Cavernous whisperings

or thoughts on air

Caves with underwater entries-

Some caves are isolated by a waterway, resulting in the air inside to be isolated, always at the same temperature and, if the water does not move, perfectly still. For the air to not escape through other cracks, the geology of the cave needs to be in such a fashion that it has little to no cracks. If the waterway falls dry for some time of the year, then the air inside will move for that duration, but otherwise be perfectly still. (from a basic text search in browser: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/246081/what-geographic-features-could-cause-a-stable-pocket-of-unmoving-air)

Let me tell you a story of an ageless youth. This is a love letter to my self in these times of great change, of groaning and wailing, of horrors and desperations. A portion of the cup bearer’s nectar, if I may, that trickles outward through the spaces of these uttered words. Of a boy who is not quite a man, but might be a girl. Of woman’s work and men’s work. Ganymede. Whose youthful beauty and strength captured the Jovian sight.

Roman-era relief depicting the eagle of Zeus abducting Ganymede, his Phrygian cap denoting an eastern origin, and a river god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(mythology)

We begin with the thunderous King enraptured as eagle, descending to the green fields to pluck the beautiful youth from his sheep tending. Stolen to the court of the undying ones, Ganymede is handed his duty, a cup which ever-pours, to be cupbearer for the gods, displacing the goddess of youth, Hebe.

Ages pass, and in the doing of their office, Ganymede becomes immortal. The child of kings now immortal to watch from afar the affairs on earth. The strivings, joys, expansions and defeats, war and peace. The little things and the big. To watch but not to participate, to observe and think, but no longer to directly touch. Engaged in remembrance as Ganymede is beyond the mortal realm looking ahead, but also down. Let us say, that as the cup-bearer of the gods and watcher from afar, they put forward a request to the great craftsman Hephaestus for an aid in time-keeping. From this request a lustrous silvery-colored metallic fish is constructed, whose articulated scales can each be flipped over to reveal a contrasting color. In doing so, Ganymede can count the earthly days. Counting remembrances. A techne.

The weariness, sorrow, and melancholia that steals over the lovely youth as witness to the cycles of time and the repetitions of human doings, the hubris and the failures, but also the joys and celebrations, dresses Ganymede in paradox. The wise youth, forever to remain in pre-pubescence outwardly, yet inwardly an old, aged seer. The time arrives when Jupiter releases the cup-bearer from the court to emplace them amidst the starry fields, and Aquarius the constellation is birthed to swim amidst the deep waters of the Via Lactea.

An equatorial constellation, hard to locate in the night skies, and none of it’s stars are particularly bright. These are just some of the points that stand out when doing a quick search on Aquarius the constellation.

Now I turn to Epimetheus by way of Prometheus, his brother. The two brothers, two sides of the same coin. Forethought and Afterthought in dynamic tension and relation.

Epimetheus’ [the] name was derived from the Greek words epi-, epeita, and mêtis, and means “afterthought” or “late counselling.” (From https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanEpimetheus.html)

Prometheus the name, is Greek, and anciently was interpreted etymologically as “forethinker, foreseer,” from promēthēs “thinking before,” from pro “before” (see pro-) + *mēthos, related to mathein “to learn” (from an enlargement of PIE root *men- (1) “to think”). In another view, Watkins suggests the second element is possibly from a base meaning “to steal,” also found in Sanskrit mathnati “he steals.” (From https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=prometheus)

Epimetheus against the advise of others entwined with Pandora, the first woman, formed of clay. She came to the marriage with a closed jar, a container. “Zeus gave Pandora a storage jar (pithos) as a wedding gift which she opened, releasing the swarm of evil spirits trapped within. These [evil spirits] would forever after plague mankind. Only Elpis (Hope) remained behind [inside the jar], a single blessing to ease mankind’s suffering.”

Contrary to Prometheus defying necessity and fate, calculating, thinking ahead and stealing fire to bring aid to mortals, knowledge, warmth, forward vision, progress; Epimetheus in entwining himself with Pandora unknowingly twined himself with the unknown, both the seen and unseen, the heaving, whirling and coiling rhizome of life. Foolishly disarmed, he comes to embracing the one remaining gift in the cavernous depth of the clay jar, Hope. Not Foresight, that at the peak of exuberance, in hubris provides the tools to construct Life as Idol. Life as idol to enthrone, banishing all the corners and recesses, the cracks, the inaccessible, the whispers, and the plethora unnamed, the dark.

Here Prometheus as fore-thinker becomes in eventuality, attaining arrogance, the fool. And here we are left with Epimetheus, the first fool, dancing with hope in the still air of the cavernous jar stirring the warp and weft, summoning more than can be named. Perhaps even, with Hope, engaged in imaginings, foolish imaginings that dares to weave dreams of different ways of being and living. A ceding of hubris, a ceding of control to allow for a dancing with all these beings, and Hope. It is an engaged surrender that requires an imagination of remembrance and of being with the unseen dead. Since in foolishness Epimetheus did not think first, he acted first, he was disarmed finding himself without recourse. And it is through these actions, these mistakes, that remembrance opens and populates the heart with Hope, Mercy, Humility, and dare I say Grace.

I hold up Epimetheus not as an idol to replace Prometheus and allow for late counsels or rash actions to dictate our current doings, the truth is we are already in the realm of late counsels. Instead I hold up Epimetheus as the bridge to dancing with Hope, the remaining gift. Exactly at the point of embracing this gift and beginning the dance, not with coordinated steps, but the dance of flow, of air that two begin to stir. A rhizomatic, feeling dance.

With these words I drop back into the story of Ganymede, twining iridescent strands between these two stories to unite them in a cohesion of paradoxes and opposites. Of currently unsung world-ings. One of the eternal youth, child of kings, stolen by the gods and taken to the place of gods, disarmed and caught in the volatile flights of the lofty. An aged-wise youth in relation to the foolish sage that brings us hope when all else has ossified inaccessibly or in irrelevance.

I propose alternate livings, by way of these re-woven iridescent strands, a living that arises between the cracks. A living that embodies Ganymede, the dancer at the edges, in the dark, behind the scenes, whose function is to pour and to watch and to inhabit the eternal. Engaged in a surrender that hopes, longs for, yearns, and watches, an Epimethean living.

In French Wikipedia I found a curious little quote, speaking about Ganymede from an alchemical perspective, noted by alchemist Michaël Maïer: “C’est le fixe amené par le volatil à la plus haute dignité.” (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganym%C3%A8de)

An image here arises: a flowing imagination, interweaving seeing with, seeing into and in between. First, a still air, that in stillness pierces in between the opening cracks, quietly weaving light. A cavernous jar, the cave. The lengthening cracks of towers, foundations, of what is concrete. An agitation of clothe draped arms, shaking the quiet air, stirring upward, downward, around, a whirling. Whirl, whirl, whirl. Moving arms and limbs about these walls, dancing around the boundaries so that that which was still and unseen, stifling unmoving air, penetrates between the cracks. A break.

And so why do I share all this, or what does this have to do with anything related to I? Well, this is me thinking with technologies, and the idols we live with in conjunction with the sorrows that beset us in these dark times. What is ours to do, what shape is our response to all of this grand-scale unfolding around us? The whole machinery we “modern” humans have co-fabricated, what does it mean to respond in our small scale, day-by-day lives, our every-day living? Or what does this mean-ing, look like in metaphor that can be brought into one’s living. Bayo Akomolafe would say, “times are fast, let us slow down.”

I agree.

Let us also learn to dance in this cave, reaching out to hope, dancing with hope, filling our jar with the nectar of these cavernous waters, in order to pour it outward, not for the gods but in hope, as nurture for our surroundings, our localities, our landscapes, our hearts.

I invite you to peruse this list of links that helped inform, enrich, and articulate this essay.

• Ivan Illich in Conversation: The Testament of Ivan Illich by David Cayley

• Bayo Akomolafe: Why I Sang in the Dungeons: A Prophecy to End the Year 2023

• Zamboni Funk: What If Magic Were Real? #01 Delicious Brian Wilkins

• Tales of the Night Sky: S2, E1 Ganymede: The Constellation of Aquarius

• Soapbox: Sermon 1 (Hermeneutics in Creation) & Sermon 2 (Disclose This!)