With Pimms in hand and Lao-Tzu in mind, the 3rd members salon took place last night, August 27th, in Montreal West. Bernice Lamb Senechal was our guest salonniere, and she began the evening by situating Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu amidst his circa 600 BCE contemporaries, Confucius and Buddha. After hinting at how he differed from these two, and giving us a small taste of his approach to life - going with the flow and seeing the world in its many shades of grey - we broke into small groups and took to our activity stations. A tempting excerpt from Lao-Tzu's writings awaited us at each station, and our task was to engage with his controversial ideas around "suppleness," "actionless action," and "living without artifice." We then reconvened for a wrap-up, and mused over suggestions that Lao-Tzu was in fact a woman.Thank you to Bernice for animating the evening and making it a thoroughly lively, entertaining and enlightening salon. Thank you too to our wonderful members, who never fail to turn up in scintillating form, and always amaze us with their insights and intellect - not to mention their great sense of humour.
The next members salon will be held on Thursday, October 29th - 7:30 to 9pm - and will be animated by Janice Poltrick Donato. Janice will explore the notion of transcendence, particularly in relation to how we see the world and strive to represent it in art.
Make sure, also, to pencil in our special holiday season salon on Thursday, December 10th - same time, same place - and keep watching this space for more details.
We always welcome new members, and encourage existing members to bring along a friend to these events.
