Daily re-enchantment stirs bloggers

Bloggers are dipping into Thomas Moore’s The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life to explore various themes. A post about "the integrity of Earth's ecological systems" and diversity closes with a quote from this book,

"Enchanted ecology is the work of religion more than science, love more than understanding, and ritual more than heroic action. It is rooted in both a love for home and a willingness to let the place where we live set limits on our lives, define our personalities, and shape our values. This kind of ecology is concerned not simply with the natural world but with our place in the human environment as well, and it has as much to do with meaning and emotion as with the protection of literal nature."

Another blogger, in the post, "Bedside Revisited", lists Moore’s book among those on the bedside table:

"Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, Thomas Moore. My most heavily marked book (in ink!). A reminder of the potency of ordinary things around you, a user’s manual to magic in the making. The very possibility, Moore points out, of pulling sustenance out of the very air, if you have your wits about you."

Lastly, a post about living a simpler life also closes with reference to this book. The blogger writes, "I am going to leave you with a few quotes from a great book by Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life that I have long loved."

"Enchantment is a state of rapture and ecstasy in which the soul comes to the foreground, and the literal concerns of survival at least momentarily fade into the background… The soul has an absolute, unforgiving need for regular excursions into enchantment."

"Religion is ... an appreciation of the sacred and the holy in every aspect of life: nature, work, home, business, and other affairs... In a disenchanted world, for all of its concern for morals and social action, religion separates itself from everyday life and becomes obsessed with its own brand of belief and moral purity... The source of our modern discontentment is the loss of true religion."

"There is no essential conflict between enchanted living and practical, productive activity; they can serve each other."

"Enchantment is the ascendancy of the soul, a condition that allows us to connect, for the most part lovingly and intimately, with the world we inhabit and the people who make up our families and communities. Without it, we try rationally to forge those intimacies and make those connections, but our efforts are futile."