Episodes
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Who is Fencing Bear? Why, she writes the Blog called Fencing Bear at Prayer! Who is Ancilla Mariae? Why, she hosts the Telegram Channel called Fencing Bear at Prayer and its chatroom called The Dragon Common Room! Who is Professor Rachel Fulton Brown? Why, she is a Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Chicago! As well as the creator of the aforementioned Blog and Telegram channels. Did I also mention that she writes books with a team of poets at another website called The Dragon Common Room, and she hosts the weekly live-stream called The Mosaic Ark that you’re seeing here on YouTube? So why is she adding Substack creator to all of the other hats she wears? Because she has surmised that a lot of people who have enjoyed reading and listening to her thoughts might like to have a single space to learn about all of the different areas where she teaches and creates, and Substack is a good place to do that. Listen in on this week’s Mosaic Ark as the Professor explains how her projects all complement each other and answers viewers’ questions about the work that she and her poets do. —Streamed November 1, 2024
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The ladies of the Mosaic Ark are looking at the stars! Captain Zodiac, the Mosaic Ark’s very first guest, once again joined us to share his insights about astrology and its true meaning—which does not include divination he’ll have you know! He and Professor Rachel Fulton Brown discussed the beautiful medieval Christian manuscripts that are currently on display at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The ancient myths and astrological charts used in the manuscripts’ beautiful, gilded illustrations hold an explosion of information about the people who made them and what they believed. But do they have something to say about who we are today? Watch and tell us your ideas in the comments! —Streamed October 25, 2024
Getty Exhibit: https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/lumen/index.html
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“I have ever been prone to seek adventure and to investigate and experiment where wiser men would have left well enough alone.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars
What does it mean to say that the world was once enchanted, but now it is not? To answer that question, one must ask, “what is a myth, and how can it be both true and false?” On this week’s Mosaic Ark, the ladies were joined by Substack author John Carter (a pseudonym taken from one of his favorite book series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.) John Carter’s imagination is boundless, and with that boundless imagination he asks a lot of fascinating questions about history, science, religion, stories, and myths. One of the big questions of our time is this – what happens to a society built with the imaginative force of myth, when imagination is relegated to secondary status (when acknowledged at all) in the public sphere? If the effect of that secondary status is a crumbling society, how can that society be fixed? In short, how does one reenchant the world? Join us as we wrestle with this concept, and please share your ideas in the comments. —Streamed October 12, 2024
Postcards from Barsoom: https://barsoom.substack.com
"The Re-enchantment of the World": https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-reenchantment-of-the-world
Dr. John Carter, PhD, on X: @martianwyrdlord
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“Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to Your creatures.” — St. Francis of Assisi, “Canticle of the Creatures” (1225)
As the fallen-away followers of our Lord Jesus Christ might have said, this is a hard teaching, especially this week. How do we praise God for “every kind of weather” after the devastating and deadly floods in Appalachia this past week? How did St. Francis do it in the face of the trials of his day? This week the ladies of the Mosaic Ark discuss St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is today (October 4). Was he simply the tree-hugging, animal-loving hippy portrayed by Franco Zeffirelli in his 1972 film? Or was he the devout but shrewd son of a wealthy merchant who founded a world-wide movement? Spoiler alert: He was both! Join us as we talk about why people still love this saint so much, and what he has to teach us about the modern world. — Streamed October 4, 2024
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Mimetic Desire. This was the phrase used by René Girard to describe the human condition of wanting to obtain that which others have already obtained; not to be confused with envy, mimetic desire is simply an extension of the way we learn what we should and shouldn’t want — food, shelter, love, etc. Can this be observed in everyday life, in fiction, in geopolitics? Yes, yes, and yes, through a phenomenon called Mimetic Rivalry. Join the ladies of the Mosaic Ark as we discuss some of the more famous mimetic twins, and tell us in the comments if you can see what we see in these pairings: Indiana Jones and René Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Simone de Beauvoir and Mother Theresa of Calcutta (two single ladies and historic contemporaries with two very different ideas about love) and the trifecta of mimetic twins — Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, leaders of the Allies during World War II. —Streamed September 27, 2024
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Isis and Osiris. Apollo and Artemis. Donald and Kamala? Twins are memorable features in the world’s mythological systems; they are symbols of duality, balance, and integrating opposites. One might say our myths have conditioned us to look for similarities when presented with two choices. On last week’s Mosaic Ark, we discussed the visual image presented by presidential candidate Kamala Harris and how it might appeal (or not) to women. This week we compared her tweets to those of presidential candidate Donald Trump. Did we see stark contrasts in the messaging of each campaign? Yes and no; we saw twinning. Want to find out what that is? Watch tonight’s stream and peer into the looking glass with us.— Streamed September 20, 2024
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“It’s our time.” Vice President Kamala Harris is quoted as having said this recently to her fellow women as she seeks to win one of the most powerful positions of authority in the world, President of the United States. However, the time of powerful women’s leadership has already come and gone… and come and gone… and come and gone again, has it not? The ladies of the Mosaic Ark remember a time not so long ago that the Anglo-American empire lost the longest reigning queen in British history, her late majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We also remember the second longest reigning monarch in British history, Queen Victoria. But the most iconic British ruler, also a queen, has to be Queen Elizabeth I, and it is with her that Anglo-American women all over the US most closely identify, and why they yearn for a strong, independent woman as their leader. Why? Watch the stream to find out! —Streamed September 13, 2024
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What is the Mosaic Ark? What kind of a livestream is it? The best way to describe it is this: it is a cruise ship! The Mosaic Ark takes its viewers on a cruise through an ocean of information, images, art, science, history, and (very occasionally) political events. Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, Medievalist and Tolkien expert, is your cruise director bringing you to interesting ports of call every week with her co-hostesses. They discuss what they see, what it means, how each port is connected to the other ports and how all are oriented towards Christ and His mother, Mary, the Star of the Sea. Come aboard! We’re expecting you! —Streamed August 16, 2024
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Watching the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, many people were outraged by the display of drag queen camp and hedonism included in the show, particularly because it was done in a way that many claimed mocked Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Christians world-wide demanded apologies in the strongest of terms. The ladies of the Mosaic Ark were also outraged—but not for the same reason! Presuming that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness,” we argue that the Paris Bacchanalia show was merely trying (poorly) to grasp what it could not reach: the scandalous joy of the Liturgy of the Lamb. —Streamed August 8, 2024
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“’Twas our Right!” to write poetry, and thereby speak our creative world into being. In this week’s Mosaic Ark, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown speaks about J.R.R. Tolkien’s creative process, how it began and how he was able to create an entire world using both poetry and prose. But, most importantly, how without his poetry there would’ve been no story; poetry was the engine that drove the vehicle of his prose and without it, there would be no Middle-Earth. So how did he begin? He began at the beginning of course, by first learning how to scan. —Streamed August 2, 2024
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Who elects a King? Is it God or the Barons? Who elects a President? Is it the billionaire class, the tech oligarchs, the “donor class”? Is there a difference between any of them and the Barons; between a King and a President? If one looks at the rhetoric of the past and present, there doesn’t seem to be a difference. But there is another similarity between the power struggles of the past and present that might be overlooked: the power of the people to assent to their new rulers or reject them. This is a constant that all would-be rulers know about and use to support their cause of self-promotion. Join the ladies of the Mosaic Ark as we discuss how image and rhetoric can turn a commoner to a King, and a King to an “also ran.” —Streamed July 26, 2024
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On July 13th, 2024, former President Donald J. Trump was shot while speaking at a rally for his re-election campaign in Butler County, Pennsylvania. To protect him from getting shot again, the Secret Service agents quickly tackled him to the ground. He was down for what seemed like minutes as the crowd waited anxiously to see if he was alright. Though bleeding, he was alive—the would-be assassin failed. Trump rose to his feet, blood on his face and fist defiantly in the air, and shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” A photographer who was present for the rally had jumped towards the stage in this moment to take pictures, and captured perhaps one of the most iconic pictures of the century. That picture flew through the Internet, across the country and the world, and into the eyes and minds of billions within minutes. What did all of those people see? What did you see? Join the ladies of the Mosaic Ark as we discuss this rare moment where the electronic mosaic was activated world-wide. —Streamed July 19, 2024
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Did you hear about those weird secret symbols embedded into the layout of the 19th-century Bomberg Talmud? Or similar layouts, symbols and coded messages found throughout a medieval Christian book called the Glossa Ordinaria? Oh come now, everyone has read Dan Brown. Those monks and rabbis were up to something. There must be a conspiracy “they” don’t want us to know about. Well, no, not really. It was just the medium used to convey the messages of those times, similar to the typical layout of almost all newspapers of today. But why were they so similar? And how does the medium of print and the form of their layouts convey (or amplify) their message? On this week’s Mosaic Ark, the ladies continued to discuss Marshall McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride, and wondered how the medium of newsprint is affecting society, and whether the medium of the Internet was amplifying this affect. Join us! —Streamed July 12, 2024
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In 1951, media guru and secret medievalist Marshall McLuhan published his first book, The Mechanical Bride. His purpose was to encourage his readers to contemplate the way that advertising and technology shape society, both for the advertisers and for their targets – the buying public. The ladies of the Mosaic Ark have been contemplating McLuhan’s writings for several years now and it has shaped the way we see the world and the way we write our own fictional stories. Join us as we discuss McLuhan’s early inspirations and his spookily prophetic observations. —Streamed July 6, 2024
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This month the ladies of the Mosaic Ark talked about the sin of pride in its various forms. As Providence would have it, our last stream on this topic occurred one day after the first US presidential debate, where two men sought to convince a nation to give one of them power. Was that debate informative or merely a display of pride? This question got us thinking of two other persons who also sought out power – Prometheus and Satan. In this week’s conclusion of our own “pride month”, we discussed the character traits of Prometheus (from the Greek myths), and Satan, from an Old English poem that contains a speculative meditation on the fall of Adam and Eve (the Genesis of Bodleian MS Junius 11). Join us as we attempt to unravel the characteristics of pride and how we can identify it in ourselves and others. —Streamed June 28, 2024
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What does it mean to be proud to be an American? For that matter, what does it mean to be proud to be a German, or an Englishman? Is it pride in the homeland’s culture, language, history? And what of the bad things about its history, do those things negate pride in the nation as a whole? Also, what (and who) makes a nation? This week the ladies of the Mosaic Ark continued to discuss pride, particularly American pride and what that means in the continually expanding ethnic and social demographic of the United States. Bonus: Musical interludes! —Streamed June 21, 2024
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“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” These are the words of a proud being. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan is cast out of Heaven, and in his pride boasts that he shall be a king in Hell. The question for the modern reader might well be this: what did Satan do differently than other rebellious people? If Paradise Lost were a modern movie, would Satan be the anti-hero that everyone loves to watch? And if he were a British Colonial in early America, would he be a revolutionary that everyone wants to honor? And if he were a Renaissance-era King, would he be a hero obliterating the Pope’s authority? In our ongoing discussions about the sin of pride, the Ladies of the Mosaic Ark are discovering the many layers of pride in an ever-descending trip back in time. Join us as we peel back each layer to discover the origins of our society’s current difficulty defining virtue and vice. —Streamed June 14, 2024
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Pride. It is said that this was the sin that caused Lucifer to be cast down from Heaven, and the same temptation that he offered to Eve in his attempts to destroy her and Adam’s relationship with The Almighty – “Ye shall be like God.” But how does one explain to the people of a rapidly de-Christianizing society that pride is a sin, the most deadly of seven deadly sins, and something that should be rejected? The ladies of the Mosaic Ark discussed this challenge and why it is so difficult. We also discussed pride as the sin which all other sins feed into. As the secular society indulges in a month-long celebration of “Pride,” join us in this first discussion where we begin to break it down. —Streamed June 5, 2024
"Draco Layer Three: The Moral or Tropological Sense" https://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/2023/06/draco-layer-three-tropological-or-moral.html
“The Seven Deadlies: Definitions and Remedies” https://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/2012/06/the-seven-deadlies-definitions-and.html
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The Professor asked KC if she could come up with some really stupid questions about the Middle Ages. “Can I? And how!” she said. “Did people bathe more than once a year? Did sanitation exist? Did anyone live past the age of 30? What about witchcraft? Were women thought to be witches because they were folk healers? How many witches were burned at the stake? For those women not burned at the stake, how many were forced into marriage arrangements?” During this week’s Mosaic Ark, we discussed these questions and many more concerning life in the Middle Ages (and yes, including the question “Was Prima Nocta real?”) We also concluded that most people have the wrong idea about the time period they were taught to call “The Dark Ages,” and that those who spread those ideas have a lot to answer for (looking at you Mel Gibson!) —Streamed May 29, 2024
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Is there hope for pagan America? What’s that? You didn’t know America was a pagan country?! If you’re like most people, you probably fall into one of two camps: you either think that America is a Christian country or that it is a secular country that practices a kind of religious pluralism, but both of those camps are wrong. John Daniel Davidson joined the ladies of the Mosaic Ark to discuss his new book, Pagan America. In his book, Davidson shows how some of the more disturbing trends in current American public life have direct correlations to the practices of pagan societies of the past, and that the rituals practiced then are also being practiced today, albeit under different names and (at least publicly) for different reasons. We discussed why this is happening, whether there is hope for Christians to live freely in a pagan America, and also whether there is hope for a true Christian America in the future. —Streamed May 22, 2024
Buy John's book: https://www.amazon.com/Pagan-America-Decline-Christianity-Dark/dp/1684514444/
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