Areopagus Volume LXXI

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to the seventy first volume of the Areopagus, arriving in your inboxes on this very first day of December. For some of you this signals the approach of summer and of warmer days to come! For me, at least, where I am, it foretells of frost and snow.

A thousand hills, but no birds in flight,
Ten thousand paths, with no person's tracks.
A lonely boat, a straw-hatted old man,
Fishing alone in the cold river snow.

This was written by Liu Zhongyuan, a Chinese philosopher-poet who lived more than one thousand years ago. Even now his words ring true: no birds in flight, no tracks on the paths, and lonely wanderers among the "cold river snow". But let us stay warm! By whatever light you read may this volume of the Areopagus keep you company on this crisp and darkling December's day...