (February 2010), which disturbingly predicated where America is today and why. Things have gotten so bad in the USA that I find myself unable to write about the ... More >>
Meeting The Crisis Of Man’s Consciousness
Friday, 4 November 2022, 11:10 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The mystery of consciousness is as old as there have been people conscious that they were conscious. However most people, including most philosophers and scientists, don't know what consciousness is. That confusion is compounded when speculating on ... More >>
Science And Religion Aren’t About The Same Thing
Tuesday, 25 October 2022, 11:27 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The beauty of a wood always surprises one on a rainy day. After months of smoke and haze from wildfires, the early rains are a godsend. A light drizzle falls as I walk along the fragrant paths. The parkland is devoid of people except for a couple ... More >>
Localism Increases The Fragmentation Of The Earth
Wednesday, 19 October 2022, 10:58 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The latest philosophical fad among comfortable progressives is that we each, all 8 billion-and-counting of us, belong to a particular place. The focus on “community” however, is a reaction to the planetary ecological and socio-political crisis. Localism ... More >>
Q Craziness And Unaddressed Evil
Friday, 14 October 2022, 11:15 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
You can tolerate a Trumper. You can pity a Trumper. You can even understand a Trumper. But you can never reason with a Trumper. As Ben Sasse, the junior senator from Nebraska, says in his anodyne way, “Something is really wrong here. Something deeper is going ... More >>
Fragmentation And Wholeness
Friday, 7 October 2022, 11:10 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
For at least 100,000 years, since ‘modern man’ first emerged from Africa, humans have been as we are—tribal, self-centered and dominated by the separative, alienating capabilities of so-called higher thought. During indigenous times, people lived in ... More >>
The Silence Of Being
Friday, 30 September 2022, 1:04 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Having had so-called mystical experiences since I was 18, and also being of a philosophical bent (though that word has a double meaning), I've come to understand mystical experiencing as a universal phenomenon that transcends belief systems. Consider the following ... More >>
The Inter-National Order Is Dead And Gone
Saturday, 24 September 2022, 4:19 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
During the pandemic I initiated a series of dialogues at the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. UPeace is the only UN-mandated University in the world, formed by the General Assembly in 1980. More >>
The Inter-National Order Is Dead And Gone
Friday, 23 September 2022, 2:10 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
During the pandemic I initiated a series of dialogues with the rector and others at the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica. UPeace is the only UN-mandated University in the world, formed by the General Assembly in 1980. The thematic question ... More >>
Heightened Senses In Nature Opens The Door To Meditative States
Tuesday, 20 September 2022, 2:00 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The weather, in fact the season has dramatically changed since my last meditation in the parkland. The temperature is 40 degrees less than it was last week, and though the leaves haven’t begun to turn in California’s Central Valley yet, fall is ... More >>
Collapsing The Distinction Doesn’t Resolve The Contradiction Between Man And Nature
Friday, 16 September 2022, 10:34 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
After 30 years, the Western project of blurring the difference between humans and nature, even to the point of equating the self with nature, is foundering on its own philosophical preposterousness. Perhaps, given the ecological and civilizational ... More >>
Symbolic Thought Broke The Bond Between Humans And Nature
Wednesday, 14 September 2022, 12:07 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Humankind stands at an evolutionary crossroads. Our species cannot continue fragmenting the natural world without inducing a collapse of natural systems, with devastating consequences for humanity. Symbolic thought was a gift of Promethean fire that evolved ... More >>
Intolerable Darkness Is The Singularity
Friday, 9 September 2022, 10:43 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The question of where and how man went wrong has plagued philosophers for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. In modern Western philosophy, the basic view of human nature has alternated between the fatalism of the 17th century English philosopher ... More >>
Revolution Is An Explosion Of Insight
Monday, 5 September 2022, 10:17 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The days grow noticeably shorter in the northern hemisphere. Sunlight drains from the emerald stream and streambank, leaving the water and foliage in shadow as the sun descends below the tree line. It’s hot, and there aren’t many birds around. ... More >>
‘Polarization’ Isn’t The Problem
Friday, 2 September 2022, 10:28 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
What can responsible citizens do in a nation heading toward despotism? How much do systems of government, versus social and psychological issues in a given society at a given time, determine whether a nation falls prey to totalitarianism? At what ... More >>
The Present Crisis And The Transmutation Of Man
Wednesday, 31 August 2022, 1:34 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
We drove to the end of the gravel road into the canyon just beyond town, and parked near the locked gate a half-mile from the gorge. Walking in on the rocky path, we stopped frequently to take in the volcanic slabs of the gorge, and look at the fading ... More >>
Death And The Unknown
Friday, 26 August 2022, 11:24 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The known is false security, while the unknown is the source of mystery and bliss. Yet we cling to the known, and fear losing it. Why? Is it because we have no understanding and relationship with the ever-present actuality of death? I don’t mean death as ... More >>
Enlightenment Isn’t Personal
Wednesday, 24 August 2022, 1:48 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s noon and the temperature is already near 100 at the northeastern corner of California’s Central Valley. I carry a lawn chair the couple hundred meters from the car to the meditation place on the creek, wade in and place it in the shallow ... More >>
The Future Of Humanity?
Friday, 19 August 2022, 11:56 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
With America moribund and slouching toward dictatorship, and the international order collapsing, awakening human beings need to move to fill the vacuum at the global level, or all manner of authoritarianism will fill it at national levels. Most people ... More >>
Shaping The Human Mind Is Enslavement
Thursday, 11 August 2022, 11:27 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The land is bone dry, and cobwebs cover the bushes along the creek. California normally goes months without rain in the summer, but like many other places on earth now, a deep drought has set in. However a swallowtail butterfly flutters about for the ... More >>
