Thematic Calendar

Current Theme: Blue Winter – Suffering, Wilderness & Eternity

Suffering & Beauty

• Martyrdom as witness and sacrifice; profound examination of human suffering.
• Grappling with the Problem of Evil—why do the good suffer?
• Suffering that transforms, redeems, and beautifies through endurance and meaning.

Wilderness & Exile

• Experiences of spiritual emptiness, profound alienation, wandering souls in modernity.
• Nostalgia for lost sacredness, the melancholy of exile from a spiritual home.

Eternity

• Eschatology—What lies beyond? Ultimate realities, immortality, the soul’s destiny.
• Does the finitude of life give it meaning, or is eternity our true context?

Year-Round Accepted Themes (Mainstays):

• What It Means to Be Human: Profound meditations on human dignity, potential, frailty.
• Art Review: Critical engagement with art as spiritual and cultural nourishment.
• Literature in Civilization: Reflections on texts that shaped humanity, civilization-building classics.
• Poetry: Timeless poetic expressions of human longing, insight, beauty, and truth.
• Metaphysics: Deep philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality, existence, and transcendence.
• Faith & Reason: The harmony (and friction) between spiritual conviction and rational inquiry.

Thematic Calendar (2025–2026):

Blue Spring (September–November 2025) – Recollection & The Interior Life

Recollection

• Cultural memory, ancestral reverence, sacred geography, saints, and their legacy.
• Rediscovery of rare or forgotten literary treasures, and nostalgia for transcendent beauty.
• Deep, longing memories evoking the Platonic realm—preternatural grace, beauty beyond the material.

The Interior Life

• Silence and solitude—pursuit of obscurity as an act of virtue, hidden sanctity.
• Domestic spirituality, quiet acts of virtue within mundane, daily rhythms.
• Hesychasm: contemplative practice, deep inner stillness, quiet transformation of the soul.

Red Summer (Dec–Feb 2026) – Creation & Festivity

Creation & Creativity

• Natural philosophy and the poetic beauty of science—rediscovering wonder in knowledge.
• Artistic creation as divine collaboration—humans echoing the Creator through ingenuity.
• The technical artistry of engineering and craftsmanship as acts of spiritual meaning.

Festivities

• Celebrations and rituals as cultural reaffirmation of identity, joy, and communal unity.
• Holidays and feasts reflecting deep cultural memory and collective happiness.

Red Autumn (March–May 2026) – Vocation, Light & Communion

Vocations

• The existential call to live authentically, courageously responding to life's summons.
• Exploring deeply personal and particular callings vs. settling for comfortable generalities.
• Navigating purpose, destiny, and the challenge of meaningful choice.

Light

• Platonic illumination: insight and spiritual awakening as moments of revelation.
• Internal radiance—soul’s awakening, enlightenment, and transformation.

Communion

• Genuine bonds of human fellowship, community formed through shared meaning.
• Spiritual unity beyond mere proximity—authentic communion of souls.

Other (Infrequent/Reactive) Themes: 

• Mourning: Honest cultural grief—responding to war, loss, and communal suffering.
• Artificial Intelligence and the Human Soul: Confronting new technologies’ existential threats and promises—personhood vs. digital consciousness.
• Rebuilding After Collapse: Raw reflections on renewal, cultural resurrection after profound crisis.
• Sacred Architecture: Theological symbolism in physical spaces, exploring divine encounter through structures.