Blog Break. And a Conversation on Love over at Richardus’ Londinium Pub

Enjoy a Roman everyday's scene. "The family-run kosher pastry shop Bernasconi, on Via dei Giubbonari, has only one table outside. Actually one table, period." Picture (and text) by Eleonora Baldwin, from her "Roma every day". Click to enlarge.

This blog is taking a vacation. A one month vacation.

Above you can see a Roman scene as taken by Eleonora Baldwin’s camera. Eleonora is a Roman, but her father is Irish American.

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Here is a conversation occurred over at Richardus.

It is about Love.

I paste, as usual, what I deem relevant to my blog themes.

Wow, Love! [Readers will think]

Wrong. No easy stuff … but fun, none the less.

Richardus:

“Aristophanes may search for his other half, but I search for my whole self.

Thrust into a hostile world, I trudge towards my inevitable grave in utter isolation, seeking an impossible solace, never knowing who I am.

Suddenly, I peer into the eyes of another and see myself. Here is my peace, my consolation, my defence.

I claim those eyes to be always with me as I am always with myself. Perhaps I procreate, but only incidentally.

Selfless caring for another is true love. With practice it may become as universal as its source.

Lev Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana", 1908, the first color photo portrait in Russia

Geraldine: I hear Tolstoy in this post and I’m not surprised.

Richardus: How would you unravel Christianity from Anna Karenin, Geraldine? I haven’t read War and Peace.

Geraldine: Your post reminded me more of how Tolstoy thought. For example you said:

“Suddenly, I peer into the eyes of another and see myself. Here is my peace, my consolation, my defence.”

Tostoy was conscious that the soul is godlike and unites all of us [italic by MoR]. The same soul lives in all of us. Emerson also refers to this in “The Over Soul.” The Hindu religion refers to this with the hands in prayer and the bow to each other: The God in me recognizes the God in you. Is this not what you mean?

To answer your question, I unravel Christianity in the novel in a simple way. Even though Toystoy had a profound insight into human suffering and behaviour his writing is morally severe. There is punishment and it is binary. I believe Levin is modeled after Tolstoy.

Anna defies or flaunts the rules of her society and receives a tragic end. Levin achieves fulfillment as a committed landowner and is involved in society. One protagonist lives outside of himself (if this sounds right) the other follows her own needs. Values, sacrifice, self-possession or self-control are scrutinized to the core.

In this work love is not light. It all suggest judgment.

Note I didn’t say that the love is not right. I do not know.

Kaytis:

True love is so hard to find and to keep. You paint a lovely picture Richard, of an ideal. Beautifully expressed.

Man of Roma:

What is true love? Everybody is in search for Love, in his /her own way.

Plato, Magister

While I am studying for my Manius soap I now think of this:

1) on one hand we have sapientiae voluptas (or wisdom’s, knowledge hedonism, since real knowledge implies passion, joy, love, it implies trying to probe – with poetry? sacred books? philosophy? science? – the big mysteries of the universe: death, God etc.

But on the other hand we also have 2) corporis volutpas, ie bodily pleasure, not necessarily vile: at its best it is love for a human being; at its worst banal lust.

A man (don’t know about women, they are more mysterious to me the more I age) is imo torn between 1 and 2.

Plato's chariot in Phaedrus: the Charioteer is our Reason, 1 horse is soul's positive passionate nature; the other horse our soul's concupiscent nature.

1) is the white horse in Plato’s Phedrus chariot (Plato influenced the Jews and the Christians), and 2) is the black horse, especially as for non-spiritual love. Who is riding the two-horsed chariot? It is our Reason.

Now men, I don’t know about women, are badly torn between 1 and 2. If they are not, throw stones at me because I am.

Torn between being a monk (of wisdom, at least tentative) and a libertine? Between ‘the Being’ & Love for a person in flesh? Hard to say.

At times the Woman, for a Man, may take us to God, to the Spirit, to the Being, like Beatrice did with Dante, or Polia with Polyphilo (ie, lover of Polia, in Francesco Colonna’a palatial neoplatonical Renaissance Comedy (Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream) – the anti-Dante – since the 2 lovers finally get united in their love – thanks to Polia – before the Cosmic Venus; yes, no Madonna there, but Venus at her highest level of purity).

Dante meets Beatrice at Ponte Santa Trinità, by Henry Holiday, 1883. Click to enlarge

Now our flight in such chariot towards Platonic Good, the Ideas (or the Christian God, or the neoplatonic cosmic Venus etc.) goes up when reason and the white horse prevail. It tends to flap flap flap down to bodily vile stuff when corporis voluptas, bodily desire, is stronger.

As for myself, num 2 is very powerful. My flight is often low, non-spiritual, my quest vile, although my desire for num 1 – for Good, God and so forth – is never ending, and is bugging me all the time, and each time I flap flap flap a bit higher, I do feel better.

Ok. I am very confused (plus verbose). Asta la vista babies

Richardus:

Well, now Roma, since you seek to distinguish hormonal and spiritual love, I must re-read the Symposium to see what is said there on the subject.

You raise also the matter of Christianity, for which love is the beginning the middle and the end.

Then we have love by love by internet, whose progenitor is love by letter-writing, yet less considered, or maybe less the product of reason.

There is a common thread which I must seek. I may be a little while.

Richardus:

You remind me, MoR, of a blond Adonis I knew at school into whose arms a succession of beauties fell, unregretting.

We mortals listened to him in awe. It was a boys’ school, so our knowledge of female anatomy was rudimentary and, shall we say, of a more academic nature. We envied the time he spent on his special study and the joy and adoration he left in his wake.

He went on to become a doctor, the better to develop his talents.

Man of Roma:

I’ll be verbose as usual.

Dear Richardus, sweet Celtic Geraldine:

I was in a boys’ school too, for the reason that, in my Liceo Classico, the headmaster, an absolute moron, decided to create, right on that darn year, one class of just girls and another of just boys (us, alas). So, our knowledge of women was also very academical. And, among us, we also had a brown-haired green-eyed Adonis. So beautiful he was, Tommaso, that he made our ‘female vacuum’ (if one can say that) even more painful: since, each time a girl approached our buddies’ group he quickly seduced her – she was powerless before Him, so she knelt down, and was lost in love – and nothing was left to us.

This occurred again and again.

Oh boy, what absolute starvation for a couple of (very formative btw) years, ie btw 15 and 17. It made us ALL very shallow for a long while as for the other gender: id est, when we met ANYTHING that faintly reminded us of the human female (in an age range btw 13 to 98), she, to us, was just flesh, flesh, flesh. Well, at that age, hormones were active. I, for example, couldn’t easily conceive a girl-friend in the sense of a real ‘friend’. Then I evolved I guess (and hope lol).

Pythagoras. Roman copy of a Greek original. Musei Capitolini, Roma. Via Wikipedia. Click for attribution

Yes, Richard, Plato is the Great Teacher of us Christians. Christ I guess did his part, but Plato is the supreme Magister of us all in the West. Forget Aristotle imo. But let us not neglect Pythagoras, Plato’s real mentor (even if dead long before Plato’s time) according to Plato himself and to many scholars, together with Socrates of course, of which little we know, and in any case Socrates was Pythagoras’ pupil also.

Now, what fascinates me [all readers here now taking a nap, I know] is the link Orpheus-Pythagoras. What a great theme!!

Which leads us into 2 sparkling directions: pre-Celtic North Europe, and India!

But that is a story I’ll try to unfold in the Manius plot.

Manius btw seems that it will be published – I was toasting yesterday with wifey – both in Italian (paper book) and in English (e-book: this version needs bigger editing, it is clear). I just have to finish it in 8 months time in a plausible and entertaining – and hopefully deep enough – way. Hard work, and contrary to my nature, whimsical & undisciplined. But in any case.

Blogger Love, you’ve mentioned.

The Love I developed for you Anglo-Saxons & similar, I guess I owe all to that,. To sweet Richard, Philippe, Mr C, Geraldine, and to ALL the American people, ALL of them etc. You people brought me -I forgot how – into discovering Ancient Britannia, fascinating to me to the extent that I now dream of it, like Giorgio in the plot (who in fact is me, obsessed by the theme).

This Love, dear dear Richard, gave me so much inspiration and happiness.

I read the elegance of you people’s words, I look at the pics you people publish (your houses, your windows so different from ours: they must allow more light, ours less) with so much Love (I now sound corny, I know). And well, yes, it is again the white and the black horse (hyperborea, the American & the British-isles type of Woman), and Reason, the Charioteer, sometimes (or often) faltering in its guide.

But this is the way we are, humans who are not only human, since perhaps there’s some extra sparkle (from somewhere where we came from and are bound to return).

As marvellous Geraldine so gently has told us – in her Irish Celtic, untouched-by-the-Romans, pure, Nordic Female’s words …

When Virtuality meets Reality. A Dinner With Blogger Nita and her Husband Anil

Nita, journalist and blogger from Mumbai

I met a blogger in the flesh a few days ago, Nita, journalist, writer and author of A wide angle view of India, one of the most successful blogs in WordPress, now on a hiatus. Touring Europe with her husband Anil, Nita was spending a few days in Rome.

I so invited them for dinner at our home, where they met my family, my wife and our two daughters, and where we spent two delightful hours together. One of my daughters had recently been to Mumbai for work and vacation and Nita had been so kind to provide her with useful information about the city. We tried to prepare a good meal since Nita had said they were eager to experience a real home-made Italian food and loved pasta.

One daughter – the one who went to Mumbai – was busy but popped up to meet Nita and Anil. The other daughter, who has never been to India but is pricking her ears up in new directions since her sister’s trip, was with us the whole evening and enjoyed the company quite a lot.

“We need more engineers than we actually have in India” said Nita to her. “We’ve got to build new cities.” Which of course captured my daughter’s imagination.

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Conversing with a blogger face to face may be strange at first but all was very natural, as if we had known each other since a long time, which in some way is true. I had frequented Nita’s blog for quite a while, a gold mine of information on Indian matters. The themes proposed and the discussions around them among Indians and non Indians (so many commentators!) were terribly enlightening and instructive.

Nita and Amil are warm, educated, open minded people. Nita is outspoken at times and may make her points with intensity of feelings. “Something I have in common with my father” she said. I had noticed this while reading her blog and I was on the whole surprised to recognize some of Nita’s patterns of discussion during our dinner conversation. Virtuality and reality are not that far after all.

Mumbai skyline. Click for credits and to zoom in

We all had no problem of cultural communication, being part of the same global space, and yet being true Italians from Rome and they true Indians from Mumbai. I believe that globalization, far from necessarily destroying cultural diversity, may create like a bridge that allows exchange between the local cultures, which are the most interesting part of it all, beyond a doubt. We had a good time because of the Indian-Italian connection, not because we were part of a globalized world, that’s for sure.

Curiously, and speaking of globalization, Anil worked many years for the same multinational company my daughter is working for at the moment in Rome.

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A very pleasurable evening and experience. Thank you dear Nita and Anil!

How Good Blogs and the Bunch Around Them Help ‘Keep the Juices Working’

Man of Roma in Southern Italy three years ago. I'm stuffy, but I like to laugh

I realised how I have been recently posting stuff in conversations more than in my own blog articles, which happened at the MoR’s wild parties – alcohol, idea exchanges (and stupidities) -, but, even more often at times at other stimulating blogs – so many of them! – because of the owner’s qualities and of the aficionados’ virtues frequenting his / her ideas pub (or café.)

So, as it is my custom, I’ll transfer some of these materials to my blog – let the Russians wait – and will start with a dialogue I’ve just had with dear Douglas at the Hannibal Blog (see the header pict above,) a great frequenter (and excellent blogger,) Douglas, of this great place where a perceptive landlord hosts an eccentric bunch of imaginative people.

This Hannibal man btw is an echt German from Bavaria (a dear to me place) weren’t for a shiny Anglo-Saxon icing that is more than an icing possibly but I’m not sure.

Let me thank Douglas (his blog, and its header pict above,) patient enough with my Roman aberration, who helped me keep my brain juices working – to use a phrase of the first, and never forgotten, commentator of this blog, Ashish the Geek Wrestler and Emperor from Maharastra – or Le Empereur, as he now prefers – , about to go out again with my eldest daughter – she working at present in Mumbai – AND, in case of non proper (with her) behaviour, me being obliged to go there and kill him, but, he surely behaving, since he’s a Hindu angel, if ever such a species exists, and, if it doesn’t, he’s the first sample of it without a doubt.

See you later folks.

Man of Roma during his favourite activity: fooling around with his students. Here an IT lesson at a UN base somewhere in the world

How To Learn Greek and Latin (2). Some Inspiration From Penates, And Here We Go!

CONSTANTINO MAXIMO SPQR ARCVM DICAVIT QVOD 'INSTINCTV DIVINITATIS' DE TYRANNO REM PUBLICAM VLTVS EST

The Greek alphabet is hard only at first

My Latin and Greek classes are starting but I need some inspiration. Bits of the said languages will appear from now on over a gradual and mild crescendo. I might be didactic now since my mind is drained a bit.

The inscription on the Constatine’s Arch above (315 AD) I made it shorter. It is symbolic of the entire story I am about to narrate [see a big image of it]

And do not to worry if you don’t understand all the words, just carry on! I have learned languages with the natural learning method – see this post – ie through non formal practice. It’s the way babies learn. It proved effective at any age, with me and many other people.

Tomes and Sibyllae

I can hear readers crunching popcorn (one at least) which is good for a mind journey although I don’t know the direction we will take. I have so much confusion in my head for a task bigger than myself, for stress I have accumulated and for something terrible (but auspicious) that happened a few days ago:

I have finally retrieved my grandfather’s tomes, my Di Penates or Patron Gods, I could say [Di = Gods, Deus = God.]

Minerva amomg the lemons on my terrace. May the goddess (and limoncello) inspire us

It’s not the commercial worth of tomes that range in any case from the Renaissance until the 1940s. It’s their valore psicologico especially, plus their content, archaeology and humanities mostly.

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I had been looking for them since years. 2-3 weeks ago I chanced to say a few words to one of my two senseless sisters I seldom see but plan to fix that, one day or another:

“Hey donna [domna, domina ] it’s AGES I don’t see them, grandpa’s books. Does anyone know where the hell have they gone for Chrissake??”

Sibyl, by Francesco Ubertini, 1525. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

Sometimes my voice gets pretty peremptory, I’ll admit. With such powerful sibyls so hard to handle - Sibyllae: the Romans had few since Σίβυλλες were Greek mostly - male verbal force is a weapon I use once every 15-20 months possibly

My new family – Fatum decreed – is again a sibyllina familia composed of a wonderful wife, 2 gem daughters, an ol’ Philippine woman, a sancta about to defeat gravity I’m sure – and Lilla dulcis in fundo, our female Bolognese dog, greatest Sibyl of them all I have little doubts.

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In any case as if by miracle days later while I was opening the condominium attic door I much to my horror saw the tomes all scattered in messy piles and ALL SOAKED with WATER!!

My rage starting to surge in waves – I cannot believe it, leaking water was a known problem in that room! – I began barking so loud my wife, the Philippine and two workers happened there by chance ran worried (for my health) to the place and helped me carry the tomes down to my study-room, to THAT moment a tidy, quiet place for writing and reflection.

Well, look at my refugium NOW!

(From the left) Cicero (1559) Horace & Pliny (XVIII) drying themselves on the heater

A protector deity in our home

My paternal grandfather’s tomes I said. He is the genius of my family, in both the modern and the ancient sense (the latter at least to me, my sisters having my father instead as their genius: see a Roman genius below).

My father’s side means the North-Eastern Italian alpine region of Piedmont – ie part of Gallia Cisalpina – a totally different universe I’m ignorant of except for what was transmitted to us by my father himself, no small thing in any case.

Head of a genius (protector deity) worshipped by Roman soldiers in Vindobona, a Roman-Celtic Donau settlement, 2nd century AD

I never met my grandfather. He died of leukaemia 2 years before I was born. I’ll say we are somewhat black sheep (oves nigrae?) compared to him – my father and I.

He lost the fortune he had created from scratch because he firmly believed in his country, in Mussolini (since he had saved Italy from communism), but most of all he (together with my father) had a sort of feudal adoration for the Piedmontese King Vittorio Emanuele III d’Italia, which is understandable although a bit blind since this king was no big deal plus he basically betrayed us all also by cowardly fleeing from Rome when the Nazis arrived, which resulted in extra havoc – one reason among many why the Savoia lost their throne and we now are a Republic.

V. Emanuele II when still a crown prince. Ca 1890/93. He looks almost decent, but he was awfully short

Fulvia [an outspoken Romana Venus with South titbits, one reason possibly she abhors anything North of Rome, even just Tuscany:]

Oh how interesting! I thought we were going to have language classes, pupus.

Extropian: Fulvia, MoR means his grandfather is like an inspiring guide to him.

MoR: My nature is shallow compared to his. I mostly like he mastered maybe 8 languages – both modern and ancient – and despite being a pioneer in aeronautics plus an hydroelectric engineer entrepreneur, the day he sold his company and retired (all his money in treasury bonds fallen to dust, pulvis, because of the war) – he dedicated his last years to the study, or studium, of the Etruscan language.

Mario: Lingua Etrusca hodie exstincta? Per Hercules, why not Roman or, better, Greek stuff? C’mon pupus meus!

MoR: Stop with this pupus you moron. According to my father who seldom spoke about grandpa he adored mysteries and, well, the Etruscans are a mystery.

Flavia: Sempre co’ sti napoletani eddagli a Mario! (always with these Neapolitans etc.)
[Naples comes from Νεάπολη id est Νέα Πόλις id est Nea Polis id est 'New City']

Weren’t these Tusci a great non Indo-European folk coming from some unknown place of the valde arcanus Oriens? I love all esoterica!

Etruscan civilization map. See the 12 League cities (Arretium is among them ...)

MoR: Not much esoterica here Flavia, basically a big enigma, or αίνιγμα. The Romans, it has been said, called them Etrusci or Tusci (thence Tuscany.) The Italian Greeks Τυρρήνιοι, Tyrrhenioi (thence the Tyrrhenian Sea.) But they called themselves Rasenna, or the shorter Rasna.

Their language not yet well deciphered, their civilization not yet well understood, one additional reason is Rome possibly embodied them into herself.

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Pausa nunc. Non Chia vina aut Lesbia but some simple tuscum de Caere vinum (see Caisra in the map above, Cerveteri hodies), a light red Fontana Morella, good for a light snack with bits of cheese, or caseus. Lots of laughing, moronities. Pausae finis.

Why now Calabrian Κρότων (Crotone)?

MoR: Rome and all Westerners are a bit Tusci – also the British or the Swedish with their aurora borealis eh Fulvia?

Fulvia: Mwaaaw! Those pale ghosts from the North pole sleeping with polar bears? Oh Oh OOHH Giorgio – she bellowed – you’re totally nuts!

[*much appropriately, she - vacca nostra - adjusted her bust, id est her gorgeous mammae she unfortunately knows how to impress men with ... well, only the silly men easily to get impressed, of course*].

[To Italian readers. Vacca - Latin for 'cow' - if possibly evocative, it's not derogatory]

MoR: Fulvia, ehm, you forgot the Latin alphabet the Swedish (or the Brits) took from Rome owes a lot to the Rasna alphabet. As simple as that.

Embodied … one might say Calabrian Crotone, Κρότων, disappeared in much the same way. Such a great city, Κρότων from Magna Graecia, which is coastal Southern Italy. And Crotone surely a key place in our whole story. Oh you’ll be VALDE suprised, VERY obstupefacti, I am sure.

Magna Graecia or Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς in 280 AC

Flavia: *puzzled look in her deep black eyes* [a mixture of Minerva & Juno, extremely brilliant at school; Fulvia? Well, Fulvia was and is a shameless Venus] 

I don’t know where you’re aiming at. Magna Graecia – Big Greece or Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς – didn’t possibly correspond to Southern Italy only. The Greeks perhaps meant by Μεγάλη all the Greeks scattered over the coastal Mediterranean.

Besides, Crotone and the Etruscans, which connection…

MoR: Little in fact, but I mean, Crotone, so great and influential, what was left of her today? Same fatum as with Rasna, ie few remnants. And I might agree with Magna Graecia.

Κρότων continued to live in the centuries and seamlessly became today’s Crotone. Same happened to the Rasna folk. On a much larger scale same thing happened to Graeci-Romani Gentiles, id est Pagani. They were embodied – Paul Costopoulos pointed it out well -  so we don’t see them. But … postea, later.

Extropian: Actually they are haunting us, one can feel their animae even in the new frontiers of physics! I so hope you’re taking us where I suspect you’re taking us. Ego expectans atque VALDE sperans, pupus de Roma meus

Mario: Maro’, I knew we’d get back to the Greco-Romans, un bravo pupo sei. But just one thing, the gladiators: I’ve heard they came from the Etruscans.

Extropian: The Etruscans had many mores (Latin) they transmitted to Romanis, not that I am that big expert or valde expertus.

And the women or mulìeres Giorgio? Being expertus in just math and physics, can you give us one reason why Fulvia is impudens, or even impudentissima?

MoR: Ah ah ah! Well, as far as I know the Roman mulìeres were freer than their Greek counterparts since the days they mixed with the Etruscans, but I should check that better.

Flavia: Oh, I’m more experta! I once read a wonderful fabula about this girl from Rome when Rome was so ancient she was zero compared to the Etruscans. She chanced to marry to this Rasna boy and went to live in Arrētium, Tuscia (see the Etruscan map above and ceramics below.) Many things happened to her but what hit me were her rasna sister-in-laws, the way they were mocking her: to their eyes she was …provincial, stupidly decorous and restrained.

Ceramics from Arretium, the biggest pottery centre ever in Etruscan and Roman times (Maecenas was possibly born there.) Piece found at Arikamedu in India (1st cent. AD), evidence of Roman trade with India through Persia during Augustan times.

MoR: Arezzo was more powerful, ancient & refined than Roma. Titus Livius wrote Arretium was one of the 12 capitals, or Capitae Etruriae, said also Dodecapolis (δώδεκα, 12, + πόλeις, cities).

Fulvia: *giving Extropian her old mischievous look * Impudentissima?? Ah adulescentulus meus, you just wait and see!
*To MoR* THAT is in fact much less fastidiosus, less boring.

MoR. Back to our points amici mei!

*Looking at Fulvia casually* My NORDIC grandmother used to kid his husband:  “Tusci are  just a bad copy of the Greeks also in the arts.” Nothing but a jest, though when grandpa died in 1946 she – nicknamed carrarmato di piume (tank disguised with feathers) – exerted her ‘feathers’ over my poor dad who had TOTA his father’s vast materials and studies collected and revised by experti.

Among them, an advanced Etruscan grammar, according to grandma. In the end tota were given Piedmont-like to Fatherland, ie handed over to Massimo Pallottino, the scholar about to become number one in world Etruscology.

Whether my grandfather’s materials were of any help I cannot say. I never heard my grandfather mentioned anywhere in any scholarly paper about the Rasna …

Mario: *Looking at my grandfather’s photograph* You have his same face, MoR, and your eldest daughter too. Amazing.

Fulvia: Let me see .. you talked earlier of India, reincarnation: had he reincarnated in you, he must have been very unethical in his life despite his achievements ..

MoR: You are certainly right, and believe me, you’re damn lucky I am not in the mood of explaining what your next reincarnation will be!!

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Flavia’s ancient Roman laughter is heard in the room. It is loud, slightly crass but luminous, as it should be and as I hope it will ever ever be in the future, somewhat like a sympathetic, warm BIG HUG to the world.

Everybody left, except Flavia. We went to the kitchen and had a drink.

“Listen G – she said softly – we know each other since high school. I’ve heard you don’t see many friends after your retirement and that this research is what you care for more than anything else. Is it true?”

“No Flavia – I replied – I care infinitely more for my family. Yet, true, it’s taking me away from the present and reality and, while having me plunge deeper and deeper into Orphism & the ancient religions, it’s making me lunatic a bit and progressively isolated, sort of getting dangerous for my inner balance. But please don’t worry, I have spine, but most of all, I have the love of my wife and daughters and, of some dear old friend, I hope.”

“You surely have” she said, her eyes shining a bit. After another drink in silence she left.

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Related posts:

The Human Mind is Like a Museum (very much to the point)

How To Easily Learn Ancient Greek and Latin (1). Poems Assemblage

The Day Paganism Yielded To Christianity. Has India Anything To Do With It?

The Day Paganism Yielded To Christianity. Has India Anything To Do With It?

Constantine I, the first Christian Roman emperor (272 – 337 AD). Musei capitolini, Roma [Click for credits, GNU Free Docum License, Ver 1.2

I’m preparing 2 posts I hope will help readers to easily learn some ancient Greek and Latin but I need a few more days.

The whole thing is in fact tough and I’m a bit breathless.

Not because of the poems – they are ready (and will be in progress in any case.) It is the cultural context around them that has exhausted – and troubled me – a bit.

I’ll try to explain.

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Andreas Kluth’s Hannibal blog – a place extraordinaire I stumbled upon months ago – had once presented a fascinating metaphor possibly created by a certain Professor Phillip Cary.

“You can think – Andreas wrote – of “Western culture” as a human body:

[nums by MoR instead of stars].

1. The left leg is ancient Athens and Rome, Socrates and Aristotle;
2. the right leg is Jerusalem and the Bible, Moses and Jesus;
3. the crotch is the end of the Roman empire when the two “legs” met ;
4. the torso is the Middle Ages, when the two traditions became one [Dante, MoR];

[etc etc up to the rest of the body that can be pondered over at the Hannibal blog, *here* and *there*; MoR]

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Ok. The left leg (1) – the Classical – has been THE main topic of this blog so far.

The research around my Greek and Latin classes though caused the other leg (2) – the Judeo-Christian – to more or less pound on my head.

Ouch what a blow my dear readers!  – and later I might tell you why.

Constantine's dream of a sign from the Christian God

Mario: A blow? Why TH do you care? Just go ahead with the left leg, you always were a leftist ah ah ah!

MoR: You moron, MY problem is the ancient languages classes Mario! Now it turns that, while the classical texts are hard (leg 1), the Judeo-Christian ones (leg 2) are often that easy – Old and New Testament alike – that even a baby can read them, for reasons fascinating not the place here to discuss.

[I know there are comics, that there are web sites plus the Latin and Greek Wikipedia- which I adore. But I always prefer the best literature for language learning: ie starting with what is matchless]

Extropian: MoR is right. Wanna get into mountain climbing? Forget the Everest and start with simple (tho captivating) hills.

MoR: Ok ok Extropian, but you 2 didn’t get the MAIN point.
I’m not only facing here the daunting task of presenting the context of the greatest spiritual revolution the West ever had – the switch from Paganism to Christianity. And btw I’m a guy who, revering the Classical as much as I do, is not exactly excited to see the DEATH of it  …

Extropian: “Num 3, the crotch?

MoR: The crotch, yes. Problem being: there’s a lot more, and a lot earlier.

Extropian: Urghhh! A LOT earlier??

Serapis, an Hellenistic-Egyptian god in Antiquity (since the III century BC)

MoR: Yyyeees! While trying to figure out the spiritual context of the poems, much to my horror (and fascination) did I realise that the (Judeo)-Christian leg was part of bigger – much more ancient  – streams originating from Egypt and from the East (both Middle and Far East.)

To be more precise – and in a reversed order: from Egypt, Thrace, Anatolia, Palestine (the Jews, naturally, crucial,) Mesopotamia, Persia AND India.

Mario: India??? Oh oh oh oh ….India AGAIN???

Extropian [*getting more attentive*]

MoR: I’ll repeat it! The Greco-Romans had already encountered A LOT EARLIER that much wider oriental humus – of which the Judeo-Christian leg was just a part – much earlier I mean than when we finally get to the darn crotch – ie the switching to Christianity and soon after that cataclysm, ie the horrible end of the Roman empire.

Extropian: [*lost in reflection, eyes gleaming*] Mmmm, how MUCH earlier …

MoR: 800-850 years earlier, more or less. I’ll check better but I’d bet on it.

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Long pause. Pauses are important. The sun begins to shine through the clouds folds over the eternal city  … We drink strong coffee.

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MoR: Which led me to reconsider the Judeo-Christian tradition as being NOT TOTALLY EXTRANEOUS to the Classical World (!) as I first had thought.

A kind of a BLOW, plus a troubling one because I got fascinated by it.

I told Lichanos over at his blog – his posts inspired me as for the Jewish heritage: “I feel the need of coming to terms with both traditions or legs – I said – AND, should I get back to Christianity, I will SUE you …” 

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The silence in my study-room is now disturbed only by Mario che smadonna piano piano … My friends love me and they are worried. I am just excited.

This was happening yesterday in an apartment in Rome.

On another area of the planet 70 million Hindus plus 40,000 Indian politicians were /are about to gather near the banks of the Ganges. The water is cold. It is flowing to the plains directly from the Himalayas. The water is also dirty.

Indian crowds over the Ganges to purify themselves. Click for credits and to enlarge

Not that the Indians will care – about the cold or the dirtiness. All they care about – the poor and the low caste, the rich and the high caste – is this sacred water purifying them from their sins and helping them with better reincarnations.

The Kumbh Mela hindu festival might though be special this year. The convergence of the 12-yearly Kumbh Mela with the longest solar eclipse of the millennium – it is believed - could guarantee an end to the reincarnation cycle.

Note. Sin. Purified by sacred water. ‘Souls’ and ‘bodies’ separated but incessantly reuniting in a reincarnation cycle of life and death.

Ah what a marvellous introduction to what we are about to narrate!

Indian Avant Garde Bloggies Awards. MoR has been now nominated (and is moved)

The Taj Mahal or ताज महल

Some of my posts have been just now nominated at the Indian Avant Garde Bloggies Awards. They are appearing on the comment section at the right.

It’s a huge Indian Bloggie festival promoted by the fantastic and indefatigable Poonam Sharma, a young woman with character who is constructing the new India like all the young Indians around her.

I feel honoured, and I am moved a bit, I’ll confess. It doesn’t really matter who will win since what matters here is that ideas, mutual respect, intercultural appreciation plus, last but not least,  affection, have circulated among us.

For an Italian this is even more important since Italians – the ones I have experience of – are not that open to the world, like instead other folks from other seas, or past, are.

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Let me repeat that the people from the subcontinent have been important for the Man of Roma’s blog. Don’t know why, they have been founding in some way – odd in a blog dedicated to Rome -, as many of my posts and conversations [see a sample] – here and in other blogs – attest (in my first not-easy-to-forget blogging year mostly – now West readers have kinda devoured me.)

So now I want my non Indian readers to get to know some of these people. I’ll let them speak via the Avant Garde Bloggies Awards web site (Poonam’s voice mainly.)

The Bahá'í Lotus Temple in Delhi, India.

“Hey there! Avant Garde Bloggies Awards aims to find the worthiest bloggers around. You are here to have your voice counted to decide the worthiest blogger available.

Publicist: Nikhil

Scrutinising Team: Dhiren, Vimal, Smita and Vee (I could not even have taken a single step without these four.)

Awards Badge Designer: Chirag

Judges:

1. Nita: A knowledgeble part-time journalist and movie reviewer from Bombay who writes about India
2. Nikhil: A whacky guy from Bangalore who would not hesitate to write about wierdest things you can be shy of imagining
3. Museditions: An interesting blogger from US who calls herself lifelong student of philosophy, arts, science and music
4. Withering Willow: A blogger and personal friend with an artistic bent of mind. She would rather tell you about colour therapy, spas, chakras than any verbal activism
5. Anshul: A cartoonist blogger who has been featured on NDTV Metronation as well as Indian Express for the uniqueness of his blog
6. Vee: An outgoing nomad blogger (travelled 23 states) and reader. Passionate about movies (may watch a movie 12 times without qualms should it catch his fancy) and beautiful things in life.
7. Magik: He writes and reviews movies at prestigious Passion for Cinema blog.
8. Me (ie Poonam Sharma)
   
9. Joseph Thomas: A singer, composer and podcaster from Kerala
10. Rashmi: A personal friend and English litterateur from Pune who loves to read poetry and books. She has another blog these days. I will update link soon. She was a theatre enthusiast, currently she makes her living out of her words.
11. Meetu: The lady who runs this hugely successful movie review site Without Giving the Movie Away (WOGMA). She won Indibloggies 2008 that happened in 2009.

I’ll finally add – I think it to be appropriate – some Indian fusion music (classical Indian + western pop)  from the Destination Infinity blog. Here is DI first:

“The song  ‘Taaye yeshoda’ from the movie ‘Morning Raaga’ [see below, MoR. ] is one of the best Classical/Carnatic fusion songs that I have heard till now. The first fusion song I heard was ‘Krishna Nee Begane’ [see also below] by Colonial Cousins. That was a brilliant fusion of western and classical. I have always wondered why there have not been many fusion songs after that. Carnatic/classical music has never appealed to me earlier …”

And this one too (unfortunately a better one DI proposed has been removed from Youtube):

Krishnamurti on Love and Hate

I like the gentle touch of many Indian thinkers. I also like their profundity. We need both nowadays and we need more than ever different paths to love.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher and writer (1895–1986)

“It is easy to hate, and hate brings people together after a fashion; it creates all kinds of fantasies, it brings about various types of co-operation, as in war. But love is much more difficult. You cannot learn how to love, but what you can do is to observe hate and put it gently aside. Don’t battle against hate, don’t say how terrible it is to hate people, but see hate for what it is and let it drop away; brush it aside, it is not important. What is important is not to let hate take root in your mind. Do you understand? Your mind is like rich soil, and if given sufficient time any problem that comes along takes root like a weed, and then you have the trouble of pulling it out; but if you do not give the problem sufficient time to take root, then it has no place to grow and it will wither away. If you encourage hate, give it time to take root, to grow, to mature, it becomes an enormous problem. But if each time hate arises you let it go by, then you will find that your mind becomes very sensitive without being sentimental; therefore it will know love.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

[I met J. Krishnamurti at Café Philos, a good Internet café where Paul Sunstone - living "along the Front Range of the Rockies, near Cheyenne Mountain" - stirs discussions on philosophy and other thought-provoking stuff]

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PS
As a digression, I wonder why media today pander so much to the basest emotions of the public, thus favouring them to ‘take root’. Panem et circenses? An intrinsic flaw of capitalism?  – the list could be long. A cui bono serious analysis here would be needed, though it could lead nowhere, societies being complex. For a discussion around this see the links below.

Related posts:

Keep Violence in the Mind
Western Values, Again (1)

I also found a very interesting [Australian] post on the subject of how we accustom our children to virtual murder and crime via media and computer games:

Crime: Who’s to Blame?

From Friendship to Asking Mamma when Looking for “Mr Right”

According to Country Philosopher friendship (no 4 in his list) is an important factor in the pursuit of happiness.

“True friendship is the most solid, the highest, the most disinterested, passionate and honest feeling that can link two persons. It implies sympathy of feelings, conviction to have found a twin soul, it is the most durable way of loving and being loved, … it is a fundamental component of happiness and, according to Epicure, the most precious good.”

“On the other hand – Bernazza adds – we cannot call authentic friends mere acquaintances ruled by feelings which are occasional, superficial, opportunistic, basically selfish. In this type of relationships liabilities are greater than assets and the final result is sorrow, most of the time.”

(his judgement on acquaintances is a bit extreme since many acquaintances in my opinion don’t necessarily end up with sorrow)

How can we attain true friendship?

“It is a construction to be built little by little, day by day, with patience and perseverance, with affection and intelligence, considering it is an achievement among the most complex, long, delicate that heart and mind together can accomplish.”

Friendship impacts on 3 points of CP’s list. Which list? A list regarding 20 major existential issues which, according to Dario Bernazza, we should address in the best possible way in order to diminish life liabilities and live a happy life. Friendship in fact regards points 4 (friendship), 5 (marriage) and 6 (children).

True friendship –  Bernazza states – is the only factor that produces a good marriage or union between two partners.

True friendship is the only key to success in the relationship between parents and children, allowing mutual respect and the mutual fulfilment of rights and duties.

Bernazza’s idea of friendship is surely dated and it includes a wider range of affectionate relationships than the modern friendship concept does, being not far from Montaigne’s amitié, connected to the Latin amicitia and the Greek philìa.

On the other hand, romantic love to him is important only to a certain extent. Life to CP should be a careful construction.  So I wonder if he would be for arranged marriages. Well, yes and no, since to him each person must be the real planner of his/her life.

[By the way, the Western romantic approach to marriage is just one possibility: arranged marriages thrived for thousands of years and are today still common in many parts of the world. Discussions on this theme by Indians can be read at Nita's blog: 1 and 2]

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Bernazza is an interesting example of cultural isolation. His thought is organic like the wine one finds directly at the farm, surely inferior to the big wines, but with a genuineness and that special patina which smells of the past.

But I’m asking myself: 1) is friendship really so important in the relationship with a partner and in parenting? 2) should living our entire life with a partner be the fruit of a thoughtful decision and a careful construction (when looking for “the one” why don’t we ask mamma, someone wrote) or should all be decided by attraction and romantic passion only?