From my first encounters with them during my college days, I have had a special fondness for the pre-Socratric Greek philosophers, particularly Parmenides of whom only one work is extant. It’s difficult to tell whether what he was about should be considered philosophy in the sense of what that term refers to in later philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. My liking for his poetic philo/theosophy (to fall into the trap of fetishising terms!) is it’s poetic nature itself. He begins his poem, sometimes given the title ‘On the Way of Nature’, with a description of a kind of mystic revelation. His mind takes the form of a chariot (quite a common metaphor in the ancient world, one also found in Buddhist tradition) led by maidens who are ‘daughters of the sun’ to the ‘mansions of night’. These latter refer to the realm of the dead, and the gateway between the worlds, the axis of the totality encompassing life and death (basically, all of existence) is the place where the goddess who sees and knows all things resides. It is to her that Parmenides is guided to learn of the truth of things. Whatever the philosophical merits and defects of the text may be, I still think it’s a beautiful piece of literature (in translation; I learned classical Greek at school, but the Greek of Parmenides poem is very archaic and difficult). Anyways, I wrote some years ago, a derivative of Parmenides work. This following is that.
Sometimes I think that that the western world places him in the camp of its philosophy purely because his piece validates that an ancient mysticism, sophisticated and magnificent stretched back through time, one which through its own depths and revelations unintentionally expose abrahamic thought as puerile and self-contradictory.
The act of placing Parmenides in philosophy thus lightens the blow, allowing the abrahamics to continue their pretense of mastery.
Truthfully, Parmenides validates so many deep, ancient experiential phenomenon in his one extant piece that I still tremble before it, the incredible power he makes available to us all.
The Pirate
Compassionate Mother Kali
You are the stealthy pirate
that sails the seas
of our mindless
hum drum
do-what-others-do existence
With your prey firmly fixed
in your steady gaze
you unfurl your black flag
with skull and cross bones flying in the sun
and stalk our aimless minds
which sail like so many wooden ships
from one meaningless port
to the next
What a sight you are!
With your disheveled long free-flowing black hair
blowing effortlessly in the wind
you direct the universes and all their beings
from the bow of your ship
Your songs of renunciation
detachment
and abandonment of the blind herd mentality
echo endlessly
across the waters of mortality
You are the very spirit of freedom
that dances in reckless unconcerned bliss
overpowering the prim and the proper
the prince and the pauper
trampling all self-imposed scripts of limitation
Victory is always certain
as you storm our ship
that is heavy laden
with the cargo of “I” and “mine”
Most flee in terror
at the sight of your approaching pirate flag
but I have been hunting you!
I am eager for you to steal away
my deluded self interests
and set ablaze my wooden ship
of self-imposed limitations
Mother Kali
I have spotted you in my telescope
just on the horizon of plurality
and I have given the order
to set sail at once!
Day and night
I will watch you closely
not even blinking
so that you will not be able to slip away
I and my motley crew
of mental musings, attachments and fantasies
are ready to join
your pirate band of Divine Marauders
From then on
there will be no captain but you
Like a divine Robin Hood
who sails the oceans of mortal existence
you steal from the bloated opulence
of our wandering thoughts
and give to our thirsting hearts
which long for your
radiant all consuming love
Ethan Walker II
Parmenides.
Sometimes I think that that the western world places him in the camp of its philosophy purely because his piece validates that an ancient mysticism, sophisticated and magnificent stretched back through time, one which through its own depths and revelations unintentionally expose abrahamic thought as puerile and self-contradictory.
The act of placing Parmenides in philosophy thus lightens the blow, allowing the abrahamics to continue their pretense of mastery.
Truthfully, Parmenides validates so many deep, ancient experiential phenomenon in his one extant piece that I still tremble before it, the incredible power he makes available to us all.