Gil Duran; Hildegard; Dolly Parton;

Week of 8/24-29/2026:
Gil Durán, Hildegard, Dolly Parton
By the Daily Meditations Team

8/30/2026

This is a summary of the previous week’s daily meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF) and some are written by his colleague, Gianluigi Gugliermetto. (GG)

August 24, 2026: Lessons Learned from a Serious Gaffe re. Arthur Brooks (MF)

Matthew says he learns a lot from the comments readers make to our DMs. A man named Daniel, who offers regular and thoughtful comments, told Matthew that celebrating the “wisdom” of Arthur Brooks was deeply tarnished.

Matthew had been focusing on Brooks’ thoughts about depression among young people. He very much endorses the Via Positiva. However, thanks to Daniel, Matthew realized Brooks fails completely with the Via Transformativa. He is president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank funded by the Koch brothers and other far-right influencers and climate deniers.

In a book he wrote called The Battle, he pits “free enterprise” against social democracy. Matthew most sincerely apologizes to our readers. The lesson, says he, is that all four paths are essential to wholeness.

The Origins of Systemic Oppression–Visionary Organizing Lab
You can’t “happiness hack” your way out of systemic oppression. Video by Visionary Organizing Lab.

August 25, 2026: Gil Durán’s Much-Awaited Book on Silicon Valley Fascism (MF)

Gil Durán has come out with a new book,The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy.

It lays out the facts behind a “decades-long campaign to replace elected governments with corporate rule.” Elon Musk is just one of the Silicon Valley oligarchs now running the American government.

At the 2025 inauguration, many of America’s richest men were seated around Trump—and had paid to be there. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichat and Musk. Behind the scenes was Peter Thiel, whose influence “would prove more pronounced and durable than Musk’s.”

Silicon Valley has birthed a new class of “super elites who chafe at laws, regulations, and taxes and view themselves as superior to the government that created them.” The final chapter is called “The Future: Billionaires or Democracy.” A very bleak choice indeed.

The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán.

August 26, 2026: Durán on the Silicon Valley Apocalyptic Dream, continued (MF)

Author, Gil Durán, sees the merging of tech and MAGA creating an “orgy of corruption…a frenzy of open political corruption unlike anything in American history.” By launching his Truth Social media platform in 2022, Trump himself became “a tech CEO.”

The Trump Family’s net worth increased by $5 billion shortly into his second term thanks to their crypto company World Liberty Financial. In fact, “Trump and his sons transformed themselves into Silicon Valley moguls while Silicon Valley transformed itself into an arm of the Trump family.”

Meanwhile, Peter Thiel, received a $30 million contract for software called ImmmigrationPS, designed specifically to help ICE target immigrants for deportation. Then his Palantir company received a $10 billion contract from the Army to expand AI. In conclusion, Durán warns that “there is no middle ground between freedom and Fascism.”

August 26, 2026: Thank You, Dolly Parton, For Your Art, Humor & Deep Humanity (MF)

Famous for so many things: her songwriting, her voice, her business acumen, her inspired philanthropy…. She has donated money to people who lost everything in the face of natural disasters, to hospitals, to developing the Moderna vaccine during the COVID pandemic, and also, especially, to her Imagination Library, which has given away over 320 million books to kids.

Polls show her to be the most popular person in America, running 20 points ahead of the runner-up, President Obama. Musician Jack White was playing a concert in London and, on hearing of her death, offered a rendition of her hit song, “Jolene.” He shared a photograph on Instagram with the caption, “Instant Sainthood.”

Logo of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library,
founded in 1995, which has delivered books to
120 million children over its 31 years of operation

August 27, 2026: Hildegard and Healing Stones (GG)

Perhaps one of the least-known aspects of Hildegard of Bingen’s thought is her passion for gems and their healing properties.

Hildegard perceives all of nature as alive and full of divine energy, not just plants and animals. She believed that the stones conveyed healing benefit when they had contact with the skin. Not surprisingly, her favorite gem is the green emerald, which she believes to be sort of a hyper-concentrate of viriditas (greenness).

Most interestingly, stones for Hildegard are keys to the soul, in a way that mixes indistinguishably their physical power with their symbolic meaning.

August 28, 2026: Hildegard as a Musician (GG)

Hildegard of Bingen is the first Western woman in history whose name is recorded as a composer. The nuns at the monasteries where Hildegard was mother superior met several times a day for sung prayer. They sang and chanted the regular repertoire of monodic hymns, antiphones, and psalms prescribed in the Benedictine rule.

Hildegard, however, decided to modify the repertoire, especially adding new compositions. A group of scholars correctly states that Hildegard’s music is widely considered to be original, idiosyncratic even. Clearly, the healing qualities of her music are so powerful that she is still celebrated today, more than 800 years later.

Gil Durán, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy.

Banner image: Dolly Parton, sharing the love with a fan’s baby. Photo by Alan Light. Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons.

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