B. W. Powe

Bruce William Powe (born 23 March 1955 in Ottawa, Ontario) is a Canadian writer poet, novelist, essayist, philosopher, and teacher. He received his Ph.D from York University in October 2009. He currently teaches English in the Department of English at York University. His courses there have included Visionary Literature: from Hildegard von Bingen and Dante to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, and Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye.

Towards a Canada of Light (2006)

 * Democracies should be a delirium of choices - more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer.
 * A Prayer For Canada, p. 5


 * The origin of corruption in politics is surely in the thought that you are the bearer of ultimate virtue.
 * A Prayer For Canada, p. 13


 * Here I find a puzzle of great beauty: Canada works well in practice, but just doesn't work out in theory.
 * Maxims and Enigmas, p. 29


 * We have to learn how to contact one another over an enormous land space, across five-and-a-half time zones, in what as once a wilderness of scattered settlements, in what is now a sprawl of suburban edge cities and satellite towns. Technology forges connections and disconnections here.
 * First Meditation, p. 35


 * The myth of Canada, its hidden story, is of a contemplative country, a place of inwardness, where people can question the idea of nationhood and ponder what values we wish to see expressed and achieved, and what solitudes of identity and reverie we wish to preserve.
 * First Meditation, p. 38
 * Canada may be fast-forwarding, jump starting, into a new pattern, a model of communication linkages, a civilization that is more than a grab for power and dominance, a place that could channel the fires of the global wirings, where political alliances are subject to electrical ebb and flow, and the alchemical cultivations of imagination and perception, of the self, could precail of the ideology of capital.
 * First Meditation, p. 65-66


 * Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts.
 * Interlude, p. 75


 * There must be engagement: there must be protest.
 * Interlude, p. 77


 * The corporatist-economic model of society appears to be governing us. Economists, often in the pay of transnationals, are deciding, for us, what democracy is, and will be.
 * Letter To Those In power, p. 83


 * If you make things sound inoffensively obvious, then it is likely that no one will listen.
 * Letter To Those In power, p. 92


 * The Trojan War without Homer was nothing more than a battle over trade routes.
 * Interlude, p. 113


 * Canada is like several puzzles that we are all working on at the same time. Everyone has a part to add, but no one has seen the whole picture yet.
 * Second Meditation, p. 128


 * Alienation and loneliness plant the seeds for rebellion and consciousness.
 * Third Meditation, p. 157


 * If our dreams can last, then we could turn our time and place to gold.
 * Third Meditation, p. 161


 * May the ability to see many points of view keep us gentle.
 * Coda, p. 167

Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)

 * Passion was animal flesh, raw desire gnawing and ripping at its early limitations. These passions were to be feared only if undirected by the conscience of the higher self. Mind was the key to the process of enlightenment. Hence reason was the first principle, light itself.
 * Emanations, Destinies, p. 4


 * No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by others.
 * Emanations, Destinies, p. 28


 * A just society will appear less spectacular, and less clearly defined, than a society with totalitarian leadership, theocratic goals.
 * Emanations, Destinies, p. 54


 * Threaten the balances of justice and you threaten the potential enlargements of mind and soul. Therefore justice is part of the safeguarding of the heart.
 * Emanations, Destinies, p. 61


 * Charisma is a sign of the calling. Saints and pilgrims are defiantly moved by it.
 * Patterns, Seeds, Cloaking, Soul Circling, p. 86


 * Followers of another political party tell us that we will strengthen ourselves by ignoring our history, our traditions, our mythologies, our culture and vision, and by following the American way.
 * Forms, Eulogies, Images and Symbols, p. 157


 * It began in images and it ended in symbolism.
 * Forms, Eulogies, Images and Symbols, p. 160


 * Then there were his encounters with the two mystics. Trudeau met Mounier only once, according to the Nemnis; and according to John English, he had only one direct encounter with Teilhard de Chardin.
 * Substance, Pressure, Beyond, Pulse in Matter, p. 208


 * There is, it seems, an unbridgeable chasm between the concerns of a Sri Aurobindo and a Pat Robertson.
 * Substance, Pressure, Beyond, Pulse in Matter, p. 210


 * Certainty is usually a sign of pathology.
 * Substance, Pressure, Beyond, Pulse in Matter, p. 210


 * "enlightenment should be a human right."
 * Substance, Pressure, Beyond, Pulse in Matter, p. 225