Eros: Day After Valentine's Day, 2006
15 Feb. 06
Yesterday went by without my assistance. I neither gave nor received a big juicy red Valentine stating those immortal & piercing words: Will you be my Valentine? Do not mistake me for one of those cold-blooded Nordic types who denigrate commercial holidays set up to ritualize love ceremonies. On the other hand, I scorn the tactics of Wall Street in its parasitical & predatory devouring of all originality & turning it into motifs for profit.
Yesterday belonged rightfully to Eros. According to the legend Eros had neither father nor mother but was hatched from the Cosmic Egg. And He was responsible for all the gods as well as the entire Creation itself. Other versions have him being the son of Aphrodite & Ares or of Aphrodite & Zeus. There are still other rumors. In any event, Eros was depicted to be a somewhat flippant & mischievous god. He was conspicuous for shooting his arrows out there at random sticking them into the hides & hearts of women men & children with reckless abandon and thus causing their victims to be smitten with the mad passion of love. Sexual desire: this was the great domain said to be owned by Eros. As a boy it is written he was somewhat puny & undersized.
"Although nursed with tender solicitude, this second-born child of Aphrodite & Ares, did not grow as other children do, but remained a small, rosy, chubby child, with gauzy wings and roguish, dimpled face. Alarmed for his health, Aphrodite consulted Themis, who oracularly replied, 'Love cannot grow without Passion.'"
(quoted by Rollo May in LOVE and WILL).
I believe there is no art worth preserving that has not been induced by Eros. Hesiod was one of the first of the ancients to suggest that Eros is merely an abstraction standing for "sexual passion." And I note among my contemporaries a totally cynical eye cast upon the existence of Eros or of any of the nine sacred muses. And that is what we have got largely from the art of the last 50 years. A dead art posturing in the absence of The Sacred Muse. Nietzsche famously wrote "God is dead." He could not help but note the absence. And of course fools have "answered him" without understanding. Heidegger asked why the gods stopped coming to earth about 6,000 years ago. Why? What made them turn their backs on humankind?
I am writing this today wondering where Eros is in our present world. Where is Aphrodite the Queen of Beauty & Desire? And have we seen hide or hair of the great Pallas Athene lately? And if not what's the matter with us? Are we following the blind deaf dumb course taught in the colleges & universities and on radio & television? Perhaps there is a wiser course. Reader, I wish you well in your pursuits. And I assume you are listening & watching & waiting in those kinds of places Eros & Aphrodite & Athene & their amazing cohorts might show themselves to us. I remind you The Goddess revealed herself to Odysseus in the shape of a white bird.
I hope you had a happy & an original & a comic, an epiphanic Valentine's Day! And I also hope you have many more such days & nights in the rest of your lives. And I wish the same for myself.
RLG Copyright 2006
Yesterday went by without my assistance. I neither gave nor received a big juicy red Valentine stating those immortal & piercing words: Will you be my Valentine? Do not mistake me for one of those cold-blooded Nordic types who denigrate commercial holidays set up to ritualize love ceremonies. On the other hand, I scorn the tactics of Wall Street in its parasitical & predatory devouring of all originality & turning it into motifs for profit.
Yesterday belonged rightfully to Eros. According to the legend Eros had neither father nor mother but was hatched from the Cosmic Egg. And He was responsible for all the gods as well as the entire Creation itself. Other versions have him being the son of Aphrodite & Ares or of Aphrodite & Zeus. There are still other rumors. In any event, Eros was depicted to be a somewhat flippant & mischievous god. He was conspicuous for shooting his arrows out there at random sticking them into the hides & hearts of women men & children with reckless abandon and thus causing their victims to be smitten with the mad passion of love. Sexual desire: this was the great domain said to be owned by Eros. As a boy it is written he was somewhat puny & undersized.
"Although nursed with tender solicitude, this second-born child of Aphrodite & Ares, did not grow as other children do, but remained a small, rosy, chubby child, with gauzy wings and roguish, dimpled face. Alarmed for his health, Aphrodite consulted Themis, who oracularly replied, 'Love cannot grow without Passion.'"
(quoted by Rollo May in LOVE and WILL).
I believe there is no art worth preserving that has not been induced by Eros. Hesiod was one of the first of the ancients to suggest that Eros is merely an abstraction standing for "sexual passion." And I note among my contemporaries a totally cynical eye cast upon the existence of Eros or of any of the nine sacred muses. And that is what we have got largely from the art of the last 50 years. A dead art posturing in the absence of The Sacred Muse. Nietzsche famously wrote "God is dead." He could not help but note the absence. And of course fools have "answered him" without understanding. Heidegger asked why the gods stopped coming to earth about 6,000 years ago. Why? What made them turn their backs on humankind?
I am writing this today wondering where Eros is in our present world. Where is Aphrodite the Queen of Beauty & Desire? And have we seen hide or hair of the great Pallas Athene lately? And if not what's the matter with us? Are we following the blind deaf dumb course taught in the colleges & universities and on radio & television? Perhaps there is a wiser course. Reader, I wish you well in your pursuits. And I assume you are listening & watching & waiting in those kinds of places Eros & Aphrodite & Athene & their amazing cohorts might show themselves to us. I remind you The Goddess revealed herself to Odysseus in the shape of a white bird.
I hope you had a happy & an original & a comic, an epiphanic Valentine's Day! And I also hope you have many more such days & nights in the rest of your lives. And I wish the same for myself.
RLG Copyright 2006
posted by rlg at 12:18 PM
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