Treat Yourself
A Bumblebee “treating itself” in the centre of an Echium Blue Bedder flower grown from seed. 5 July 2015.
December 12, 2022
Treat Yourself…….A Retreat in the Centre
Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains – a dream you have cherished only too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul; above all, he who possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind – the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself. Make your rules of life brief, yet so as to embrace the fundamentals; recurrence to them will then suffice to remove all vexation, and send you back without fretting to the duties to which you must return.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4
Whatever seeds each man sows and cultivates will grow and bear him their proper fruit. If these seeds are vegetative, he will be like a plant. If these seeds are sensitive, he will be like an animal. If these seeds are intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, satisfied with no created thing, he removes himself to the center of his own unity, his spiritual soul, united with God, alone in the darkness of God, who is above all things, he will surpass every created thing.
Pico Della Mirandola, Extract from Oration On the Dignity Of Man, 1486.
By restoring his nature to unity, nourishing his vital energy and concentrating his essence, he will penetrate to the origin of things. In that state, in which his heavenly nature is contained completely within itself and his spirit is undivided, how could anything else penetrate?
Extract from Chapter VII -The Breath of Life
Catharose de Petri