Illustrations by gameimager Antonis Papantoniou
ΠΑΙ
«The
aeon is a child (ΠΑΙ)
playing (chess);' the
kingdom is the child's". (Heraclites, fg.52)
Sometimes, a word opens
its gargling ‘mouth’ in the midst of our ordinary reality,
swallowing us in its resonant belly, in which we shed our skin,
peeling and molting according to its image. Thus, the word is
incarnated over and over again.
My
obsession with the word ΠAI
started in the nineties, when I surrendered to SEM; this irresistible
attraction of Something Essential Missing; sort of a wound, grafted
deep inside me, so deep it was touching the stars and even more. SEM
was infiltrating, in my recurrent dreams, in the form of a tiny
child;
a little prince,
pulling me with its little hands out of my comfort, waving me in a
game of hide and seek, throwing me into continuous self-shedding
adventures and wonders, in the abysmal spongy fields of legends and
myth; its natural landscape.
My desire to share this fascinating mythical dimension, softly, overlapping our conventional reality, led me to create the Maps of the Hidden Treasure in the nineties, in which, ancient symbols, names, and natural elements, sprouting in mythical sites of Greece, were interconnected in meaningful experimental itineraries, in which, the participating poets, each “looking for himself” (101), was entering the self-referential riddle of "true nature which likes to hide”(123), feeling the pleasure of “God that transmutes like fire, which, when mingled with incenses, is named according to the perfume of each” (67). There are exceptional gaps in our time texture, which escape from the censorship of our perceptual system, shortcuts to the undetectable background hum of our existence. Those maps were described by D. Bisutti as “landscape semiotics...opening doors to unimaginable dimensions” (La Clessidra.n.1, 1995).
My desire to share this fascinating mythical dimension, softly, overlapping our conventional reality, led me to create the Maps of the Hidden Treasure in the nineties, in which, ancient symbols, names, and natural elements, sprouting in mythical sites of Greece, were interconnected in meaningful experimental itineraries, in which, the participating poets, each “looking for himself” (101), was entering the self-referential riddle of "true nature which likes to hide”(123), feeling the pleasure of “God that transmutes like fire, which, when mingled with incenses, is named according to the perfume of each” (67). There are exceptional gaps in our time texture, which escape from the censorship of our perceptual system, shortcuts to the undetectable background hum of our existence. Those maps were described by D. Bisutti as “landscape semiotics...opening doors to unimaginable dimensions” (La Clessidra.n.1, 1995).
In
this map-making process, I was attracted, in 1998, to Samothrace, the
legendary island
of the Great
Gods,
where, the mysteries of Ierogamia (sacred wedding) and conception/
birth of the divine Child were at the core of the Cabirian
Mysteries. In this sacred site, I recognized the mythical
confirmation
of a deeply emotional, visceral experience I had in the nineties, as
I was painting on old tiles while tuned to SEM: this unknown source
of magnetism.
I
witnessed ΠAI,
the Child,, traversing, the multidimensional forest of my
consciousness, landing in our dimension, while, I was
Mother/Kore/Child in the Father,
at the same time. It
was an intense, wordless, poignant experience, objective and
subjective at the same time and I
was
feeling deeply unworthy of the inner vision of that, unconscious,
undetectable emanation which
is at
the root of our irresistible
longing
for self -surpassement, for love, for birth, for eternity in time..
According
to C. Jung, the
archetype of the Child
is a psychological organ deep in the human body; a human law which
contrives us to perform acts of self knowledge. As a 'bordeline
phenomenon', its function depends on our connection with the remote
past; its malfunction leads, to the destruction of our conscious
mind, by its unconscious content, as we are left, rootless, prone to
any external suggestion. On the west of his Bollingen tower which
represented, for him, the structure of the psyche, C.Jumg set up, in
1975, a stone cube, with the Greek inscription of Heraclites'
fragment 52: “The aeon is ΠAI
playing...”.
In
the museum of Palaiopolis, in Samothrace, I found the inscription ΠAI
carved on a votive clay utensil- or, had I carved it myself,
sometime, in order to recover it, someday, at the end of the game? I
dared to think in a monumental insightful moment of time collapse-
The inside out recreation of symbols is the only way to decipher the
enigmatic landmarks of memory and the Child/PAI in me was opening
hermetic ancient symbols, feeding itself with their core, growing
from
inside
me,
as
I was diminishing, willingly, surrendered to its infatuation
Through
this secretive, pineal experience,
that had preceded my voyage to Samothrace,
I had, somewhat, conceived, in my own way, the transtemporary mystery
of the Great Gods: Axieros (Demetra/Mother), Axiokersa (Persephone/
Kore), Axiokersos (Dionysus/PAI), distinctively blending in Kadmelos
(Hermes, or, the consciousness of the initate himself?).
The
tentative approach to these 'matters of the soul' requires, what
Lucian Blaga calls, an 'ekstatic' state of mind that transcends
antinomies; a state of self-hypervasis which is the contemporary
trend: “The
simultaneous introduction of the continuous and the discontinuous
seems, now, necessary in a form that is not understandable” stated
Louis de Broglie in the beginnings of the XXc, referring to the wave/
particle structure of matter.
The
antinomic fragments of Heraclites, the ancient Greek thinker, known
as the Dark one, or, as the Riddler, are
in line with the contemporary quantomechanical view of the world.
Their very antinomic structure, triggers
in us a fundamental intuition of opposites, that
leads to transfiguration and produces
presence (Parontopoisis).
They “do
not conceal, nor do they reveal; they mean (simainei)” (93).
Heraclites gives us a clue as to their approach with fragment 122
'agchivassiin'/ “ΑΓΧΙΒΑΣΙΗΝ
“,
ie. moving like a crab, in all directions, simultaneously, around
the
hermetic paradoxical nucleus, that keeps us stretched in the high
frequencies of Agchinoia which means tension of the mind - Agchinoe,
nymph of the running waters, is Cabiro's mother and Cabiro is the
Cabirs' mother! Greek language contains a vital, fractal,
self-referential puzzle, in which the question is the answer?
““What
I undestood is important and what I did not understand is important
as well “ commented Socrates on the Riddler's fragments, who
captured the image of the aeon as the
primordial Child playing and tossing in the theater of time,
delivered through
us “Mortals/
Immortals, Immortals/ Mortals interchanging, living each other's
death, dying each other's life” (62).
During
the sacred conjunction of mortal-immortal in the Cabirian
Mysteries, in the temple of Aphrodite in Palaiopolis, Alexander the
Great ( al Acbar or Cabir) was conceived. He was venerated as
the son of Aphrodite's priestess Olympias and of Ammon-Zeus. He is an
historical facet of
ΠAI
who has founded the Hellenistic cornerstone of the present age, where
like children, we play with the contents of culture; the fundamental
blocks of the civilization, of all ages.
It
was in Palaiopolis, that the
legendary Heracleian Stone was said to transmit its magnetism to the
iron rings of the initiates and they, in turn, transmitted to the
other rings the enthusiasm of the Stone,
creating a transtemporal long chain of lodestones, extending to our
days. Was this magnetic Lapis, referred to by Socrates as the Spirit
of the Age to which poets are first exposed, at the root of my
irresistible SEM attraction, that had pulled me in this vertical
adventure?
In
2010, a set of circumstances allowed my return to Samothrace for the
ΠAI
2010 events, inspired by my poetic text ΠAI,
published in 1996. It seemed like the archetype of the Child was ripe
to manifest
itself, in
this critical time of co-resonance of Being (Tauton) with Becoming
(Eteron) as described by Plato in Timaeus; necessary, conjunction of
Mortals/Immortal for the rejuvenation of the
aeon, which is ΠAI
playing, tossing, the theater of time. The cascading
landscapes of Samothrace captivate
you inside their vibrant waterwalls. All thoughts and fears are
reverberating back to you. The only way out, of this intensified
echo, is to burst, vertically, out of yourself allowing the
revelation of wholeness.
For
ΠAI
2011, I prepared the concept for a new Treasure Hunt game, in which,
the participants, by shuffling a deck of cards illustrated with the
sites and symbols to be discovered, confect
their own path, “each, growing according to his missing” (126b),
looking
for Πai
inside/ outside himself, ”disentangled
from the estrangement that occurs through the constant intercourse
with things' (72), hoping for the unhoped, because if you do not hope
you will not explore the unhoped, which is unexplored (18)
They
are
meant to discover hidden clues while
tuned to the Riddler's antinomic fragments which topple our
conceptual bed and lead to 'awakening'. The object is perceived as a
visible expression of the universal, waving us in the poetic
hyperspace that embraces the 'sleepers', unexamined, space, opening
ourselves to 'evarestissis'; the universal pleasure of Wisdom “that
rules everything through everything”(41), “that is apart from
everything“(108).
“Listen
to the Logos (Word) not to me” (50) advices the Dark one.
In
this stochastic project of self/ environmental ecology, we open the
challenge for a perceptual shift from an Egocentric to a Logocentric
mode of existence.
The
Treasure to be or not to be found is ΠAI,
the
Lapis
Exilis,'“that
is resting in
its
change“
(84a).
The neglected cornerstone, which is
'despised by fools and cherished by the wise' (Rosarium
Philosophorum)
will remain on the island, as
a long-now
tribute
to the legendary Heraclean Lodestone;
in the hope that it will attract, in
its fields of
resonance,
future generations,
challenging them
to investigate anew that ever-promiscuous/
ever-
virgin landscape, where “the
sun is new everyday” (6), where “you
cannot step in the same river twice”, actually,
not
even once; “we
are and we are not”!!
(49a).
I
write this text in Patmos,
five
minutes walk from the Apocalypse Cave.
On
the entrance of the little church, there is an inscription from the
book of Revelation: “In the beginning is Logos.” and the Enigma
deepens, giving
birth to more and more questions. In Greek, 'I question' is 'Eroto',
derivative of the word 'Eros', which is an anagram of the word
'Ores' meaning 'hours' (time). The winged PAI is the eternal
fugitive in our never ending quest for truth, in our lifelong,
timebound, fascinating,Treasure Hunt that makes us human .
Patmos,
Art 4 View studio, September 2011
Notes
- ΠAI /Pai means Child. ΖΩ /Zo means I live, ΠΑΙΖΩ/ Paizo means I play (I live like a child).
All
the numbers in parentheses stand for the fragments by Heraclites, as
numbered by Diels-Kranz, 1956
- Π is the mathematical essence of circularity that describes the manifestation of our physical world. It is derived by the ratio of the circle periphery to its diameter, as in the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet Θ, initial of ΘΕΟΣ/Theos (God). Θ is carved on sacred utensils of the island, which belongs to the Gods.
- hic lapis exilis extat, pretio quoque vilis, spernitur a stultis, amatur plus ab Rosarium philosophorumedoctis ("this stone is poor, and cheap in price; it is disdained by fools, but it is loved all the more by the wise"), Lapis Exilis dedication and Greek Inscription of fragment 52 .on C. Jung's Cube stone at his Bollingen Tower, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollingen_Tower
-The
PAI 2010 events in Samothrace were organized
by the Union of the Cultural Associations of Evros,
Useful
bibliography
• K.
Axelos, Heraclite et la Philosophie, Les Editions de Minuit, 1962.
・L.
Blaga, Trilogie de la Connaissance, Librairie du Savoir, Paris, 1992.
・C.
Jung, C. Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology, Princeton
UniversityPress,
1969.
• P.
Kasda,
ΠAI
(Les Sept Dormants, coed. Lucian Blaga University press, 1997).
Selected
articles
-
D. Bisutti, Polyxene
Kasda,La
Clessidra magazine, 1/1995 Joker, Italy
-.
V. Avram,”Sa surprinzi
mitul in starea sa originara”, Tribuna Culturala newspaper, 16/5/97
no. 1918, Sibiu, Romania
-
E.
Van Itterbeek, «
ΠAI
Toi et moi», Avant-Propos, n. 159 Cahiers Europeens de Poesie, 1997.
-
V. Avram, «Spatiul primordial», Transilvania review
1-2-3,
1996, Cultura Nationala, Sibiu, Romania.
- E. Koscielak «Μyth/Network 5», Arti magazine', Athens 95.
- P.Kasda, Il Bambino, Poesia e Spiritualita, Milan, Ιtaly.2009
- - P.Kasda, Progetto Myth/Network 6 Sulla soglia del tempo, La Clessidra n2. Joker'96
-
P.
Kasda, Myth/Network
5: The Gate of Fire, Euphorion journal, VI, n. 55.56.57, Romania1995
-
P.
Kasda, Progetto
Myth/Network 1-5 La Clessidra n.1 Joker, 1995
-
P.
Kasda,
Cer si pamant, Transilvania 1-2-3, Cultura Nationala, Romania, 1996
-
P. Kasda Myht/Network6:
Arkteia. Tradition et Modernite Les Sept Dormants n4 et Universite
Lucian Blaga press, 1995
ΠAI
2011
Tinkering
with the Riddler's 'dark'
fragments in the primordial landscapes of Samothrace
Treasure hunt cultural
game
Inspired
by the
PAI
concept, a group of local residents created the cultural association
IDEA to this end. They shared their
living
experience in selected locations, with
A.
Papantoniou/VimViva,
who illustrated the
spots
and the clues to be discovered,
on a series of playing cards.The Treasure
clues,
are magnified,
beyond
proportion,
in these surrealistic images that move between the real thing and the
idea we make of that thing while searching for something.
They
also devised a popular Samothrace Game, based on the illustrated
deck, dedicated to the building of a local amphitheatre.
The
Treasure is the Lapis Exilis, a stone collected in
the island of Aphrodite, Melos, which P. Kasda had used in
her performance
ΠAI,
in the ancient theatre of Megalopoles, Arcadia,in 1997. It is meant
to be the foundation stone (Themele) for this new theatre; image of
the Child playing in the theater of time.. .
"The artist is
not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one
who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being
he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he
is "man" in a higher sense - he is "collective man,"
a vehicle and moulder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind."
(C.Jung, 'Psychology and Literature', 1930)
