Category Archives: miscellaneous
Priest Dogs of Iran
This is a continuation of a thread on dogs. Zoroastrian funerary rituals appear to indicate that ancient Iranians believed that dogs had a unique power to discern whether the life had departed from a body. What follows next is known as the dog-sight (sagdid) ceremony. A dog, generally a “four-eyed” dog (a dog with two [...]
Asha and Commerce
It’s easy to see the prominent role of moral dualism in Zoroastrianism. It is not always quite so obvious what the characteristics of Good and Evil are considered to be. Ultimately, I think the best answer is that Good and Evil have no characteristics. To associate characteristics with these principles is equivalent to giving names [...]
Reconstructing Zarathustra
I am not as interested in Zarathustra the actual prehistoric man, if he ever existed, as much as I am interested in the name Zarathustra as a label for—or a personification of—the core ideas of Zoroastrianism. For me, the essence of Zoroastrianism is the existentialist basis of cosmic dualism: the value-laden character of phenomena, or [...]
Fire and Water
Here in California, we have two seasons: a season of water and a season of fire. The fire season generally begins when the rains cease, which is typically in mid-April—say, Tax Day. The fire season continues beyond the end of summer into the warm California autumn, until the rains return—around about Halloween. I remember, as [...]
Pink Floyd and Thoreau
I was just listening to the Pink Floyd song “Time” the other day, when three lines of the song struck me: You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way … You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today … Hanging on in quiet desperation is the [...]
Interview with the Prophet (Part 2)
Continued. When we left off, Zarathushtra was explaining his reasoning for enforcing morality with Heaven and Hell. Idol Chatter: Even if the punishment fits the crime and Hell has an end, don’t you think this kind of compensation for good behavior undermines our esteem of virtue itself? Zarathushtra: There is certainly that danger, but at [...]
Interview with the Prophet (Part 1)
I recently crossed paths with the legendary prophet Zarathushtra while hiking in the mountains behind my house, the Diablo Range. He and I swapped cell numbers, and he graciously consented to scheduling an interview. Idol Chatter: I’d like to begin by saying what a great honor it is to be granted an interview with the [...]
The Cradle of Ethical Metaphysics
If we turn to the Gathas to determine the geographic origins of Zoroastrianism, it seems reasonable to conclude—or guess—that Zoroastrianism originated somewhere in or around Bactria-Margiana. Recent discoveries of what appear to be ancient, pre-Zoroastrian fire temples in the Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex (BMAC), appear to confirm this line of reasoning. But we cannot necessarily conclude [...]
My College Sweethearts
It suddenly occurs to me that I wrote my first love poem 26 years ago. I wrote it in Apple ][ BASIC. I just had to tell her how fine she looked on that low-res green screen. What beautiful pictures that green screen could make of my sweet little Trigah. Trig! That bitch was the [...]
The Source
The theme, or motto, of this blog has its source in an essay of Plutarch entitled “On Listening to Lectures.” Here’s a translation of Plutarch’s actual words: The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards [...]