Paradox Ethereal Magazine 06

ROMANTICISM AND TRANSCENDENTALISM IN PHILOSOPHY LITERATURE MUSIC & THE ARTS

ISSUE 06 SEPT - NOV 2014

HANS BAUER * CÉCILE CORBEL * SOPHIE PATRY * TRUE ORPHEUS DIOGENIS PAPADOPOULOS * THE SECRET CRITERION OF AESTHETICS DEVELOP NEW PERCEPTUAL CIRCUITS * CASA BATLLÓ * SUICIDE PARADOX ETHEREAL MAGAZINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ISSUE 06 SEPT - NOV 2014 & ART DIRECTOR P R E F A C E Mary Vareli

Paradox Ethereal is a quar- ASSOCIATE EDITORS terly digital magazine pos- & sessing a re-enactment char- CONTRIBUTORS acter and related to the Arts, Romanticism, Aestheticism Kim Cascone and Symbolism. We flirt Spyros Papathanasiou Roberta Sparrow with Music - folk, ethereal, Ellada Kralli or experimental forms - Hans Bauer Esoteric Traditions, Trav- Diogenis Papadopoulos eling possessing an explor- Sophie Patry atory character, Art in all Orestis Damianos its magnitude and types, SPECIAL THANKS TO the Absurd in full glory, ev- Zouan Kourtis, Ella Koten, Elena Simatou, Aria S. erything Retro or Vintage, Sofia Alikou, Tony Smith, H. Tomson & many others. Nature, Literature, Psychol- DISCLAIMER Paradox Ethereal is a non-profit digital publication that is distrib- ogy, Philosophy and above uted for free. All content is subject to copy- all the Transcendental. If a right and may not be reproduced in any form reader feels he/she is one of without express written consent of the author. While the editorial team strives to make the us we accept contributions. information as timely and accurate as possi- «The artist is the creator of ble, we make no claims, promises, or guar- antees about the accuracy, completeness, or beautiful things», Oscar adequacy of the contents, and expressly dis- Wilde said. Beauty is a fuel claim liability for errors and omissions in the contents of this publication. All images used and imagination the vehicle. belong to the paradox ethereal team, as for Welcome to the trip! the rest submitted by contributors we plead, fair, educational and non-profit use and lack www.paradoxethereal-magazine.com of any responsibility towards their sources, having made sure we initiated permission to use the creative commons terms. Kenneth Frazier - Woman with a Rose [1891-92] TABLE OF CONTENTS

(06) Editorial - The Secret Criterion of Aesthetics (cover photo by Hans Bauer )

ARS LONGA (08) Hans Bauer US - Photographer l interview (16) Sophie Patry l France - Photographer l interview (24) Diogenis Papadopoulos l Greece - Painter l interview ARS AETERNAL (30) Kim Cascone l Subtle Listening - How Artists Can Develop New Perceptual Circuits l essay (37) Mary Vareli l True Orpheus- The Theologian and Reformer of the Ancient Greek Mysteries l article RERUM PRIMORDIA

(44) Suicide l Thoughts on a controversial matter l quotes (48) Percy Bysshe Shelley l A Defence of Poetry l essay (pt 6) (54) Ellada Kralli l The Music Box l short story SPIRITUS MUNDI (58) Mary Vareli l Casa Batlló, Barcelona, Spain l photos MUSICA (66) Cécile Corbel l interview (71) In Love with l cd reviews & press releases AL LIBITUM (72) Admired l Photo array (73) Transcendental films l Films on fairy tales AD ABSURDO (74) ParadoxSea l Axolotl (75) Roberta Sparrow l Once Upon a Time l Retro Naivety l photo array

Paradox Ethereal Magazine – All rights reserved. You are not permitted to re-transmit, distribute or commercialise the material without obtaining prior written approval. Noncommercial Use Publication call for serious submissions “THE ARTIST IS THE CREATOR OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS” Oscar Wilde The Secret Criterion of Schopenhau- Aesthetics er aesthetic contemplation of beau- Aesthetics, as a branch of philosophy, ty is a way to fight the suffering, as it rep- deals wιth the nature of beauty; also called resents the more free human intellect can “sentiment”, “taste” or even “judgement”. be from what the will and politics dictate. The three last characterizations also define a person’s creation or taste in art. I All these are interesting but still do not have observed that when one possesses answer a single question, what is this sublime aesthetics, this fact is always ap- that provides an artist, or a lover of the parent in anything the person creates or arts, with the criterion to avoid the traps uses as an object of beauty; on the other of the opposite of aestheticism? Is it just hand when there is lack of it. this is ap- studies, genes, practice or something parent in all instances similarly, being else? extremely traceable The word “aesthetic” comes from the Greek “aisthetikos”, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” declares meaning “esthetic, sensitive, sentient”. John Keats in the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. Too abstract? Bourdieu makes an ef- It is not always clear as to what defines fort to differentiate aesthetics from taste, the possession of this ability, though examining how class, background and there is a secret “language” concerning education define the exposure to values the characteristics of what causes the like taste. I am not satisfied either, think- sensory contemplation, or appreciation ing of cavemen and the sweet harmony on an object, and the opposite of course. of their works of art. Aesthetic judgments can be internally contradictory. For Friedrich Schiller the ability to recog- nize and appreciate beauty is the perfect No matter how much I elaborate on this reconciliation of the sensual and ratio- secret criterion I still have not found an nal parts of human nature. For Immanuel answer, I only reach side-conclusions. If Kant this is subjective, but still a human all answers were given, who knows, may- truth, so, like Plato, he claims that all peo- be the beauty would dissolve and in its ple should agree that “this rose is beau- place we could find a lovely volume of tiful”. “the secrets of art appreciation and perfect creation”. Boring... l For Oscar Wilde beauty is for beauty’s sake only, as Art must not have any didac- Mary Vareli tic purpose, or any usefulness. For Arthur József Rippl-Rónai Woman with a Bird Cage, 1892. hans bauer Kerrville, Texas

the veil has been lifted try and Los Angeles. Hans Bauer You are also the writer of the novel “Fishtale” and the screenwriter of “Ana- conda”. Impressive!

Fishtale, which deals with four kids and their epic encounter with a titanic catfish on the Mississippi delta, began as an original screenplay; Jaws, Moby Dick, or perhaps An- aconda for kids. The script was never filmed.

Anaconda: The Writer’s Cut, is also based on my original screenplay, this time resulting in a potrait of the artist as a young man the popular movie franchise. The movie was quite a success, but never matched my original vision, hence, “The Writer’s Cut.” Mary Vareli: Hans, tell us a few things about your studies and your initial drive What is your personal philosophy, your to become an artist. will path that you, successfully indeed, follow and reflect in your path? Hans Bauer: My adopted father, who worked for the Library of Congress, was a You have to find a way to be free to follow great lover of art books. His basement li- your muse. I’ve been extraordinarily blessed brary was crammed with them. That was my in finding mine. first exposure, and from there my awareness grew and grew. For my thirteenth birthday, What inspired you? Can you describe I was gifted with a book of Fredrick Reming- yourself and your surroundings when the ton paintings and a model dinosaur kit. The Muse visits you? dinosaur is long gone, but the book is still within reach. I don’t have the experience of not being inspired. I have so many projects on the back To the extent that I’m blessed with any par- burners, the challenge I have is finding time ticular artistic abilities, I am self-taught. But I for all the muses. suppose it always begins with a code, something in our DNA, mine just happens to be Concerning photography, in which genre largely visual. I think that’s evident in my would you categorize yourself? Is it mag- writing, as well. ical realism?

You are Austrian-born living in Texas My images fall under a number of themes; right? Arcadia, Goddess in Ruins, Season of the Witch, and the Lost Tarot, among others, I Yes, an Austrian citizen with a green card, al- agree that all present an air of magical real- though you’d never know it if I hadn’t told ism. It “speaks” to me. you. I’ve been here a long time, dividing my time between the fabulous Texas Hill Coun-

Can you recall the first time that you shot in a transcendental mood? Meaning shooting the essence of your topic, not what your sight could see.

It happened very quickly, initially in my Goddess in Ruins series, when I realized that some aspect of any particular image; a col- or scheme, a blot of cloud, a patch of turf, whatever, could also be found in work by others that I greatly admired. Perhaps I was unconsciously channeling.

You work is characterized by intense symbolism, where do you draw your influenc- es from? Gradually, there’s been a shift toward mono/sepia. Many of the old master painters have been my greatest influence. I never cease to be You seem to love worlds and landscapes dazed and amazed, there’s always some- that are “unfamiliar to most.” Are you a thing new to see and learn. kind of visual explorer in your life gener- ally? Do you also read the Tarot cards? You have created your own deck in the man- Yes, I love to just drive and I’m always look- ner of an adept. ing for otherworldly qualities or timeliness. You consider the world to be “ a leather ball The deck is a joint project with my creative filled with air, in some places the leather has partner, Catherine Masciola. She is my co-au- been scuffed away to nothing”. Tell us more, thor on Fishtale, which also includes fifteen you’ll find me agreeable... of her original drawings. She worked with me as editor on Anaconda and created two I’ll quote from my artist’s statement. of my book covers, for Anaconda, and In the “My image world consists of peo- Beginning. The deck concept is based on a short story she created which was, in turn, ples and landscapes unfamiliar inspired by my photography series Season to most, perceivably strange and of the Witch. We plan to include the story in ethereal, where place and subject a book or booklet with the set. To your question, yes, I do read, but in terms merge fact and fiction; hinterlands of the Tarot, I’m not the adept. where the veil has been lifted, far- flung outposts, port cities of the Color or black and white? What do you imagination, haunted territories, personally like most? transition points between worlds, Of late, I’m drawn to both equally, although whirlpools spilling into parallel di- for years my focus was entirely on color. eled beyond the edge and returned with pictures. To the center of the earth, to the moon, backward in time and into the beyond, the greatest journeys have always been those launched by the imagination.

I offer my collec- tions as visible mensions, shrouded lands strad- proof of my own odyssey – there dling the waypoints between and back again.” dreams and desire. What is your personal definition of imag- The whole world, everything we ination? consider sane and normal, might The privilege of dipping into a bottomless well be a leather ball filled with well of ideas. air. In some places the leather has been scuffed away to nothing. Ide- Do you enjoy exhibiting your work? Tell us about your exhibitions, venues, au- ally, my images transport the view- dience reactions, and anything else you er to those landscapes of magical consider important. realism where the dividing line is thinner; masked, mystical, chi- I’ve yet to pursue much in the way of public exhibition, although I have mounted a few merical cities and citizens of the one man shows in Los Angeles, San Francis- mind, often at great distance, but co, and here in Texas. I believe there’ll be a near enough to touch. lot more of those in the future.

The people in these images do not Are you an optimist? speak English, French, Chinese, or I hope so. any known language. That they somewhat resemble us is mere Would you choose to dwell in an Arcadian universe, well depicted in your “Arcadia” coincidence. Their maker has trav- photo series?

I’m always living in an Arcadian universe. It’s all in how you view it.

What advice would you give to new artists that want to lift the veil?

Just work, work, and more work. And beyond that, I’m reduced to quoting Joseph Campbell. “Follow your bliss.” It simply cannot be stated any better. What’s going to happen will happen.

Thank you for the trip. You are an asset to the transcendental art legacy.

My pleasure, Mary. Thank you for your interest. l CONTACT

http://hansbauerphoto.com http://LorraineBenini.com http://Benini.com http://SculptureRanch.com

sophie “I am between the real patry and France the unreal”

Edwardian postcard me to gradually regain confidence in myself but I think the work is long, very long... I have difficulty to explain it, that is why I love this quote: "A picture worth a thousand words "of Confucius.

How would you describe your style and technique?

Dark and poetic. I am between the real and the unreal. The technique I like the most to use is the long exposure, especially for self-portraits and portraits. There is always a surprise in the result which always amazes me.

Mary Vareli: Sophie, tell us a few things What is the most challenging thing about about your studies, and what prompted you experimentation ? to become a photographer. Being self-taught, I always do the experiment, Sophie Patry: When I was a student I never it is essential. It's always a challenge to have thought that I will become a photographer ! the desired result. I followed secretarial studies and was attract- ed by the cinema, so I ended up doing three- . The desire to practice pushes me to try. year studies at the college cinema Paris VIII . Trial gives me experience. (SAINT-DENIS). Four years ago, I moved to my home city. I bought a small Kodak camera Experiment, test, test is often an incredibly ef- photo to shoot the flowers from the garden. fective vehicle for moving. Experimentation Then step by step, I started to like it. I love na- can enrich the own creativity. It is interesting ture, so I started taking photos of landscapes to keep an open mind to explore new tech- and the forest and then while driving I took niques that can make discoveries ss surprising pictures on the road. And then came the and enriching. self-portraits, an odd thing for someone who has never liked to be in the picture ! Do you use post production?

You have a very personal style, it is like you Just taking pictures is not enough, there's look at thing from the inside. What is your something missing, I need to rework my secret? photos on photoshop CC and I started using lightroom for post-processing. I try to give a I don’t really think about in advance what different atmosphere to the original photo. I I'm going to make a picture, it depends on use textures, brushes, overlays, layers ... that's my mood. I shoot as the feeling goes, I like according to the photo and my inspiration. It to try new techniques and to make different can be quick or take several days, until I am pictures. For self-portraits, it's harder, I take satisfied with the result. I'm not in the quan- a series from time to time when I feel good. tity, I gradually always according to my inspi- It's not narcissism but it's a job on me, I've ration. always had difficulty accepting me. It allows self portrait allows you to explore the pho- tographic techniques of the past. It is a target containing a single hole the size of a needle to reproduce an image through which light passes through this small opening. The pinhole may be surprising for its sweet images, with its depth of field, its amazing perspectives; with a dreamlike effect.

What inspires you?

Music is a great inspiration for me. Everyday, I listen to it. When I work my photos, I always have my headphones. In What type of cameras do you shoot with? the past I listened to rock, indie, grunge and sometimes reggae, but now I listen to cold- I have a Nikon D5100, I bought 2 ½ years ago. wave, electronic, post-punk, industrial, min- With the only lens nikkor 18 – 105 mm. I re- imal, synth... cently invested a cobra flash. What is your personal definition of imagi- If you had to choose one lens which one nation? would it be and why? Imagination is the true engine of creativity For now, I’m working with only one lens (18 Imagination, this world between dream and – 105 mm) which satisfies me a lot because reality, that allow us to explore our thoughts we can do many things with it but if I had to in many phases of the creative process. buy a new one this would be a fixed focal lens could be a 50-mm. This lens is much brighter Darkness, solitude and a tendency to run than zooms. Zoom provides maximum flexi- away is apparent in your images. Am I bility in its use, it is multitask. It can go from wrong? portrait to landscape without changing lenses. However, in general, the aperture is too low: You’re right, you've done a fair representation lack of management depth of field and low of my photos. My pictures are coming from light lens, unusable indoors without a flash. So my imagination and thus are a representation that's why I'd like to test a fixed focal length. of my personality. I run away from reality !

But before buying fixed focal length, I'll try Black and white or color? You are great in the method of the pinhole. Concerning dig- both but what do you prefer? ital cameras you can do it either yourself or buy it, I prefer the latter, because I'm not a I prefer black and white to highlight a subject handyman (even if it sounds simple to make). or mood and sepia to give an antique effect to Designed for lovers of retro pictures, this lens the photo. ard…

Do you enjoy exhibiting your work? I also like the movies. The photos take me a lot of time and I have less interested in cinema. I For now, I have never exhibited in galler- like art directors like Cocteau, Roman Polans- ies. Right now, I am in contact with a gallery ki, Tim Burton… wanting to exhibit my pictures, but I'm thinking about it, a lot of questions, doubts ... At the Are you working on any project this period? moment, the only places to see my photos are social networks and on my website. For now, I'm not working on specific projects, I await the return of September to reconnect Favourite photographers and directors ? with people and eventually projects. For now, I continue to feed my series of personal pho- I like the surrealist movement. What I like in tos. l Surrealism and photography? This is the place given to daydreaming. It is described as im- CONTACT ages, which, symbolically, represent dreams, hallucinations, madness ... This is a journey http://sopatry4.wix.com/sophiepatry#!unti- into the strange. And for me, the mains are tled/zoom/ctqp/imageeno Man Ray, Jerry N. Uelsmann, Maurice Tab- https://www.facebook.com/sophie.patry.7

DIOGENIS PAPADOPOULOS Greece, Xanthi

"painting is a dialogue with myself" Mary Vareli: You mentioned that painting is your psy- Tell us a few choanalysis, can you comment on this? things about Do you have painting habits, or do you your studies just do it when you are in the mood? and the period when you Painting is a dialogue with myself. It helps to started paint- find a balance in life. It is a stress buster, so I ing. create the conditions to draw.

Diogenis Pa- The way you use light and color in women padopoulos: figures is impressive, do you use models? I studied Civil Engineering As I said before, I use models sometimes, and currently which is not always feasible. Some other I am a student times, pictures. in the School of Architecture. Do you experiment with different materi- In terms of my als a lot, or do you prefer to work within relationship with painting, I can not track a certain parameters? specific period as I have always drawn. It is just that at times there is a greater need for I am fascinated by ink and acrylic paints, so expression. they are prevalent in my work.

In practice have these two aspects of your Your work Death & The Master communi- education intertwined in any way? cates a special depiction of atmosphere that also influenced James Ensor. You If there is any relationship, well, it possibly said the project was inspired by movies works completely unconsciously, as for me of Alfred Hitchcock, yet I notice some sar- the profession of a civil engineer is the con- casm in this work. tact with reality, while painting is the creation of my own reality. A. Hitchcock is my first contact with the world of cinematic horror. When I was a kid, How would you characterize your style? I first saw the film “Birds”; I was shocked but Surrealism, pop art and expressionism enjoyed it nonetheless. Over time, I found prevail, right? that within Hitchcock's films, along with the atmosphere of Death, a mischievous mood I wish I knew! is smoldering too. This is the feeling, I tried to depict in my project "Death & The Master". Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Everything revolves around man. From face to body movements. Sometimes the source of my inspiration is either a familiar face (the way one is standing, reading, reclining), or a photo, or even part of it.

Do you believe your work is characterized by a kind of transition? Has your thinking and style changed at any time?

My job has changed over the years, while working. What I mean is that over time, my maturity, I think, is prevalent my work as well.

Have you created any comic books?

I've done some comic stories in the past. I do not know if I will do it again.

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I'm working on a project concerning authors of my favorite books.

Do you enjoy exhibiting your work? I noticed the way you present your works during exhibiting is part of the project, especially concerning the use of light and a sense of dimension.

The exhibition is a challenge on how to rec- oncile the work with the space, but it is also a nice sense to experience the immediacy of the public's reaction.

Painters you admire? I bet you love Egon Schiele.

You're right. I love Egon Schiele, as well as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edward Hopper.

Writers and philosophers?

Franz Kafka, Dashiell Hammett & Pascal Bruckner. These. l

CONTACT https://www.behance.net/diogeni- spap / FB https://www.facebook.com/pages/ DPainting/934985213195070

SUBTLEHOW ARTISTS CAN DEVELOP LISTENING NEW PERCEPTUAL CIRCUITS By Kim Cascone

“SUBTLE LISTENING IS ABOUT DEVELOPING AN INTUITIVE AWARENESS, A HEIGHTENED SENSITIVITY TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU. THE WORD “SUBTLE” IS BORROWED FROM VARIOUS ESOTERIC PHILOS- OPHIES THAT DESCRIBE A CONCEPT CALLED THE “SUBTLE REALM.” THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT NAMES USED FOR THIS IMA- GINAL PLACE. HENRY CORBIN COINED THE TERM “MUNDUS IMAGINALIS” TO EXPLAIN THE SUFI CONCEPT OF THE “SUBTLE REALM” TO WESTERNERS. JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGISTS USE THE TERM “ACTIVE IMAGINATION” TO DE- SCRIBE A SIMILAR IDEA.” Steichen, Drizzle on Fortieth Street, New York. 1925 Cross of Sensations interested in Eastern spiritual philosophies, I decided to check it out. After a brief “Creating new circuits in art introduction to the basics of meditation, the teacher showed me how to sit, how to means creating them in the brain.” focus on my breath, and some techniques to -- Gilles Deleuze deal with distracting thoughts. Like many first timers, I struggled with the usual prob- As a child, I noticed that certain sounds lems, such as sitting on a cushion for long would have a strange effect on me. A sound, as periods of time and quieting the internal well as the acoustical properties of a partic- chatter, but after a month or so of practice, I ular location, created mental images that found myself able to meditate. transported me to an imaginal world. These images weren't shapes or textures— I continued to meditate at the center, where although that occurred later on—but im- I learned other techniques I incorporated ages of a location, like a scene from a into my practice. I read books on medita- cinematic dream sequence. tion and discovered there were as many ways to meditate as there are people who medi- For example, the distant reverberations of tate. Being the inventive type, I experimented a propeller plane evoked the image of an with creating my own meditations, many of expansive marble quarry framed by wild jun- which involved hearing, or more importantly, gle vegetation; another sound evoked the the act of listening. interior of a candy shop viewed through purple cellophane. These strange visions Listening Meditation lacked any correlation to the sound I heard. It's difficult to explain, but I intuitively My listening meditations, which today form knew that these images represented the es- the basis of my Subtle Listening workshop, sence or the soul of a sound, as if the sound developed quite by accident. After many had an atmospheric or psychic flavor. hours of practicing guitar (my instrument in music school) I would often take a break in Although confused by these experiences as the evening and walk over to the Christian a child, I've since recognized these visions Science Center where I would meditate as a type of synesthesia, in which one type near the expansive man-made pool in the of stimulation evokes the sensation of plaza. The surface of the water and the con- another. As an adult, I've learned to control crete walls of the buildings played tricks and develop my synesthesia using various with the sounds of the city. As I meditat- forms of meditation and exercises. It has ed, these echoic, reverberant sounds would become an important tool in my work as a form shapes and textures in my mind's eye. sound artist. Intrigued by this phenomenon, I sought out Learning to Meditate ways to enhance this awareness through meditation. After months of trying differ- I started meditating in 1975 while attend- ent techniques I noticed that my hearing ing the Berklee College of Music in Boston. I became sharper. My heightened aware- spotted a flier at a health food store for ness picked up on sounds I would have a class at a meditation center and, being previously tuned out, and I heard them in dulating, spiky, amoebic shape, traveling back and forth in arcs and loops. At some point the flock split into two amoebic shapes, each with its own speed and trajectory. But something strange happened while I was in this state; I was no longer aware of each flock separately, but became aware of the space between them.

In other words, I was not focusing directly on the birds, but sensing the negative space Andreas Feininger, 1906 or where the birds were not. It was as if I had switched into an altered and slightly mystical reality, one that enabled me to hear greater detail. It was as if my hearing went where a sound was not occurring—much from black and white to Technicol- like a sculptor's negative space or a sonic or as a result of my listening meditations. black hole. I came to understand later that sensing absence can be just as important as Like the Buddha sensing presence—because it is often in the Sitting Under a Tree empty spaces where art occurs. Reaching Dark “Music is the silence between the Stations n o t e s .” – Claude Debussy Over the years I've been fortunate to earn a living in both the music and audio While home from music school one Thanks- industries while pursuing my work as a giving a friend asked if I would drive him composer. From synthesizer programming to an appointment. After dropping them and film sound editing to running a record off, I found myself with nothing to do for an label, I've always managed to make a living hour so I took advantage of the beautiful, with my ears. I was privileged to get a job as crisp autumn day and sat under a tree in a an assistant music editor on a couple of David nearby park. Savoring the colors and sounds Lynch films: Twin Peaks and Wild At Heart. of autumn, I closed my eyes, focused on Time allowing, I would run up to the mix theater my breathing, and began to meditate. to watch Mr. Lynch, working with a sound designer, transmute ordinary sounds into After a short while, a flock of noisy birds, intricate dark sonic tapestries. preparing to migrate, started flying back and forth between the treetops. Resisting the Each sound effect or sonic texture need- urge to shift my attention to them I heeded ed in a scene was verbally conjured by Mr. my meditation teacher’s advice: “acknowl- Lynch before working with any sounds edge the distractions, don't focus on them.” from the Lucas sound library. Many sound In this state of meditative non-attention, the designers work in a “top down” approach, sound of the birds took on a distinct shape starting from a vague idea of a sound in my mind's eye. The sound became an un- needed in a scene, then manipulating and mixing many different sounds until sound. something works. However, Mr. Lynch worked “bottom up,” meaning his unconscious already knew the sound needed for a scene as well as the recipe needed to create it. David Lynch conjured sound from a deep place, one I intuitively recognized as an imaginal realm accessible through years of exploring his unconscious. So it was no surprise to discover that David Lynch was also a meditator.

Ear Training for Media Students

While fighting a bout of influenza on tour I had a feverish epiphany as I rushed for a connecting flight: there was no ear train- the musician by Loui Jover ing for people working with sound as an art form. In ten years of teaching and lectur- ing in dozens of universities and media On my connecting flight I busily jotted centers across Europe, I had not en- down as many of my listening meditations, countered a single “ear training” class or exercises, and past experiences as I could formalized introduction to listening think of. I then turned these fever-fueled of any sort for digital media students. notes into a framework for the Subtle Lis- Of course, music students learn solfège tening workshop and emailed them to a (singing the sol-fa syllables to a scale or friend who teaches digital media. He respond- melody) and melodic dictation in ear train- ed saying that this was exactly the sort of ing classes, and engineers are taught to thing his students needed. He saw that his listen for technical anomalies. But most students were all too ready to start their students learning about sound for digital work in software rather than spend time read- media have no formal instruction in how to ing, writing, and exploring their psyches. listen. He felt the workshop might help his students develop their sensory intuition, shifting Students typically learn how to their workflow from the phys- work with the latest software applications ical plane to the mental plane. as well as the technical aspects of creating content; however they are often lost What is Subtle when it comes to using their “inner ears.” And this often showed in their work, which Listening? displayed competent technical craft, but suffered from a lack of internal explora- Let me first explain what Subtle Listening tion. Seeing this lack I felt I needed to help is not. Subtle Listening is not the ability to correct this by sharing what I had learned hear subtle nuances in a piece of classi- during 30 years as an artist working with cal music, nor is it a master class for nature recordists or a new type of music theraopy. awareness of the world. In addition to the Subtle listening is about developing an standard forms of meditation, I have created intuitive awareness, a heightened sen- special sound files to be listened to during sitivity to the world around you. meditation. These special sound files are de- The word “subtle” is borrowed from var- signed to induce “audio brainwave entrain- ious esoteric philosophies that describe a ment.” concept called the “subtle realm.” There Often called binaural beats, these sounds are many different names used for this synchronize the frequency of the listeners’ imaginal place. For example, the Islamic brainwaves to the frequency contained in scholar, and expert on Sufism, Henry Corbin the sound file, thereby affecting a change coined the term “mundus imaginalis” to ex- in consciousness. These files can help those plain the Sufi concept of the “subtle realm” who have difficulty meditating by slowing to Westerners. Jungian psychologists use down their brainwaves, thereby affecting a the term “active imagination” to describe a more relaxed state. similar idea. Additionally, all workshop participants take Whatever term is used to describe it, the part in a project where they create a short subtle realm is an imaginal, numinous sound work based on a soundscape “heard” domain said to exist between nature's out- during a guided meditation. This not only er appearance and its inner essence or soul. teaches them to plumb the depths of their The subtle realm is an interworld viewed by unconscious, but also fosters a more holistic the soul of a person while in an altered or sensory connection to the world by hav- mystical state of consciousness. ing them focus on listening in an imaginal, Poets, mystics, and artists, by nature, are fa- interior space. miliar with this realm, and it is precisely this unique way of experiencing the world— Although the workshop is designed with with their souls—that enable them to the goal of developing aural awareness, any communicate their vision through their type of artist can participate in and bene- work. To offer a somewhat less mystical fit from Subtle Listening. Whether you are a explanation, one can think of the subtle realm poet, writer, photographer, painter, film- as the unconscious associations within a maker, dancer, musician, or sound designer, person’s psyche that form an intui- your artistry will benefit greatly from hav- tive perception of the physical world. ing a heightened awareness of the world around you. Hence, the techniques used in the Subtle Listening workshop are culled from sources Subtle Listening such as Jungian psychology, Hermetic philosophy, Rhythmanalysis, synesthesia, Exercises paradox mediation, and brainwave entrainment. I have handpicked techniques from Use these exercises to help facilitate a visu- each of these areas I think people will find al sense of sound while also exploring your useful in developing the intuitive flow unconscious. between the outer world and their unconscious—where the subtle realm is perceived. Six Degrees of Similitude Or to put it a different way, using meditation This exercise requires two people. One per- as a method to develop an extrasensory son draws the shape and texture of their favorite sound on a piece of paper. The pa- For example: the chirp of birds could cor- per is then handed to the other person, who relate to the chirping of a crossing signal for studies the drawing and tries to hear the the blind at a busy intersection. sound the drawn shape represents. After they hear the sound they then draw the sound Shape of Words on the paper. This process is repeated until Draw a simple shape of the following words there are six soundshapes drawn on the as you or a partner read them aloud— page. Afterwards, discuss the drawings and over enunciation is helpful: slam, tan, golf, the sounds each represent. fuse, ship, slab, tone, fuzz and hum. l

Water Talk Find a sound file of a river, brook, or stream (freesound.org). Load it onto an mp3 player and set the player to repeat mode. Lis- ten to the sound file on headphones while in a meditative state. Set the sound level to be audible as background but no louder. Spend 30 minutes or so listening to this sound, but don't directly focus on the sound; let the random sound of the water remain in the background as ambiance. Afterwards, Edward Steichen. 'Nocturne - Orangery Stair- write down any sounds or speech patterns case, Versailles' 1908 you heard embedded in the sound of the water. GLOSSARY

Auditory Field of a Painting Brainwave Entrainment – An external peri- Select a favorite painting. It can be figura- odic stimuli that causes a synchronization tive or abstract—the important thing is that of brainwave frequencies. Usual forms of you resonate with it. Study it while in a entrainment are in the form of soundfiles meditative state. Let your gaze enter the and/or electronic devices using headphones painting and descend below its surface, and LED goggles. as if you were inside the painting. Let the sounds in the painting come to you. After Binaural Beats – A perceptual artifact that the session write down all the sounds you occurs when two tones of different heard in the painting. frequencies are presented separately via stereo headphones. For example, when 100 Sonic Replacement Therapy Hz is played in one ear while the other is Go to a sonically rich environment such played 101 Hz, a binaural beat of 1Hz is as a park or a mall food court. Make two produced by the brain and perceived as au- columns on a sheet of paper and write dio. down each individual sound you hear in the first column. Later, look at the sounds in Monaural Beats – Rather than presenting column one and write down corresponding each ear with a different frequency, the sounds that are similar in quality but beats are mixed electronically before being would only occur in a very different presented to the listener. They are mixed environment. down to a monaural track and presented as a single channel of audio, not stereo. html Isochronic Beats – Rather than using differ- “Recovering a Visionary Geography: Henry Corbin ent frequencies to create beats, isochronic and the Missing Ingredient in Our Culture of Images” – Ptolemy Tompkins beats electronically turn a sound on and off http://www.seriousseekers.com/News%20and at an evenly spaced rate. People who don't %20Articles/article_tompkins_p_recoveringviso- respond well to binaural or monaural beats nary.htm tend to respond to this method of brainwave entrainment. BOOKS

Subtle Realm – A realm that exists between Poetics of Space – Gaston Bachelard the surface of nature and its soul or Silence – John Cage essence. This realm can be perceived with a Kybalion – The Definitive Edition – William Walker Atkinson developed extrasensory perception (also Listening and Voice – Don Idhe called active imagination or integral con- Rhythmanalysis – Henri LeFebvre sciousness), which can be brought about The Ever Present Origin – Jean Gebser through lucid dreaming, hypnosis, or medi- The Secret History of Consciousness – Gary Lachman tation. It yields its secrets when entered Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener with full consciousness. – David Toop "The imaginary Musician" Mary Musician" Mary imaginary "The Vareli, 2007

Acoustics – An interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of mechanical waves in various media. In the context of this article, acoustics refers to the behavior of sound waves when encountering different surfaces and materials.

Rhythmanalysis – A method for analyzing the inherent, non-musical rhythms of an urban, or any, space and how those rhythms affect its inhabitants.

SUGGESTED READING:

PAPERS

"Auditory Beats in the Brain" Gerald Oster, 1973 http://goo.gl/ahx30 “The Subtle Realm: Corbin, Sufism and Swedenborg” Kim Cascone is a composer, sound artist, – Robert Avens touring musi- http://www.scribd.com/doc/24201320/Roberts-Av- cian, lecturer ens-The-Subtle-Realm-Corbin-Sufism- Swedenborg and writer. He “The Grain of the Auditory Field” – Kim Cascone lives in the San http://www.glennbach.com/cascone_grainfield.pdf Piece on synesthesia and dance: Francisco Bay http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pag- Area with his es/article.php?articleID=235 wife Kathleen “The Door to the Imaginal Realm” – Mary Pat Mann and son Cage. http://mytholog.com/essays/mann_imaginalrealm. The Theologian and Reformer of the ancient Greek Mysteries

“First, urge the ones who sacrifice on altars to celebrate the Sun without blood. The Sun can see at a great distance the Earth as well, as the Earth is the fertile source of food of everything it is not admitted to offer an animal with a soul as a sacrifice.”

Orpheus (Orphei Lithic) Franz von Stuck, Orpheus, 1891 Over Orpheus there was and still there is a great controversy. Is it just because Orpheus was not a real person that lived in the distant past, or because his real nature had to be obscured out of fear and personal interest?

Mythology and Theology

Orpheus was a real person born on the north- ern side of Mountain Olympus in Thrace, ap- proximately in -21,840 BC (S. Anemogiannis Sinanidis). In his doctoral dissertation, the as- tronomer K. Chasapis in 1967 states that the peak of Orphism took place between -1841 BC to -1366 BC, though there is still controversy in this research based on calculations on Orpheus (left, with lyre) among the Thracians, from an Attic red-figure bell-krater (ca. 440 BC) astronomical phenomena that appear in some Orphic Hymns. It is actually very difficult to ny. trace the time and authenticity of Orphic The most original collection of Orphic frag- Fragments. (Thrace is the area of the Penin- ments is that of O. Kern (1963), based on the sula of Haemus that covers the quadrilateral study of Wilamowitz and on careful consider- area that is formed by the Danube River in ation by other respected researchers. the North, Mountain Olympus in the South, Adriatic Sea in the West and Euxinus Pontus TheGreek Mythology is rich in symbols. Ex- in the East.) amining symbols we must take into account a certain methodology that is unrelated to psy- The name Orpheus means “the enlightened”, chology, mathematics or demographics. To a version influenced by the Theosophical analyze a symbol one must follow two axioms: analysis of the name. Thirty two Greek writ- A. Every symbol represents a Force. ers of the ancient years mention him as “the B. Every symbol moves on two levels, the per- theologian of the Greeks”, as he is the one sonal and the impersonal one. who initiated and wrote what we know today Mythology was a clever means, used by Or- as Mythology. Orphism was spread in three pheus, to preserve truths that would other- places; in North Italy, in the area now called wise be lost. He rightfully the father of My- Palestine, and in Attica, Greece, reaching also thology. Taking this into account it is not the area now known as Piraeus where the an- Mythology, but Theologyinstead, written in cient celebration of Vendidion was held. The the form of Mythology, so that it can “trav- celebration was named after the word βενδις el” through years and remain unaltered. The / vendis which means water in the ancient same technique was used in Orphic Hymns. Thracian dialect. The information concerning the mysteries is spread in all works of Orpheus and it is quite The five main cosmogonies on which re- a difficult task to build a concrete text, a wise searchers base their comparative academic effort to preserve the elements of the Greek studies are the following: 1) Hieronymous Mysteries. and Hellanicus Cosmogony 2) Rhapsodian Cosmogony 3) Eudemus Cosmogony 4) Ar- Orpheus managed in a poetic, metaphysical gonautica of Apollonius Rhodius Cosmog- manner to transfer for thousands of years his ony 5) Alexander of Aphrodisias Cosmogo- precious knowledge of cosmic harmony and natural laws. A great number of sources to name the Gods and to regulate and reform mention that Orpheus could tame wild ani- the mysteries. An example of this is the intro- mals using his music. The symbolic meaning duction of the Dionysian element which pre- of this is that he managed, by means of his vails in the Eleusinian mysteries. An element work with the Mysteries, to harmonize every- which could not possibly originate in Minor thing. It is sad to observe that most informa- Asia, as falsely believed by some historians, as tion circulated on this divine being is false, the initiates there had no knowledge of how with him being presented as a musician, an Zeus is related to Dionysus. He did not only artist, as mere singer, a mystical poet in love. reform the Eleusinian mysteries but also the This fact undermines the value of the vast Caberian ones in Samothrace and Limnos is- knowledge accumulated by him and spread lands, but did not reform the Cretan mys- throughout the aeons. Nevertheless, Orphic teries as there was a “decay” in worship there, ideas survived as they were accepted and not preserving the secrecy and therefore not followed by Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and “touching” the Gods. his successors. As opposed to Speusippus, Aristotle failed to understand and accept the The two Cosmogonical Substances and the Orphic theology, and this was the main rea- Creation of the Soul son why he did not become a successor in the Platonic Academy when the time came. Even Orpheus did not actually create the Greek if the works of Orpheus have been altered theology, but reformed it, being able to do so and mistreated the power of his influence is as he exceeded the level of the people who ini- instilled in all Ancient Greek Philosophical tiated him. The Greek way of viewing life has Works. always been a matter of spiritual materialism. There is no “Fall”, just increase from a lower Orpheus received the knowledge of the Ele- material or spiritual state to a higher spiritual usinian mysteries from his father Oeagrus one. Orpheus had spoken in a cryptic way for

Orpheus with the lyre and surrounded by beasts who had received it from his own father, (Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens) Charops. A family of High Priests of the Mysteries. Oeagrus in ancient Greek means the one who hunts alone; isn’t the pursuing of true knowledge and initiation a solitary path full of obstacles and ordeals?

It is worth mentioning that the Greek mysteries were not intuitu personae, as they were never led by one single person. They were a series of analogies, of actions performed or displayed, so that the soul of man could acquire the proper vessel that would lead to its ability to correspond to the environment present after the death of the physical body. Howev- er, possessing this knowledge, Orpheus successfully managed to revoke his presence to a different plane than that of humans and in this manner he was in the position to initiate the Dionysiac function within the mysteries, the creation of the immortal soul; long before cal substances and their by- products. The two Plato, with his dialogue “Timaeus” [35A], pulsating Cosmogonical substances are, fol- before Timaeus and before Pythagoras. lowing the thread of Time, metamorphosed in Chasm / Chaos and Aether, and then - by As stated by Orpheus everything was creat- means of their combination - the Cosmogon- ed by the integration of the 2 cosmogonical ical Egg emerges - it must not be identified substances, “Matter” (Earth) and “Hydor” with the Soul. In the next level a divine per- (Water, form of Aether), which are symbols sonal being appears , called Phanes - Eros created by him referring to the Divided Sub- - Metes - Erecepeus (both male and female). stance (Cosmogonical Earth) and the In- Chasm is of a receiving nature and Chaos of cessant Substance (Cosmogonical Aether) an active one. Orpheus never revealed what respectively. Everything around us is made Pythagoras later revealed, about 21.000 after of these two Cosmogonical Substances in all Orpheus, the four stages of the two Cosmo- their possible forms. The hypo-atomic par- gonical Substances in terms of their motion, ticles of the Divided Substance, also called earth, water, air, fire. Pherecides Syrus men- Orphic Matter, can create everything, even tions that when Zeus wants to create he swal- protones, when under the force of the In- lows Phanes, who is the one that makes ap- cessant Substance , also called Orphic Hy- parent to Gods the types of Forms. dor. The existence of Cosmic Hydor took the name “Aether”. Aether has three attributes / Orpheus introduced the scheme “begin- laws 1. Energy 2. Birth and 3. Memory. ning - end - middle”, as he speaks of the Cos- mogonical Egg (beginning) and the personal The Soul is created by the two Cosmogon- God Phanes - Eros - Metes - Erecepeus (end), ical substances, coming out of the pre- cre- omitting the Soul (middle). He did this to ation stage, inside this environment. This place emphasis on the material nature of the egress means motion, which is natural law 1, Soul. (The scheme beginning - middle - end is the Law of Motion. More precisely, the hy- the initial scheme of the triple Aetheric Law.) po-atomic particle is dilated , this exercises pressure to the surrounding Aether, which His mythology starts from the idea that starts to recede as the hypo-atomic particle The Earth (Cosmogonical earth - Divided constantly recedes and contracts. In this was a Substance / Orphic Matter) created Ura- “borrowed” Aether arises for the hypo-atom- nus (Cosmogonical Aether - Incessant Sub- ic particle, the largest part of which is charac- stance - Orphic Hydor). This is strange as it is terized by inactivity and for this reason it does quite the opposite of what Orphic Theology not follow the centrifugal, diastolic movement claims, in which the two cosmogonical sub- of its crust. This in turn creates a chasm in the stances are independent, managing to come hypo-atomic particle inside of which Aether out of the Pre- Creation Stage (the unman- enters. In this way we have the creation of the ifested but not empty one) without the one soul. The soul is simple, meaning it cannot to be born from the other. Plato’s successor break into parts, and immortal, but, most im- in the Platonic Academia, Proclus, explains portantly, it is of a material nature. that the term used by Orpheus, “birth”, is a situation in which something unmanifested The two cosmogonal substances are devel- becomes manifested. Therefore we have an oped in terms of Time. Time is indicative of explanation to this controversy as the Cosmo- the numerical estimation of level of progres- gonical Earth has the ability to stimulate the sion / metamorphosis of the two cosmogoni- Cosmogonical Hydor. More particularly, the Cosmogonical Aether was forced by the Cos- mogonical Earth to come to the level that the latter defined. Orpheus defines Cosmolog- ical Earth as the Soul, which has a material, eternal, incorruptible and unbreakable into parts nature. In conclusion to this argument Uranus is a word used to define the upward limit of human consciousness. In the definition of cosmogonical pairs Uranus belongs in the area of Hydor, Aether; being a by- product of Aether.

In Orphic mythology Earth and Uranus give birth to Cronus. In a way the name Cro- nus comes from the Greek term “κορόνους” / koronus, which is indicative of clear reason. So Kurus and Kore, the female, mean “the Roman mosaic depicting Orpheus, wearing a Phry- clean one”; the Soul that manages to break the gian cap and surrounded by the beasts charmed by boundaries of reincarnations dressed in a male the music of his lyre or female identity. The word “reason” is met- aphorically used to to describe the high qual- dissolves 40 days after the person has perished, ity of Aether, therefore the term “κορόνους” so the initiated with the help of the priests of / koronus refers to the divine world of pure the mysteries were trying to preserve their Aether. Cronus must not be identified with Connective Logos, the etheric ligament. the idea of Time. The pair Cosmologica Earth Based on natural Law 4, that of Form the soul - Uranus is placed in a pre Cronus level while of a mortal is transformed into the soul of a the pair Rhea and Cronus - who give birth to god, only if, through the Mysteries, the Con- the Olympian gods, with Zeus born fifth - is nective Logos is not dissolved after the 40th placed in a pre-Olympian frame. day following death but is preserved instead. In this manner this Connective Aether be- The Mysteries comes eternal, become the soul of a god and then, due to the Law of Analοgy, the soul of The aim of the mysteries was to preserve an Olympian God. Connective Logos - called so by the last Neo Pythagorean philosopher Spyridon Nagos In Greek Mythology every birth means an (Greek, 1869-1933), or else called Connec- elevation, from a lower situation to a high- tive Aether. Connective Logos is the aetherial er; and each death means metamorphosis. part which connects the immortal soul with As mentioned before, Mythology and poet- the body, we can imagine it as something that ry were the safest techniques for Orpheus to functions like a plant and is constantly “up- save the authentic Greek Mysteries. The ele- graded”. A particle of Cosmogonical Earth, vation of the soul of a human to the soul of permeated with/by Aether, is initiated in the a god took place during the 12th stage in the foetus, connected with its organism via an pre-orphic mysteries and in the 9th stage in etheric ligament. This ligament is diffuse all the mysteries reformed by Orpheus. over the body and by means of this the Soul can control the whole of it. Normally it More particularly, the Mysteries before Orpheus had a different structure as they the head which is a symbol of the soul. It was were comprised of twelve degrees. Orpheus considered a great honor for athletes of the altered that to nine degrees, inserting innova- Olympic Games to wear such kind of wreath. tive elements. In the older Mysteries the soul After all these we realize that the Greeks of had to reincarnate again at the 12th degree of the past had an external region, it is better to initiation, while in the reformed Mysteries in call it “worship” as it was not a religion, the the 9th degree. Olympic one, and an internal religion which was the precious mystical proceedings of The Eleusinian mysteries were Mysteries of Mystical Eleusis, reformed by Orpheus. Demeter, “agricultural” Mysteries; symbolically for this reason΄ they cultivated the earth, Bloodless sacrifice an allegory for the soul. On Autumn Equinox (21/9) dissemination takes place, on Winter The original Greek mysteries do not involve Solstice (21/12) the first shoot appears, in any blood sacrifices, unlikely to what some Spring Equinox ((21/3) the flowers appear researchers and historians claim. Even the and finally on theSummer Solstice (21/6) the sacrifice of Iphigenia in Aulide is symbolic harvest is ready, the seeds of which will fall of the sacrifice of Greek unity, taking into ac- on the earth. The mysteries are symbolic account that the Trojans were Greek too. Only tions of Man’s travel to immortality, living on bloodless sacrifices can approach the realm of a higher, more subtle plane and moving on to the Immortals. Orpheus in his mystical work higher planes with mysteries that take place (Orphei) Lithic wrote: “First, urge the ones in these dimensions respectively. A wreath who sacrifice on altars to celebrate the Sun made of a non-deciduous tree or plant, like without blood. The Sun can see at a great a wild olive tree or laurel as a symbol of the distance the Earth as well, the Earth is the Connective Logos that managed to remain in- fertile source of food of everything, it is not tact even after the 40 days, it was worn on admitted to offer an animal with a soul as a sacrifice.” This is the greatest proof. Oth- er misunderstandings came from the false attempts to translate the Orphei Lithic. for example, it is mentioned that a young calf is taken from its mother by Orpheus himself and is offered as a sacrifice. the word calf in Greek is the same with word blossom, so as in the same work Orpheus advices not to sacrifice animals, isn’t it illogical to commit such a cruel action himself? By all means it is, as he refers to blossom!

There is also an ancient Greek celebration called Oschophoria (from “moschos” meaning blossom, in which noblemen holding branches of a vine with grapes were heading to the temple of Dionysus and then that of Athena. Symbolically they were moving from Orpheus with his music nymphs reclining on the Feeling to Thinking. A soul like Orpheus bank of a stream. The Walters Art Museum. would definitely feel as if taking a child from the mother, when he cuts a branch of vine full What preceded is by no means an article that of its flowers to offer it to the divine forces, as covers the vast subject of Orphism, it gives just a symbol of a soul that is ready to bloom. A an idea of a subject that has been the study of very powerful act of sacrifice is leaving stones philosophers and researchers for centuries. It on the temples, representing a form of Aether is wise to keep in mind it is mainly an oral stabilized by the powers of the cosmogonical tradition. l matter. For the Orphic belief stones are living creatures. Indicative Nevertheless, Orpheus respected the pre-or- References phic arrangement of mysteries, therefore he felt he had to introduce in the pre initiatory *Ανεμογιάννης stage of the Eleusinian mysteries the follow- Σινανίδης Δ. ing symbolic action of Thesmophoria; the Χώρος και Χρόνος εις sacrifice of a piglet and the burning of it on τα Ορφικά the eschara (type of Greek altar used to burn Αποσπάσματα, sacrificial offerings). The symbolic meaning Αθήναι, 1978 of the sacrifice of the piglet is the metamor- (καθώς και phosis of the purged part of the soul into one άρθρα στο of a fiery nature. In this way the initiatory sys- περιοδικό tem presented to the neophytes the promise “Ιδεοθέατρον” that one day maybe they will become divine και δημόσιες beings. The neophytes also covered their fac- ομιλίες του es with plaster to indicate symbolically that ιδίου εις τον the soul, symbol of which is the head, has not αρχαιολογικό χώρο της Ελευσίνος) yet manifested its specific, magnificent char- *Etymologicon Magnum, Gaisford, Th. Oxford acteristics. The way they cleaned their faces (1848) Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1965 *Kern, O., Orphicorum Fragmenta, Berlin: remains unknown to the researchers. Weidmann, 1963 *ORPHICA, Ed. ster. Lipsiae, 1829 The neophyte had to be present in front of “Orphic”, Macmillan Dictionary for Students, Si- all priests and priestesses of the mysteries, as mon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, 1984 it was considered important to see who his *Πρόκλου Διαδόχου Εις τον Τίμαιο Πλάτωνος, “teachers” would be. To be naked was also one εκδόσεις Diehl, E. Lipsiae. Teubner, 1903-1906, of the prerequisites as he had to reveal every Aνατυπωση Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1965 aspect of his being. The sacrifice of the piglets *Sorel Reynal, Οι Ελληνικές Κοσμογονίες / used to take place on a night of a full moon, Ορφέας και Ορφισμός, Αθήναι, Δαίδαλος, 2002 as it was common knowledge in the myster- *Τραυλού Κ.,Tα “Λιθικά” του Ορφέος. Αθήναι, ies that on such nights the aetherial part that Νέα Θέσις, 2001 connects the soul with the human organism ------(the Connective Logos) expanded, which was CONTACT ideal for a ritual action. The more expanded, the closer to the Divine. During this ritual of Mary Vareli Thesmophoria seven women, as seven are the psychic centers in humans, went on the south- ern part the Hill of the Nymphs, in Athens, [email protected] and threw the piglets from the cliff. S THOUGHTSU I OF CFAMOUS I PEOPLE D E ON A CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE

John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893) is paralyzed, their options appear spare or “Make your life spec- nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and tacular, hopelessness permeates their entire men- I know I did.” tal domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful Robin Williams beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.” “To be, or not to be: that is the question: Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast: Un- Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer derstanding Suicide The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, “To write poetry and to commit suicide, ap- And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; parently so contradictory, had really been the No more; and, by a sleep to say we end same, attempts at escape.” The heart-ache and the thousand natural John Fowles, The Magus shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation “Life’s greatest gift is the freedom it leaves Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; you to step out of it whenever you choose.” To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the André Breton, Anthology of Black Humor r u b.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet “God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to “To be or not to be. That's not really a ques- die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended tion.” to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain Jean-Luc Godard it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of cof- often becomes to many, and is becoming to fee?” me, among the rest.” “But in the end one needs more courage to Charlotte Brontë, Shirley live than to kill himself.” Albert Camus “When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a pos- “It is good to be a cynic — it is better to be a sibility in my life. At my age there was very contented cat — and it is best not to exist at little left to kill. It was good to be old, no all.” matter what they said. It was reasonable that H.P. Lovecraft, Collected Essays 5: Philoso- a man had to be at least 50 years old before phy, Autobiography and Miscellany he could write with anything like clarity.” Charles Bukowski, Women “Killing myself was a matter of such indiffer- ence to me that I felt like waiting for a mo- “A lot of you cared, just not enough.” ment when it would make some difference.” Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridicu- lous Man “Some people are just not meant to be in this world. It’s just too much for them.” “When people are suicidal, their thinking Phoebe Stone, The Boy on Cinnamon Street “Dying it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this Is an art, like everything else. world to which every man has a more unas- I do it exceptionally well. sailable title than to his own life and person.” Arthur Schopenhauer I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. “Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated I guess you could say I've a call.” murder. It isn't something you do the first Sylvia Plath, Ariel time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the op- “a man who has decided upon self-destruc- portunity, the motive. A successful suicide tion is far removed from mundane affairs, demands good organization and a cool head, and to sit down and write his will would both of which are usually incompatible with be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as the suicidal state of mind.” winding up one’s watch, since together with Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted the man, the whole world is destroyed; the last letter is instantly reduced to dust and, “Suicide only really frightens those who are with it, all the postmen; and like smoke, van- never tempted by it and never will be, for its ishes the estate bequeathed to a nonexistent darkness only welcomes those who are pre- progeny.” destined to it.” Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye Georges Bernanos, Mouchette

“A thing there was that mattered; a thing, “Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We wreathed about with chatter, defaced, ob- don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated scured in her own life, let drop every day by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had pre- somebody dies after a long illness, people are served. Death was defiance. Death was an apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought attempt to communicate; people feeling the so hard." And they are inclined to think, impossibility of reaching the centre which, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew that somebody simply gave up. This is quite apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There wrong.” was an embrace in death.” Sally Brampton, Shoot The Damn Dog: A Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway Memoir Of Depression

“The thought of suicide is a great consola- “I have had to experience so much stupidity, tion: by means of it one gets through many a so many vices, so much error, so much nau- dark night.” sea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order Friedrich Nietzsche to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to “There is a certain right by which we many the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of deprive a man of life, but none by which we suicide, in order to experience grace.” may deprive him of death; this is mere cru- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha e lt y.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human “The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of stories, you “They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece might still be alive when you hit bottom.” of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar Isabella Blow (2007), English magazine editor, “I can't deceive myself that out of the bare and muse to fashion designer Alexander Mc- stark realization that no matter how enthusi- Queen, poisoning astic you are, no matter how sure that char- James E. Brewton (1967), American painter and acter is fate, nothing is real, past or future, printmaker when you are alone in your room with the Hart Crane (1932), American poet, jumped off ship clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful Adriaan Ditvoorst (1987), Dutch film director brilliance of the electric light. And if you and screenwriter, drowned himself in the Theo- have no past or future which, after all, is all dorusharbour in Bergen op Zoom that the present is made of, why then you Arshile Gorky, (1948), Armenian American may as well dispose of the empty shell of painter; hanged himself present and commit suicide.” B.S. Johnson (1973), English novelist, poet, liter- Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of ary critic, sports journalist, television producer Sylvia Plath l and filmmaker, cut his wrists Alexander McQueen (2010), British fashion MISSED designer and couturier, hanged himself in his wardrobe Diane Arbus (1971), American photographer, Yukio Mishima (1970), Japanese author, poet, overdosed on pills and slashed wrists playwright, film director and activist; seppuku Ian Curtis (1980), English singer songwriter (Joy (Japanese ritual suicide) Division), death by hanging Antonin Moine (1849), French sculptor, gunshot Penelope Delta (1941), Greek writer, poisoned Mario Monicelli (2010), Italian film director, herself when the Germans invaded Greece jumped out of a hospital window during WWII John O’Brien (1994), an American novelist, best Ernest Hemingway (1961), American writer and known for his novel, Leaving Las Vegas (nov- journalist, gunshot wound to the head el), an adaptation of which was made into the Sylvia Plath (1963), American poet, novelist, award-winning movie Leaving Las Vegas, as the children’s author; committed suicide by gassing result of a gunshot wound to the head herself in her kitchen Cesare Pavese (1950), Italian author, overdose of Vladimir Mayakovsky (1930), Russian and Sovi- barbiturates et poet, shot himself David Rappaport (1990), English actor, one of Virginia Woolf (1941), English author, essayist, the best known dwarf actors in television and publisher, and writer of short stories; suicide by films, such as Time Bandits, gunshot drowning Mark Rothko (1970), American abstract expres- Manuel Acuña (1873), Mexican poet, ingestion sionist painter, slit his arms of potassium cyanide Tony Scott (2012), English film director; jumped José María Arguedas, (1969), Peruvian novelist off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles and poet, gunshot Li Tobler (1975), Swiss actress, model and life May Ayim (1996), German author, jumped from partner of artist H. R. Giger, gunshot 13th floor of a Berlin building Marina Tsvetaeva (1941), Russian poet, hanged James Robert Baker (1997), American writer, herself asphyxiation Otto Weininger (1903), Austrian philosopher, Robert Hayward Barlow (1951), American writ- gunshot er and anthropologist, barbiturate overdose Dorrit Weixler (1916), German film actress; Malik Bendjelloul (2014), Swedish documentary hanging filmmaker, jumped in front of moving train John Berryman (1972), American poet; jumped Source: Wikipedia off a bridge. A Defense of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley PART 6

degrading restraints of antiquity, were among The principle of equality had been discovered the consequences of these events. 25 and applied by Plato in his “Republic” as the the- The abolition of personal slavery is the basis oretical rule of the mode in which the materials of the highest political hope that it can enter of pleasure and of power produced by the com- into the mind of man to conceive. The freedom mon skill and labor of human beings ought to be of women produced the poetry of sexual love. distributed among them. Love became a religion, The limitations of this rule the idols of whose worship were asserted by him to be were ever present. It was determined only by the as if the statues of Apollo sensibility of each, or the and the Muses had been utility to result to all. Pla- endowed with life and mo- to, following the doctrines tion, and had walked forth of Timæus and Pythag- among their worshippers; oras, taught also a moral so that earth became peo- and intellectual system of pled with the inhabitants doctrine, comprehending of a diviner world. The at once the past, the pres- familiar appearance and ent, and the future condi- proceedings of life became tion of man. Jesus Christ wonderful and heavenly, divulged the sacred and and a paradise was creat- eternal truths contained ed as out of the wrecks of in these views to man- Eden. And as this creation kind, and Christianity, in itself is poetry, so its cre- its abstract purity, became ators were poets; and lan- the exoteric expression of guage was the instrument the esoteric doctrines of of their art: “Galeotto fù the poetry and wisdom of il libro, e chi lo scrisse.” 4 antiquity. The incorpora- The Provençal trouveurs, tion of the Celtic nations or inventors, preceded Pe- with the exhausted pop- trarch, whose verses are as ulation of the south im- spells, which unseal the in- pressed upon it the figure of the poetry existing most enchanted fountains of the delight which in their mythology and institutions. The result is in the grief of love. It is impossible to feel was a sum of the action and reaction of all the them without becoming a portion of that beau- causes included in it; for it may be assumed as ty which we contemplate: it were superfluous a maxim that no nation or religion can super- to explain how the gentleness and the elevation sede any other without incorporating into itself of mind connected with these sacred emotions a portion of that which it supersedes. The abo- can render men more amiable, more generous lition of personal and domestic slavery, and the and wise, and lift them out of the dull vapors emancipation of women from a great part of the of the little world of self. Dante understood the secret things of love even more than Petrarch. disguised. It is a difficult question to determine His “Vita Nuova” is an inexhaustible fountain how far they were conscious of the distinction of purity of sentiment and language: it is the which must have subsisted in their minds be- idealized history of that period, and those in- tween their own creeds and that of the people. tervals of his life which were dedicated to love. Dante at least appears to wish to mark the full His apotheosis of Beatrice in Paradise, and the extent of it by placing Rhipæus, whom Ver- gradations of his own love and her loveliness, gil calls justissimus unus, 5 in Paradise, and by which as by steps he feigns himself to have observing a most heretical caprice in his dis- ascended to the throne of the Supreme Cause, tribution of rewards and punishments. And is the most glorious imagination of modern Milton’s poem contains within itself a philo- poetry. sophical refutation of that system, of which, by The acutest critics have justly reversed thea strange and natural antithesis, it has been a judgment of the vulgar, and the order of the chief popular support. great acts of the “Divine Drama,” in the mea- sure of the admiration which they accord to Nothing can exceed the energy and magnifi- the Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The latter cence of the character of Satan as expressed in is a perpetual hymn of everlasting love. Love, “Paradise Lost.” It is a mistake to suppose that which found a worthy poet in Plato alone of all he could ever have been intended for the pop- the ancients, has been celebrated by a chorus ular personification of evil. Implacable hate, of the greatest writers of the renovated world; patient cunning, and a sleepless refinement of and the music has penetrated the caverns of device to inflict the extremist anguish on an society, and its echoes still drown the disso- enemy, these things are evil; and, although ve- nance of arms and superstition. At successive nial in a slave, are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; intervals, Ariosto, Tasso, Shakespeare, Spenser, although redeemed by much that ennobles his Calderon, Rousseau, and the great writers of defeat in one subdued, are marked by all that our own age, have celebrated the dominion of dishonors his conquest in the victor. Milton’s love, planting as it were trophies in the human Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his mind of that sublimest victory over sensuality God, as one who perseveres in some purpose and force. which he has conceived to be excellent in spite The true relation borne to each other by the of adversity and torture, is to one who in the sexes into which humankind is distributed has cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts become less misunderstood; and if the error the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not which confounded diversity with inequality of from any mistaken notion of inducing him to the powers of the two sexes has been partially repent of a perseverance in enmity, but with recognised in the opinions and institutions of the alleged design of exasperating him to de- modern Europe, we owe this great benefit to serve new torments. Milton has so far violated the worship of which chivalry was the law, and the popular creed (if this shall be judged to be poets the prophets. a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil. And The poetry of Dante may be considered as the this bold neglect of a direct moral purpose is bridge thrown over the stream of time, which the most decisive proof of the supremacy of unites the modern and ancient world. The dis- Milton’s genius. torted notions of invisible things which Dante He mingled as it were the elements of human and his rival Milton have idealized, are merely nature as colors upon a single pallet, and ar- the mask and the mantle in which these great ranged them in the composition of his great poets walk through eternity enveloped and picture according to the laws of epic truth; that is, according to the laws of that principle by ness and acrimony than in the boldness of his which a series of actions of the external uni- censures of papal usurpation. Dante was the verse and of intelligent and ethical beings is first awakener of entranced Europe; he creat- calculated to excite the sympathy of succeeding ed a language, in itself music and persuasion, generations of mankind. The “Divina Comme- out of a chaos of inharmonious barbarians. He dia” and “Paradise Lost” have conferred upon was the congregator of those great spirits who modern mythology a systematic form; and presided over the resurrection of learning; the when change and time shall have added one Lucifer of that starry flock which in the thir- more superstition to the mass of those which teenth century shone forth from republican It- have arisen and decayed upon the earth, com- aly, as from a heaven, into the darkness of the mentators will be learnedly employed in elu- benighted world. His very words are instinct cidating the religion of ancestral Europe, only with spirit; each is as a spark, a burning atom not utterly forgotten because it will have been of inextinguishable thought; and many yet lie stamped with the eternity of genius. covered in the ashes of their birth, and preg- nant with the lightning which has yet found Homer was the first and Dante the second no conductor. All high poetry is infinite; it is epic poet: that is, the second poet, the series of as the first acorn, which contained all oaks po- whose creations bore a defined and intelligible tentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and relation to the knowledge and sentiment and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never religion of the age in which he lived, and of the exposed. ages which followed it, developing itself in cor- A great poem is a fountain forever overflow- respondence with their development. For Lu- ing with the waters of wisdom and delight; and cretius had limed the wings of his swift spirit after one person and one age has exhausted in the dregs of the sensible world; and Vergil, all its divine effluence which their peculiar re- with a modesty that ill became his genius, had lations enable them to share, another and yet affected the fame of an imitator, even whilst another succeeds, and new relations are ever he created anew all that he copied; and none developed, the source of an unforeseen and an among the flock of mock-birds, though their unconceived delight. notes were sweet, Apollonius Rhodius, Quintus Calaber, Nonnus, Lucan, Statius, or Claudian, The age immediately succeeding to that of Dan- have sought even to fulfil a single condition of te, Petrarch, and Boccaccio was characterized epic truth. Milton was the third epic poet. For by a revival of painting, sculpture, and archi- if the title of epic in its highest sense be refused tecture. Chaucer caught the sacred inspiration, to the “Æneid,” still less can it be conceded to and the superstructure of English literature is the “Orlando Furioso,” the “Gerusalemme Lib- based upon the materials of Italian invention. erata,” the “Lusiad,” or the “Faerie Queene.” But let us not be betrayed from a defence into a critical history of poetry and its influence on Dante and Milton were both deeply pene- society. Be it enough to have pointed out the trated with the ancient religion of the civi- effects of poets, in the large and true sense of lized world; and its spirit exists in their poetry the word, upon their own and all succeeding probably in the same proportion as its forms times. survived in the unreformed worship of modern Europe. The one preceded and the other But poets have been challenged to resign the followed the Reformation at almost equal in- civic crown to reasoners and mechanists, on tervals. Dante was the first religious reformer, another plea. It is admitted that the exercise of and Luther surpassed him rather in the rude- the imagination is most delightful, but it is alleged that that of reason is more useful. Let us poor have become poorer; and the vessel of examine as the grounds of this distinction what the State is driven between the Scylla and Cha- is here meant by utility. Pleasure or good, in a rybdis of anarchy and despotism. Such are the general sense, is that which the consciousness effects which must ever flow from an unmiti- of a sensitive and intelligent being seeks, and gated exercise of the calculating faculty. in which, when found, it acquiesces. There are two kinds of pleasure, one durable, universal, It is difficult to define pleasure in its highest and permanent; the other transitory and par- sense; the definition involving a number of ticular. Utility may either express the means of apparent paradoxes. For, from an inexplica- producing the former or the latter. In the for- ble defect of harmony in the constitution of mer sense, whatever strengthens and purifies human nature, the pain of the inferior is fre- the affections, enlarges the imagination, and quently connected with the pleasures of the adds spirit to sense, is useful. superior portions of our being. Sorrow, terror, But a narrower meaning may be assigned to anguish, despair itself, are often the chosen ex- the word utility, confining it to express that pressions of an approximation to the highest which banishes the importunity of the wants good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends of our animal nature, the surrounding men on this principle; tragedy delights by affording with security of life, the dispersing the grosser a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. delusions of superstitions, and the conciliating This is the source also of the melancholy which such a degree of mutual forbearance among is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The men as may consist with the motives of per- pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the sonal advantage. pleasure of pleasure itself. And hence the say- Undoubtedly the promoters of utility, in this ing, “It is better to go to the house of mourn- limited sense, have their appointed office in so- ing than to the house of mirth.” Not that this ciety. They follow the footsteps of poets, and highest species of pleasure is necessarily linked copy the sketches of their creations into the with pain. The delight of love and friendship, book of common life. They make space, and the ecstasy of the admiration of nature, the joy give time. Their exertions are of the highest of the perception and still more of the creation value, so long as they confine their adminis- of poetry, is often wholly unalloyed. tration of the concerns of the inferior powers The production and assurance of pleasure of our nature within the limits due to the supe- in this highest sense is true utility. Those who rior ones. But whilst the sceptic destroys gross produce and preserve this pleasure are poets or superstitions, let him spare to deface, as some poetical philosophers. of the French writers have defaced, the eternal truths charactered upon the imaginations of The exertions of Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Vol- men. Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the taire, Rousseau, and their disciples, in favor of political economist combines labor, let them oppressed and deluded humanity, are entitled beware that their speculations, for want of cor- to the gratitude of mankind. Yet it is easy to respondence with those first principles which calculate the degree of moral and intellectual belong to the imagination, do not tend, as they improvement which the world would have ex- have in modern England, to exasperate at once hibited, had they never lived. A little more non- the extremes of luxury and want. sense would have been talked for a century or They have exemplified the saying, “To him that two; and perhaps a few more men, women, and hath, more shall be given; and from him that children burnt as heretics. We might not at this hath not, the little that he hath shall be taken moment have been congratulating each other away.” The rich have become richer, and the on the abolition of the Inquisition in Spain. But it exceeds all imagination to conceive what degree disproportioned to the presence of would have been the moral condition of the the creative faculty, which is the basis of all world if neither Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, knowledge, is to be attributed the abuse of all Chaucer, Shakespeare, Calderon, Lord Bacon, invention for abridging and combining labor, nor Milton, had ever existed; if Raphael and to the exasperation of the inequality of man- Michael Angelo had never been born; if the kind? From what other cause has it arisen that Hebrew poetry had never been translated; if the discoveries which should have lightened, a revival of the study of Greek literature had have added a weight to the curse imposed on never taken place; if no monuments of ancient Adam? Poetry, and the principle of Self, of sculpture had been handed down to us; and if which money is the visible incarnation, are the the poetry of the religion of the ancient world God and Mammon of the world. had been extinguished together with its belief. The functions of the poetical faculty are two- The human mind could never, except by the fold: by one it creates new materials of knowl- intervention of these excitements, have been edge, and power, and pleasure; by the other awakened to the invention of the grosser sci- it engenders in the mind a desire to repro- ences, and that application of analytical rea- duce and arrange them according to a certain soning to the aberrations of society, which it is rhythm and order which may be called the now attempted to exalt over the direct expres- beautiful and the good. The cultivation of po- sion of the inventive and creative faculty itself. etry is never more to be desired than at periods when, from an excess of the selfish and calcu- We have more moral, political, and historical lating principle, the accumulation of the mate- wisdom than we know how to reduce into prac- rials of external life exceed the quantity of the tice; we have more scientific and economical power of assimilating them to the internal laws knowledge than can be accommodated to the of human nature. The body has then become just distribution of the produce which it mul- too unwidely for that which animates it. tiplies. The poetry in these systems of thought is concealed by the accumulation of facts and Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once calculating processes. There is no want ofthe centre and circumference of knowledge; knowledge respecting what is wisest and best it is that which comprehends all science, and in morals, government, and political economy, that to which all science must be referred. It or at least, what is wiser and better than what is at the same time the root and blossom of all men now practise and endure. But we let “I other systems of thought; it is that from which dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat all spring, and that which adorns all; and that in the adage.” We want the creative faculty to which, if blighted, denies the fruit and the imagine that which we know; we want the gen- seed, and withholds from the barren world the erous impulse to act that which we imagine; we nourishment and the succession of the scions want the poetry of life; our calculations have of the tree of life. It is the perfect and consum- outrun conception; we have eaten more than mate surface and bloom of all things; it is as we can digest. the odor and the color of the rose to the texture The cultivation of those sciences which have of the elements which compose it, as the form enlarged the limits of the empire of man over and splendor of unfaded beauty to the secrets the external world, has, for want of the poetical of anatomy and corruption. What were virtue, faculty, proportionally circumscribed those of love, patriotism, friendship—what were the the internal world; and man, having enslaved scenery of this beautiful universe which we in- the elements, remains himself a slave. To what habit; what were our consolations on this side but a cultivation of the mechanical arts in a of the grave—and what were our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring very mind which directs the hands in forma- light and fire from those eternal regions where tion is incapable of accounting to itself for the the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not origin, the gradations, or the media of the pro- ever soar? Poetry is not like reasoning, a power cess. to be exerted according to the determination Poetry is the record of the best and happiest of the will. A man cannot say, “I will compose moments of the happiest and best minds. We poetry.” The greatest poet even cannot say it; are aware of evanescent visitations of thought for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, and feeling sometimes associated with place or which some invisible influence, like an incon- person, sometimes regarding our own mind stant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; alone, and always arising unforeseen and de- this power arises from within, like the color of parting unbidden, but elevating and delight- a flower which fades and changes as it is de- ful beyond all expression: so that even in the veloped, and the conscious portions of our na- desire and the regret they leave, there cannot tures are unprophetic either of its approach or but be pleasure, participating as it does in the its departure. nature of its object. It is as it were the inter- Could this influence be durable in its original pretation of a diviner nature through our own; purity and force, it is impossible to predict the but its footsteps are like those of a wind over greatness of the results; but when composition the sea, which the coming calm erases, and begins, inspiration is already on the decline, whose traces remain only as on the wrinkled and the most glorious poetry that has ever sand which paves it. These and corresponding been communicated to the world is probably conditions of being are experienced principal- a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of ly by those of the most delicate sensibility and the poet. I appeal to the greatest poets of the the most enlarged imagination; and the state present day, whether it is not an error to assert of mind produced by them is at war with every that the finest passages of poetry are produced base desire. by labor and study. The toil and the delay rec- The enthusiasm of virtue, love, patriotism, and ommended by critics can be justly interpreted friendship is essentially linked with such emo- to mean no more than a careful observation of tions; and whilst they last, self appears as what the inspired moments, and an artificial connec- it is, an atom to a universe. Poets are not only tion of the spaces between their suggestions by subject to these experiences as spirits of the the intertexture of conventional expressions; a most refined organization, but they can color necessity only imposed by the limitedness of all that they combine with the evanescent hues the poetical faculty itself; for Milton conceived of this ethereal world; a word, a trait in the rep- the “Paradise Lost” as a whole before he exe- resentation of a scene or a passion will touch cuted it in portions. We have his own author- the enchanted chord, and reanimate, in those ity also for the Muse having “dictated” to him who have ever experienced these emotions, the the “unpremeditated song.” And let this be an sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the past. answer to those who would allege the fifty-six l various readings of the first line of the “Orlan- do Furioso.” TO BE CONTINUED Compositions so produced are to poetry what ------mosaic is to painting. This instinct and intu- A Defence of Poetry is an essay by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1821 and first published posthu- ition of the poetical faculty are still more ob- mously in 1840 in Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations servable in the plastic and pictorial arts; a great and Fragments (1840) [1839]. statue or picture grows under the power of the artist as a child in a mother’s womb; and the The Music Box

short story by Ellada Kralli The rainstorm came down again over the melancholic paths of people. Only a few were outdoors strolling to forget their past, or maybe to throw away their aching thoughts. Their hearts were seeking a salvation that nothing in the world but the rain could grant. So did she, as well, watching the rain on the window, staring those people van- ishing under the street lanterns, like shadows.

A couple of tears rolled on her face, like rain- drops slipping softly on glass. Nostalgia for her childhood, the innocence, the time when her only questioning was lack of concern and playing. Oblivion for the star which, like unique jewels, hovers through time to cover the invisible skin of young girls. She thought of going for a walk alone, out in the rain, in a quest for her own salvation. Her home seemed so frozen, as she closed back Robert Häusser: Bank 1942 the door, that she believed she lived in a place where only the dead resided. She decided not It was like a shadow and vanished again. May- to carry an umbrella. She always disliked um- be she imagined that, and yet she didn’t really brellas anyway. She enjoyed the sensation of care. However, she thought she heard music the rain touching her like a presence. coming out from that house. She indecisively entered through a collapsed window. The roof The street looked deserted, except for those had fallen down here and there and the floor bitter souls, sounding from the depth of the was wet. Concrete and wreckage prevailed. night, as the rain kept falling. Her stroll was Everything had been taken away by the dead, quite dreary. Dreams deceived for some words she thought, wandering in there for a while. of a failed love, but there was still hope in her Trying to trace the melody, behind a pile of heart. bricks, she found a music box. It looked like She stood soaking under an almost crumbling an antique. It was made of wood with beauti- house’s pavilion, feeling that even remnants ful sculptures of flowers and sweet little angels. had life once, hopes, dreams, but, eventually, She turned a key on its bottom side, tuning it the time of death comes for all and everything and as she opened it, a lighthouse emerged, slowly vanishes from the daylight. Her gaze lighting the dark. Its harmonic melody was was nailed in a pothole, filled with water and not depressive as the sound of the rain but en- her dark reflection staring back at her, lost chanting. She stayed there, listening for hours somewhere else. and there… her heart started to beat again.l

Suddenly a voice: CONTACT “Did you hear the rain’s song?” https://www.facebook.com/elladaluna.elven “Hello?” https://www.facebook.com/pages/Para- dox-Reality/315998488457830 EVELYN NESBIT --Known to millions before her 16th birthday in 1900, Evelyn was the most photographed woman of her era, an iconic figure who set the standard for female beauty. Edwardian Beauty - Unknown Casa Batlló barcelona, spain

Photos by Mary Vareli Casa Batlló, a magical remodel of a house, redesigned by Antoni Gaudi in 1904 and built in 1877 is a fine example of eclecticism traditional by the end of the 19th century. One of the main attractions of Barcelona with the local name Casa dels os- sos (House of Bones). Josep Batlló, famous for his contribution in the textile industry , bought the house in 1900 due to its central location, a prestigious and fashionable area.

In 1993, the current owners of Casa Bat- lló bought the home and continued refur- bishments. Since 1995 the building is hired for several events and activities. Following Modernisme or Art Nouveau Gaudi’s goal was to avoid straight lines completely, so there are only a few with a complete lack being present on the roof, which is arched likened to the back of a dragon or dinosaur. The most unusual area is the loft; famous for its simplicity of shape and Mediterranean influence, white on the walls, contains a series of sixty Catenary arches representing the ribcage of an animal.

The Batlló family Casa Batlló is skeletal construc- tion with unusual tracery, irregular oval walls and windows and flowing sculpted Antoni Gaudi stone work. Most of the façade is a colorful mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles called trencadís. A re- markable and characteristic detail is the rounded feature to the left of centre which terminates in a turret and cross, representing the lance of Saint George. The building has a basement, a ground floor, four other floors and a garden in the back. l

CÉCILE CORBEL “there are many legends and ancient tales to be heard”

“I like it when music tells me a story and works as an enchanted pace.” Mary Vareli: Cécile, you were born in Pont- I make songs for people today, drawing in- Croix, Finistère. How did your upbringing spiration from various sources, folk music, and place of birthcontribute to your wish pop or medieval or celtic music. It’s 21st to become a musician? century music I hope.

Cécile Corbel: Brittany owns a real celtic and What inspires you? What precedes before folk culture, the harp is a very well-known you start composing? instrument there. This region has a great celtic legacy, with monuments and inspiring I wish there was a magic formula for com- landscapes... There are many legends and posing ! Unfortunately it’s still a very myste- ancient tales to be heard too. When I was rious process... Sometimes melodies come a child I loved reading or listening about out of the blue. In any case it’s the harp that them. Today, as a musician, I still hold them helps me compose. And a good cup of tea as a great source of inspiration. within reach might help too.

How long have you been playing the celt- “Fairy is not legend”, is written on your ic harp? What made you chose this musi- homepage. Tell us about your relation- cal instrument? ship with the ethereal creatures.

It was love at first sight with this instrument, I like the fantasy cultures at large, and plu- when I was 15 – I used to play the guitar be- ral : legends, poetry, painting, graphic nov- fore that. I can’t really explain this choice... els... Anything you can marvel at, anything it’s like a love story. ravishing, is important to me. I like it when music tells me a story and works as an en- “Celtic folk music, pop tunes, baroque chanted pause. melodies.” Some characterizations of your music. Which genre prevails? You sing in French, Italian, Breton, English, German, Irish, Turkish, and Japa- nese! Are you a polyglot?

I’m afraid not ! I like singing in different languages (I hope I’m not distorting them too much !), it’s like travelling. I speak French, English, a little German and Breton... As for the other languages you mentioned, I can sing in them but can’t speak fluently.

Next to each release I would like you to write one or some words, as a brainstorm- ing activity, releasing the feeling of each studio album.

-Harpe celtique et chants du monde (2005- Keltia Musique) First record ever ! It started out as just a demo. My very first step in the music world... -SongBook 1 (2006- Keltia Musique) Celtic pop -Songbook vol 2 (2008- Keltia Musique) Faerie -Karigurashi (2010-Yamaha Music Com- munication) Japan – luck - Ghibli -Arrietty’s song EP (2010-Yamaha Music There’s so much to say about us working with Communication) the Ghibli studios ! I was so blessed I could My lucky charm work with them on Arrietty’s soundtrack ! -Karigurashi no Arrietty soundtrack That experience was like a waking dream... (2010 – Tokuma) a lot of happiness, creativity and hard work My greatest pride too for 15 months to compose the songs -SongBook vol 3 - Renaissance (2011- and music.... Keltia Musique) Back to the roots Tell us about your partnership with Si- -Songbook vol 4 - Roses (sortie le 24 juin mon Caby. 2013 – Keltia musique) Romance I work with him since I started in the studios. He’s a talented musician, composer and ar- From 2006 until 2013 all your albums are ranger. He was by my side for every album. released mostly with Label: Keltia Mu- sique. It is rare for a musician to do this. Aesthetics play an important role in your What is the secret of your collaboration? work. There is a warm a magical and opti- mistic fairytale-like feeling in your video Keltia Musique was my distributor for all my clips. Who directs them? first records. It’s a great label, located in Brittany, and I’m quite a faithful person... I like to build images for the people who lis- that’s the key to successful stories ! ten to my music. With Simon Caby, we very naturally started to produce our own videos Did you enjoy your experience as a com- : I like to make up scenarios, choose actors, poser for the 2010 film “The Borrower costumes, spot a nice location, do the edit- Arrietty”. ing... It is complementary to the music. As Favourite other musicians?

Clannad, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Jethro Tull, Iron Maiden, Mecano, Si- mon & Garfunkel, Loreena McKennit, Alan Stivell, Caprice, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Perfume (.....)

Writers and Directors you love?

Writers : Victor Hugo, Alexandre Du- mas, Eugene Sue, Jane Austen, Fred Vargas, Arthur Conan Doyle, Movie Studio & directors : Studio Ghibli, Japanese animation, Peau d’âne and old French movies, TV series “true detective”, “the killing”, “far- g o”. the years went by it became like a game to create videos with an unfamiliar atmosphere Artists you admire as far as painting or with a low budget but a lot of energy ! photography are concerned?

Now, my favourite question, favourite Flemish painters (Albrecht Dürer, Lukas Cra- song...”La Fille Damnee” is a song and nach...), the pre-raphaelites, artists like Ar- video clip with theatrical elements. En- thurRackam, graphic-novels artists Hugo lighten me about this! Pratt, François Bourgeon...

Many people liked the atmosphere of this Your music is a touch of warmth and op- video that was shot on the Breton moors... timism, a remembrance that the mythical I’m really proud of it. past is not all lost. Thank you so much, for It’s a mix of mysticism, black magic and this and for the interview! windswept moorland. It’s feminine, ambiguous and eerie, and a good match for Thanks so much ;-) l the song “ La Fille Damnée”.

You have travelled and performed almost all over the world, how do you feel in front CONTACT of the audience? http://www.cecile-corbel.com Performing live and travelling all over the world are still my main motivation to keep http://cecile-corbel-journal.blogspot.gr on doing this job... I feel happy on the stage and on the road, like a modern bohemian, https://www.facebook.com/cecilecorbelmu- even if this life can be a little odd some- sic?ref=hl times...

CÉCILE CORBEL IN LOVE WITH

DEMIAN CLAV MIRABILIS STEVE ROACH WISTERIA LODGE HERE AND THE HEREAF- THE DELICATE FOREVER CD + booklet TER - Digital Digital Prikosnovenie, 2011 Projekt Records - 2014 Projekt Records - 2014

Demian Clav’s duo, led by Submerse yourself in the third Steve Roach’s new studio LSK’s voice, offers a impres- ethereal/darkwave foray from release, The Delicate For- sive second album. Tormented Mirabilis featuring Dru Al- ever, presents a reverie of and gothic accents alternate len and Summer Bowman. gentle and etheric ambi- with pieces almost classical As Mirabilis, these women go ent sound meditations that and atmospherics. The sing- beyond the rock-hued sounds awaken complex and reso- er voice is the faithful sto- of their respective bands (This nant states of emotional and ry-teller of this tale between Ascension/Mercury’s An- psychological perspectives. light and shadow, sometimes tennae and The Machine in enriched by a female chant. the Garden) to create beauti- The nuanced, minimal elec- This album is inspired by a ful, vocal-centered originals tronics interplay with a mas- story of Sherlock Holmes alongside reinterpreted piec- terful use of musical space, called « Wisteria Lodge ». es ranging from medieval to breath, silence, and rich tex- pop. They weave their sig- tural colors in a subtle dynam- The music flows as if a mys- nature heavenly voices into a ic flow. Nurturing the senses in terious and ancient movie. lush bed of dream-like harmo- inexplicable ways, these sound All orchestrations, including nies amidst understated elec- paintings become an evocative drums, both acoustic or in- tronics, acoustic instruments, environment for activating a dustrial, folk and electricgui- and majestic percussive ele- state of rarefied reflections. As tar, cello, violins and organs, ments. Here and the Here- a pioneer of ambient-electron- are magnificent. An albumafter transcend genres from ic-contemplative music, Steve that can be listened again and cinematic, orchestral pieces Roach has dedicated nearly again, as each time the listen- to traditional folk and chant four decades to creating music er will be moved by its deep to spoken word. Accompa- that connects into a deep well and delicate arrangements. It nied by instruments includ- of inspiration and innovation. lives, it boils, it screams as in ing hammered dulcimer and His expansive, time-suspend- a rock opera (Dead Offering). recorder, these 16 tracks have ing soundworlds earned his A deep and mysterious musical roots as diverse as Bulgaria, position in the global panthe- work you must discover now ! India and Japan, span ages and on of major new music artists.. cultures, reality and dream. ADDICTED TO... By Spyros Papathanasiou

Anton Chekhov George Orson Welles

Harvey Keitel J.R.R. Tolkien Robert Frost

Robin Williams Ruth Gordon Georges Méliès

CLASSICS TO SEE BEFORE YOU FLY 9 Films on fairy tales p axolotl a r a d o x S e The axolotl also known as a Mexi- can salamander (Ambystoma mex- a icanum) or a Mexican walking fish, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the tiger salamander.Al- though the axolotl is colloquially known as a "walking fish", it is not a fish, but an amphibian. by Roberta Sparrow

“He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.”

― Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers Les Modes (Paris), 1914, Robe du Soir par Lucile Ann Eve Moss Zieg- feld Follies Chorus Girl - “The Three Musketeers”, 1928