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  • Ibn ʿArabī and the Widened Heart

    Ibn ʿArabī and the Widened Heart
    2026/01/31
    Harmonia walks the candlelit streets of Al-Andalus to tell the story of Ibn Arab, the Sufi mystic whose vision of a widened heart taught that truth can be encountered across cultures, faiths, and differences. From the vibrant scholarship of Seville to a life of travel and spiritual insight, this episode explores how love itself became a form of knowledge --- and why that wisdom feels more necessary than ever in our interconnected world. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/ibn-arabi-and-widened-heart View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=202
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    18 分
  • Jean de Léry

    Jean de Léry
    2026/01/30
    In 1558, a young French Protestant fled a failing colony in Brazil and found himself living among the Tupinamb people. Jean de Lry did something almost no European of his time attempted: he listened. He transcribed their songs, learned their language, and recognized their full humanity. Centuries before the term existed, he practiced cultural humility as a spiritual discipline. His insight---that encountering the radically different reveals truth about ourselves---was prophetic. He glimpsed the oneness of humanity before it became our lived reality. Today, as we navigate a globalized world that demands respect across difference, Lry's sixteenth-century wisdom offers a path forward: the stranger as teacher, dignity as universal, and listening as sacred practice. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/jean-de-lery View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=197
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    22 分
  • The Flowing Light of the Godhead

    The Flowing Light of the Godhead
    2026/01/29
    In thirteenth-century Germany, a blind mystic named Mechthild of Magdeburg wrote words that powerful men wanted to burn. Her response: 'No one can burn the truth.' Her book, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, carried a radical vision---that divine love flows continuously and abundantly to every soul, not as something earned but as an endless stream seeking us all. Writing in the language of ordinary people rather than Latin, Mechthild challenged the idea that grace was scarce and spiritual truth belonged only to the qualified few. Her image of abundant, accessible divine love has flowed through history, shaping how we understand inherent human dignity today. This is the story of a truth that couldn't be contained, and how it became the water we swim in. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/flowing-light-godhead View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=196
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    18 分
  • Benedict of Nursia: The Root System of Western Civilization

    Benedict of Nursia: The Root System of Western Civilization
    2026/01/28
    In 530 CE, as the Roman Empire crumbled into chaos, a monk named Benedict wrote a short guide for communal living that would change history. His simple principle---ora et labora, prayer and work---created 37,000 monasteries that preserved classical knowledge, pioneered agricultural and technological innovation, and built the educational infrastructure that became Western universities. While ancient texts traveled through Constantinople, Baghdad, and Moorish Spain, Benedictine monks kept literacy alive in the West, creating the civilization that could receive that knowledge when it returned. Harmonia explores how Benedict's integration of work and worship, his emphasis on community and service, and his patient institution-building offer principles that still shape how we build lasting communities today. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/benedict-nursia-root-system-western-civilization View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=195
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    21 分
  • Alcuin of York: The Teacher Who Saved Civilization

    Alcuin of York: The Teacher Who Saved Civilization
    2026/01/27
    In the late 700s, when most of Europe had forgotten how to read, Alcuin of York convinced Charlemagne to fund an educational revolution. Through monastery schools, standardized curriculum, and a clearer script, he preserved classical learning and Christian texts that might otherwise have been lost forever. His vision---that education is civilizational infrastructure, not luxury---took a thousand years to become reality, but now shapes how we organize society. Every public school, every library, every child learning to read is an echo of what Alcuin fought for in that scriptorium in Aachen. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/alcuin-york-teacher-who-saved-civilization View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=194
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    19 分
  • Nicholas of Cusa: The Boundary of Wonder

    Nicholas of Cusa: The Boundary of Wonder
    2026/01/26
    Nicholas of Cusa stood at the boundary between what we can know and what we cannot, and he found something unexpected there---freedom. In a world fracturing from religious division and the fall of Constantinople, this 15th-century cardinal discovered that recognizing the limits of human understanding wasn't defeat, but liberation. His concept of learned ignorance---the wisdom of knowing we cannot fully comprehend God's essence---didn't lead him to cynicism or despair. Instead, it grounded his work for unity, reform, and reconciliation. Through the metaphor of a carpenter and a table, Nicholas showed how we can live with purpose and meaning even within mystery, how humility before the infinite can free us to act faithfully in the finite world we inhabit. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/nicholas-cusa-boundary-wonder View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=193
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    20 分
  • Felipe Guaman Poma: The Chronicle No King Would Read

    Felipe Guaman Poma: The Chronicle No King Would Read
    2026/01/25
    In 1615, an eighty-year-old indigenous Peruvian nobleman arrived in Lima carrying a massive manuscript---1,200 pages documenting his people's history and the abuses of Spanish colonial rule, addressed to a king who would never read it. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala had lost everything in colonial courts, yet spent his final years creating permanent witness through meticulous text and drawings. The manuscript disappeared for three centuries before scholars rediscovered it in Denmark. This episode explores how his insistence that marginalized voices deserve preservation planted seeds for principles we now take as self-evident, why the structures that hold truth across generations matter as much as truth-tellers themselves, and how recognition sometimes takes four hundred years to unfold. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/felipe-guaman-poma-chronicle-no-king-would-read View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=192
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    26 分
  • Phillis Wheatley: The Poet Who Proved the Impossible

    Phillis Wheatley: The Poet Who Proved the Impossible
    2026/01/24
    In 1772, eighteen powerful men gathered in Boston to examine whether an enslaved young woman could truly have written poetry of such brilliance. Phillis Wheatley's quiet insistence on her own humanity created proof that would outlast everyone in that room---demonstrating that human capacity transcends any boundary others try to impose. This episode explores how she gave future generations the language to imagine justice before the world was ready, why her method of proving rather than arguing still matters, and how torchbearers like her plant seeds they may never see grow. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/phillis-wheatley-poet-who-proved-impossible View comments on this podcast: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=190
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    19 分