Thus, since philosophy & love are so dialectically intermingled on Re-Vision Radio, Everybody Knows that, in the final mythopoetic analysis, nobody  knows whether the philosophers are singing the praises of love or the lovers are discoursing on the virtues of philosophy.

About the relationship of philosophy and romantic love.

"The beginning of philosophy is the same as the beginning of poetry: falling in love."—Thomas  Aquinas

The combination of philosophy and erotic, or romantic, love as a soulful, imaginal experience starts with the philosophy of Socrates and Plato. It then comes into popular culture through poetry and song in the twelfth-century troubadours, achieves a philosophical concern with the “Dialectic of Love” of the cult of the Fedeli d' amore, and reaches its apotheosis in the cult's most famous poet, Dante, whose love of "Lady Philosophy" fuses philosophical thought and passionate love. (In a similar way, Heloise's twelfth-century blend of philosophy and erotic love issues in the love of philosophy and the philosophy of love.) My own way of expressing the intimate relationship between philosophy and love has been to say (in my essays on "The Troubadours & the Beloved"): "Philosophy and love are so dialectically intertwined that you don't know whether the philosophers are expounding on the ecstasies of love, or the lovers singing of the raptures of philosophy." 

". . . . Of course, philosophers and sages, poets and scientists throughout history have not just explored the value of love, but just what this love stuff is anyway. . . . French mathematician Blaise Pascal weighed in with his savvy insight: "The heart has its reasons of which reason is unaware." Thus the terms "madly in love," "infatuated," and "crazy about you" often describe the lover's relationship to the beloved. Basically, while passion may not be wholly rational, it has its reasons. So stop worrying and just go with it! . . . When we're talking about love and relationships, we're talking philosophy." --Jack Bowen (Prof. of Philosophy at Stanford and novelist. Interviewed on KUSP 4/11/10)

Thank you Prof. Bowen! You have come along with a book that validates what the Gypsy Scholar has been trying to get across for all these years on his radio program, with essays on the Troubadours & the Beloved. (Prof. Bowen also wanted to make the point that "philosophy can be fun; it can be entertaining." Compare this to what the Gypsy Scholar had to point out in a series of musical essays, "Notes Towards A Musical/Musekal Philosophy" back in 2006: "We have sought truth, and sometimes found it. But have we had any fun?" –Benjamin Jowlett, translator of Platonic dialogues).

"You see him spend his Soul in Prophecy./ Do you believe  it a confound lie / Till some Bookseller & the Public Fame / Proves there is truth in his extravagant claim." --William Blake

the Archaic Revival of Musekal Philosophy

"The poet-philosopher is thus caught up in a circular process through which his understanding, like theirs, is drawn toward the divine as manifested in the Lady's divinely inspired radiance."

The Ouroboros or Uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle.

The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It also represents the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. The Ouroboros has been important in religio-mythological and philosophical symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. It is a symbol of the eternal unity of all things, the cycle of birth and death from which the alchemist sought release and liberation. It is also often associated with ancient Gnosticism and Hermeticism. Plato described a self-eating, circular being as the first living thing in the universe—an immortal, perfectly constructed animal. C. G. Jung saw the Ouroboros as he basic mandala of alchemy, and interpreted the Ouroboros as having an archetypal significance to the human psyche:

"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious."