Once Blind

Old Ways Returning

Where We Are

From Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option:

“I am a college-educated American. In all my years of formal schooling, I never read Plato or Aristotle, Homer or Virgil. I knew nothing of Greek and Roman history and barely grasped the meaning of the Middle Ages.

“The fifteen hundred years of Christianity from the end of the New Testament to the Reformation were a blank page, and I knew only the barest facts about Luther's revolution…My understanding of Western history began with the Enlightenment. Everything that came before it was lost behind a misty curtain of forgetting.

Nobody did this on purpose…But nobody felt any obligation to present it to me and my generation in an orderly, coherent fashion. Ideas have consequences - and so does their lack.”

This cultural blindness is similar to St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night, and requires an understanding of its origins if ever we wish to emerge into the orienting light again.

Our Night, Defined

  • Enlightenment

    The scientific revolution deconstructed Europe’s transparent feudal system rooted in faith and land and built in its place modern bureaucracies rooted in technology and wealth. States which centralized power as oligarchies came to rule the world.

  • Globalization

    Secular industry mobilized civilians in revolution and in war, promising a 21st Century of freedom and wealth while the trend of centralization continued on a global scale, weakening regional borders to burn through local land, labor, and customs.

  • Liberalism

    America’s Postwar Order forced local cultures to compete for international investment even as colonization ended superficially; now a multi-polar world appears to replace it, even as the powers involved pursue a similar homogenization.

Where We’re Going

Regrowth after the Furnace’s Fire

In his personal diary, John Quincy Adams recorded a quote from Cicero’s Disputations, originally ascribed to Caecilius Statius: “He who plants trees labors for the benefit of future generations.”

Recognizing education as a natural vessel — a font, a seed — for personal growth, community development, and cultural empowerment, Aurelia seeks to plant holistic learning into the sterile ashes of our materialistic, homogenized age.

Such efforts will provide the foundation for new and beautiful cultures to bloom once the sun dawns after our modernist Night, like saplings grown from charred soil. Thus, Aurelia frames its educational programs as elements of a plant, a flower, a sapling grown enough to provide shade for generations yet to come.

How We’ll Get There

After the Flood

Like a flash flood after the roots of native plants have been scorched by man-made wildfire

A.R.C.

Autonomous Regional Coalitions

Our Guiding Principles

  • Catholic Mysticism

    Esoteric pursuit at the base of the material Church; the walk with Christ towards Union with God, through the rite of one’s Dark Night of the Soul

  • Re-Territorialization

    Act of re-embedding the Self into one’s natural context; to be again a part of the world from which we have so alienated ourselves via Technics

  • Formalized Influence

    Clarification of the natural and social hierarchies in every society; the accountability and unifying ethic born from Noblesse Oblige

  • Communal Sovereignty

    A People’s ability to identify themselves as distinct from all others; the right to protect an unbroken chain of faith, family, art, and war

  • Holistic Vitality

    Intersection of all that makes one human; the physical, spiritual, familial, cultural, and ethnic health born from a living heritage - i.e., thumos

  • Aesthetic Beauty

    Rebirth of standard in every aspect of life; the restoration of skill and poise via education and judgment so to restore a High Culture for all

Our Social Values

  • Class I: Warrior

    Those embodying Aurelia’s Principles of Holistic Vitality and Transparent Influence, who deal with death to protect a society’s health: soldiers and police officers; firefighters and EMTs; doctors, trainers, body guards, and military spies.

  • Class II: Yeoman

    Those embodying Aurelia’s Principles of Re-Territorialization and Communal Sovereignty, who use their hands to build and maintain a society’s home: farmers and miners; carpenters and plumbers; accountants, seamstresses, coders, and engineers.

  • Class III: Priest

    Those embodying Aurelia’s Principles of Catholic Mysticism and Aesthetic Beauty, who explore the unknown to guide a society both culturally and morally: priests and poets; authors and artists; teachers, mystics, painters, and philosophers.

Our Program’s Goals

  • Objective I: Health

    A successful holistic education will manifest as health in heart, mind, body and soul for the student who authentically reaches for that kind of wellness the ancient Greeks referred to as eudaemonia.

  • Objective II: Home

    A successful holistic education will manifest the sense of home, in both the individual and communal sense, for the student who authentically reaches for that which the ancient Greeks called oikos.

  • Objective III: Heritage

    A successful holistic education will manifest as a cultural heritage in art, blood, and soul for the student who authentically reaches for the fulfillment of potential that ancient Greeks named arete.

Our Program’s Structure

Health: Revitalizing Souls

  • R.O.O.T.

    Restoration of Organized Trades
    Project-Based Education in Artisanal Skills

    To learn more, visit our Culture page!

  • B.A.S.E.

    Building Autonomy through Skills and Experience
    Experiential Education in Life Skills

    To learn more, visit our Culture page!

  • L.E.A.F.

    Learning for Everyday and Academic Fulfillment
    Customizable K-12 Education

    To learn more, visit our Curriculum page!

Home: Restoring Place

  • S.E.E.D.

    Sustainable Energy-Efficient Dwellings

    Hands-On Education in Sustainable Construction

  • T.R.U.N.C.

    Treatment and Rehabilitation of Underrepresented and Neglected Communities

    Authentic, Volunteering Education in Community Development

  • L.I.M.B.

    Localized Institutions of Media and Banking

    Project-Based Education in Monetary and Communications Systems

Heritage: Preserving Culture

  • S.T.E.M.

    Sustainable Trades in Environmental Management

    Hands-On Education in Maintaining Homesteads and Farms

  • C.O.L.U.M.N.

    Civilian Operations to Limit Upheavals of Man and Nature

    Experiential Education in Disaster Relief and Health Care

  • B.R.A.N.C.H.

    Building Regulations and Administration for Networks of Community Health

    Education in Legal and Financial Management