In the foreword to this brief volume, James Hillman suggests that the age of systems thinking is long gone. That is why the fragments of Heraclitus can appeal to us: Here is wisdom delivered in the aphoristic phrase. Little glints and shards of truth. In the introduction, translator Brooks Haxton compares the insights of this Ephesian philosopher to the book of Ecclesiastes. Yes, that is a way of working with these epiphanies that go snap, crackle, and pop in the mind.

"Applicants for wisdom / do what I have done: / inquire within." Heraclitus was an inner tripper. He also believed in opposites: "What was scattered / gathers. / What was gathered / blows apart." So stay with things as they change and transmute. "Just as the river where I step / is not the same, and is, / so I am as I am not." We are constantly in the midst of mini-transformations. Even when we sleep: "Even a soul submerged in sleep / is hard at work, and helps / make something of the world." So respect the mysteries all around you: "Things keep their secrets." And look up in the sky: "The sun is new / again, all day." All this capped off with a Heraclitean mantra: "Silence, healing."