Podcast Benomtad

Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood, Part I

Robin Hood & the Tinker: The Sheriff of Nottingham sends out a warrant for Robin Hood’s arrest.  Local men don’t want to take it up, but a Tinker from out of town brags he will serve it.  Robin Hood is able to get him drunk and avoid a fight, but then has to fight him down the road.  The Tinker breaks Hood’s staff but the outlaw calls his men, and they make him one of their own.
 
The Shooting Match at Nottingham Town: The shamed Sheriff gathers his men in newly-minted armor and marches into London to ask the king to help him with the outlaw.  The king admonishes him, and he returns with the idea of a ruse: surely a shooting match will ensnare the proud Hood.  All the best shooters compete, but a mysterious stranger comes away with the prize begrudgingly bestowed upon him by a seemingly suspicious Sheriff.  RH cannot resist, however, and has a note shot into the Sheriff’s Hall letting him know he has been bested by his nemesis yet again.
 
Will Stutely Rescued by his Good Companions: Now a merry man in friar disguise is discovered and captured by the Sheriff’s foresters.  Robin Hood and others go to rescue him from the gallows, and in the process they thoroughly bepate the Sheriff’s men and humiliate the clever leader.  The Sheriff departs Part I silently and thoroughly, and holes up in his hamlet for days.  
 
Ian and I summarize and discuss these fine tales of the legendary hero of the people.  
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/vtACZtly05A
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/howard-pyle-s-robin-hood-part-i/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Authoritarian Regimes Don’t Take in Feedback from Below (Clip)

The lack of taking in feedback of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.  With many adherents of these ideologies, anything is justified.  We are reflecting on Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood, where the outlaw hero gives feedback, often rough, to the leadership of an illegitimate and rapacious regime.
 
RH on Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10148/10148-h/10148-h.htm
 
Jonathan Pageau’s Robin Hood:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GLGQRr2BM8vHfUBy1BsbM?si=5b436210cd9e4891
 
The Emerald: Tricksters
https://open.spotify.com/episode/23wxZblaSN2AGiySe94wJl?si=fedb567231c8473c
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the video episode:
https://youtu.be/WeKojww2hkk
 
For the audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/robin-hood-s-origins-little-john-the-trickster/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Jonathan Pageau's "Rapunzel," Summary and Discussion

An old woman lives alone in a small cottage in the woods, with bitterness and her rapunzel cabbages as companions.  She prizes the plants, however, attending them relentlessly.  Now a newly-married woodcutter and his pregnant wife live nearby, and the woodcutter eyes the greens in passing because his wife craves them.  The crone notices his taking one and says she’ll take what is most precious should he do that again.  He and his wife agonize over it, but she must have it, so he takes a bushel on his trip and brings peace to the house.  But after the baby is born, the witch steals into the house at night and absconds with their green-eyed daughter.
 
Twelve year-old Rapunzel lives deep in the woods, happy but lonely, with long flowing golden hair and bound by a magic circle.  One day Zoran calls to her from a tree outside, and she leaves the circle and joins him to view the heavens.  On the way down, her hair gets caught in the branches and she falls, bloodying herself a bit.  The witch screams at her in anger and fright, and Zoran flees.
 
Now her mother has a tower built for her and she wiles away the days singing.  When the witch visits she calls up to Rapunzel, who lets down her hair to climb up.  One day a prince was wandering in the woods and saw the visit, and when the old lady left he did the same.  The maiden was surprised to see a man, but he spoke kindly to her and they began regular visits.  But one day the witch saw a flower in her hair given to her by the prince, and her mother flew into a rage and cut her long locks.  Leading her down a hidden staircase and through a tunnel, she banished Rapunzel into the woods.
 
On the prince’s next visit, he was startled at who was in the tower and lost his trip and fell down it and into thorns which pierced his eyes.  He then wandered for years as a mendicant, being laughed at when he told his story.  He eventually came upon a crowd and learned that his father had died and that another was being crowned in his place.  His shame and anger were unbearable, and he stumbled out of town and fell, hurting himself.  A voice asked him about himself, and a hermit brought him to his hamlet.
 
Over the next days, the prince healed as the hermit spun flax, and he told the story to the old man.  The old man also told him stories, but distorted ones that the prince corrected, including his own story of losing his crown and that of Snow White, his mother.  When he left, the man reminded him to attend to his own story.
 
Soon after, in the silence after a loud cawing of a crow, he heard the faint singing of his beloved once again.  He followed the sound and, after days, went to the small, abandoned cabin she’d settled into to raise their children.  Upon reuniting, her tears washed away his blindness, and he decided to live a private life, knowing that contending for his crown could put his children into danger.  
 
LL and I summarize and discuss this retelling of the Grimm’s folktale, and then discuss its meaning.  Please join our discussion in the comments!
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the video episode:
https://youtu.be/eX0YUp4bTn0
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Hoarding Your Inner Gold, or Knowing How to Use It: “Spirit in the Bottle” (Clip)

Going into wholeness or connection, on the one hand, or solipsism and individualism, on the other hand.  It seems one can find one’s way to solipsism if one does not “return to school,” and patiently gain virtue so that one can hold one’s gifts non-egotistically and share them with the world.  And where the world goes depends on how people use their gifts.  From a discussion on the Brothers Grimm’s story.
 
Project Gutenberg Free (from “Household Tales”):
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5314/5314-h/5314-h.htm#chap99
 
A Summary of the Story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_in_the_Bottle
 
The Spirit of Life Podcast Episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0WvSewpERjCyXPD4MdTi4V?si=6e6463c571d84992
 
Supplement: The Myth of Proteus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/j479tvASC18
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/the-spirit-in-the-bottle-from-the-brothers-grimm/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

The Brothers Grimm’s “The Golden Goose”

LL and I read and discuss this lovely folktale.  A man had three sons, the youngest called Dummling (Simpleton), who was mocked and sneered at.  The eldest son wanted to hew wood in the forest, and his mother packed him cake and wine.  On the way, a small grey man greeted him and asked him to share the food, but the son refused, saying he would have none left.  At a tree, he cut his arm and returned home.  The second son does the same, and cuts his leg.
 
Now Dummling asked repeatedly to go, and his father relented, reasoning that he might learn a lesson.  His mother sent him off with cake baked with water and in cinders, and sour beer.
 
On the way, the same grey man appeared, but Dummling shared his meal, warning him it wasn’t much.  But when he pulled out the food, it was cake and wine.  The man thanked him after eating and directed him to a tree to cut down.  After Dummling did so, there appeared a goose whose every feather was golden.  He took the wondrous bird to an inn to spend the night.  
 
The innkeeper’s had three daughters, and when Dummling had gone out, the eldest tried to take a feather from the goose but became stuck to it.  The second daughter came for a feather and got stuck to the first, and the third, despite being warned away, fared likewise.  
 
The next morning Dummling set off on his way, heedless of the three daughters.  Soon, a scolding parson, a scheduling sexton and would-be-helpful laborers joined the ridiculous party.  They came to a town where a king had offered the hand of his serious daughter to anyone who could make her laugh, and as soon as she espied Dummling’s impromptu retinue, she laughed as if she would never stop.
 
However, when our simpleton went to claim her hand, her father, revolted by this ugly, ridiculed fellow, gave him a further task: to produce a man who could drink a cellarful of wine.  Dummling thought of the grey man, and at the felled tree sat a sorrowful man, who couldn’t drink water and who had just had a barrelful of wine but needed much  more.  He brought the man to the king’s cellar and he drank until his loins hurt.  
 
But the king now made a new request: a man who could eat a mountainful of bread.  Again he returned to the tree, and again he found a man who completed the task.  And for Dummling’s final extemporaneous task, he had to produce a ship that could traverse land and sea.  This time, the original grey man was waiting at the tree, and he said he would do it, “Since you have given me to eat and to drink.”  Finally, the king could resist no longer, and when he died, Dummling inherited the kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife.
 
LL and I discuss this fine story of persistence in the right despite others’ resistance, the magical help and helpers that then manifest, and wisdom itself.  
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the video episode:
https://youtu.be/yfp5PaSPEYw
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Robin Hood’s Origins, Little John & The Trickster

We summarize Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood’s Prologue, on the green-clad Robbing man’s origins and his meeting, being beat by, and joining forces with Little John.  Then we discuss Robin Hood as a proper response to the illegitimate and ravenous leader as well as his being a trickster figure that draws attention to problems in leadership, which lead either to corrections or bigger problems and even systemic collapse.  
 
Robin Hood, a lad of eighteen, is mocked by the King’s foresters on his way to an archery contest.  He walks away and one of them shoots an arrow past his head.  He turns and shoots that man dead and escapes into Sherwood Forest, where he lives as the leader of a band of outlaws.
 
One day Robin Hood goes around in search of whatever he can find.  He passes all sorts of people and comes to a border with a bridge crossing a river and sees a giant man on the other side.  Words are exchanged, and they meet on the bridge and words come to blows.  Robin Hood has discarded his bow and gotten a stout oaken staff, and for an hour or two no man is the better.  But finally Little John knocks him into the water.  Laughing, the outlaw emerges, and when his men arrive, they beat and then accept and christen their new comrade.
 
RH on Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10148/10148-h/10148-h.htm
 
Jonathan Pageau’s Robin Hood:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GLGQRr2BM8vHfUBy1BsbM?si=5b436210cd9e4891
 
The Emerald: Tricksters
https://open.spotify.com/episode/23wxZblaSN2AGiySe94wJl?si=fedb567231c8473c
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the video:
https://youtu.be/WeKojww2hkk
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Awakening and the Need for Some Kind of Grounding (Clip)

Robert Pirsig, of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” also had an awakening experience, where he said he was in touch with “quality,” the key concept of his metaphysics.  But he ended up hospitalized, and we talk about how these experiences need others, an understanding community, teachers, tradition and so forth.  Ian says that the biggest danger, however, is trying to cleave to it.  Otherwise, the system does regain equilibrium. 
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
And please link to or comment with someone I should check out or talk with!
 
Yamada Koun’s Awakening Experience:
The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau (228)
 
https://dynamic.wakingup.com/course/CO201BBAA?source=content%20share&share_id=53AFA6FA&pack=PK2BWQV&code=SCDA931C1
 
For the full episode, go to:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/mystical-and-awakening-experiences/
 
The video of this episode: 
https://youtu.be/sed7f_IxFww
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

“The Spirit in the Bottle” from The Brothers Grimm

A poor woodcutter sends his son to the high school to have a better lot in life, but the money runs out before the son can complete his studies.  He returns home and embarks on his father’s living with a cheerful spirit.  They don’t have money for a second axe, and he tells his father to borrow it from the neighbor.  At noon, the son sets off deeper into the woods to look at birds’ nests, ridiculed by his father.  
 
As he walked he ate his bread, peering among the green branches for a bird’s nest, and he happened upon a great, dangerous-looking oak.  “Many a bird must’ve made its nest in that.” Then he heard a smothered voice: “Let me out!” He finds a glass bottle in a little hollow, but when he uncorks it, a giant spirit ascended from it, saying he must now die.
 
The young scholar verbally jousts with the genie, and eventually tricks him back into the bottle.  After letting him out again, he is given a great gift: a bandage that heals wounds on one side, and turns metal into silver on the other.  Returning to his father, he bends a now-silver axe on a tree, but patiently awaits his reward, which he gets from the goldsmith, who gives him more than enough to take care of his studies and his father.  
 
The scholar returns to school and finishes, then becomes the most famous doctor in the world.
 
The Spirit of Life Podcast Episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0WvSewpERjCyXPD4MdTi4V?si=6e6463c571d84992
Supplement: The Myth of Proteus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
The video of this episode: 
https://youtu.be/j479tvASC18
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Mystical and Awakening Experiences

We discuss mystical experiences and higher states of consciousness.  We start with an awakening account of a Japanese business executive and Zen student, referenced below.  Higher states of consciousness can help us see the underlying unity of things, including of those with ourselves, and make us more compassionate and less egocentric.  In other words, they increase meaning in life.  We also discuss what enlightenment may be and practices to get closer to it.  We also discuss the dangers of doing it by yourself.  Ian gives a helpful metaphor of enlightenment from Daniel Ingram.  We talk about our personal experiences.
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
And please link to or comment with someone I should check out or talk with!
 
Yamada Koun’s Awakening Experience:
The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau (228)
 
https://dynamic.wakingup.com/course/CO201BBAA?source=content%20share&share_id=53AFA6FA&pack=PK2BWQV&code=SCDA931C1
 
The video of this episode: 
https://youtu.be/sed7f_IxFww
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

The Brothers Grimm’s "Rapunzel:" Tears Wash Away Grief

A man and a woman long for a child.  The woman looks out of her back window into the walled garden of an enchantress and desperately desires the Rampion (Rapunzel) plant.  Her husband goes to get it for her, but is confronted by the intense gaze of the enchantress.  He reasons with her, and she negotiates: he can leave with it if they give her their firstborn.  The wife consumes the wonderful salad and when the child is born, the enchantress takes it to a tall tower.
Rapunzel lets down her golden hair for the daily visits from the old dame, and her singing attracts a prince wandering the woods.  He comes up at night, Rapunzel having reasoned that he will love her better than the lady.  Soon Rapunzel unwittingly gives him away to the enchantress, who whisks the girl away to the desert.  The prince visits the empty tower, and in grief jumps down, is blinded and wanders the woods, eating roots and berries.
Eventually he finds the desert abode of his love, who is now with twin boy and girl in a desperate situation.  Her tears wash the blindness from his eyes, and they go to the castle and live many happy years together.
We think this tale is about development and the thrwarting of it by the enchantress.  She wants to keep everything pure and unchanging, and to keep all natural things from fulfilling their purposes.  She separates things: men and women, garden and nature, Rapunzel from the mother and the prince.  She uses things for her own, and not their own, purpose.  In this way she resembles a dragon in many European cultures, the hoarder, the ultimate stagnation, a kind of zombie or virus existing between life and death.  And this story is about how love, intuition and faithful suffering can break through the artificial boundaries of the magical tyrant.
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
And please link to or comment with someone I should check out or talk with!
 
Project Gutenberg Free Rapunzel:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12710
 
The video of this episode: 
https://youtu.be/LJcFyamsF2Y
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.