Grammar of the Natural World: Deciphering The Discarded Image (Previously Recorded Mini-Class)

Description

Once upon a time, the world seemed to move within the patterns of a cosmic game. The heavens danced to a music which resonated throughout the firmament. All the created world opened like a book written by a divine hand, and nature was a language. 

This is a vision that is now very unfamiliar to us. Are we separated from this world? 

In his preface to The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis describes the great divide that lies between us, and the landmarks of understanding that marked ages past. He analogizes the need that we have for a “map” to orient us among the traditions of thought assumed to be so familiar to past audiences that they needed no explanation. Images deeply familiar to older minds are now foreign to us. 

We need a map of the natural world. 

Topics Covered: 

In this class, we will journey towards regaining some familiarity with the forms of nature which infused ages of image and symbol. We will lay the framework for how the universe was viewed as a unified whole in the old model, and what lay behind this view. Slowly, we will begin to fill in the details of that model from planets and their influence, to the waters and their working, to the various symbolic natures that flora took on. We will look at the “architecture” of the world, as it used to be envisioned, and at the repetitions of those building blocks down into the minutest of details, such as the microcosmic vision of the egg. 

There are no materials assigned for this class. The previous webinar The Living Page: Learning to Read the Language of Nature is recommended, though not required. It is partly in response to a common desire for more information following that webinar that this class has come about.

Instructor: Ella Hornstra

Meet Times: Mondays in September from 7:00-8:30 PM ET (5 sessions, approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes long each); Lifetime access to recordings will be available to students

Individual Price: $120 (Non-Refundable)

How to access the class: After their purchase is complete, students can find this mini-class in their HHL accounts under the “My Courses” tab. There will be a full list of instructions on how to view the live class sessions and the recordings through Canvas. Students will receive lifetime access to the recordings after the live sessions have finished.