INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................11
CHAPTER I:
BEYOND THE SIEGE AND THE RETURN, OR THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY
ACCORDING TO ULYSSES .......................................................................................15
CHAPTER II:
DISCOURSE ON BEAUTY .........................................................................................18
CHAPTER III:
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE BEAUTY ............................................................................22
CHAPTER IV:
TELEMACHUS AND ULYSSES ..................................................................................30
CHAPTER V:
FROM THE MATERNAL TO THE PATERNAL AND FROM THE EARTH TO THE
COSMOS ..................................................................................................................33
CHAPTER VI:
THE SYNTHESIS OF OPPOSITES, BEAUTY AND IMMORTALITY ...............................37
CHAPTER VII:
AN OUTLINE OF ONE POSSIBLE VIEW OF THE ODYSSEY AS AN ALCHEMICAL
PROCESS WITH A COSMIC PURPOSE ......................................................................39
CHAPTER VIII:
ULYSSES ACCEPTS ZEUS’ REQUEST TO CREATE NEW BEAUTY BY EXTRACTING IT
FROM WISDOM, PAIN AND ART ...............................................................................44 CHAPTER IX:
THE FIRST ULYSSES AND THE SECOND ULYSSES .................................................46
CHAPTER X:
THE PACT TO CREATE BEAUTY...............................................................................48
CHAPTER XI:
THE BEAUTY OF LIFE ..............................................................................................52
CHAPTER XII:
THE PERSONAL SELF AND THE COSMIC SELF .......................................................54
CHAPTER XIII:
THE INTERNAL MONSTERS .....................................................................................57
CHAPTER XIV:
THE LABYRINTH OF THE DEVOURING MOTHER.....................................................60
CHAPTER XV:
REPRESSED HATRED, AN UNEXPLORED REALITY..................................................63
CHAPTER XVI:
CIRCE, CALYPSO AND IMMORTALITY ......................................................................71
CHAPTER XVII:
THE SIRENS AND INTRAUTERINE INCEST...............................................................74
CHAPTER XVIII:
ULYSSES AND THE IMPACT WITH SCYLLA ..............................................................78
CHAPTER XIX:
ULYSSES AS A TEACHER OF LIFE AND OF WISDOM...............................................80
CHAPTER XX:
THE STRUCTURE OF THE GLOBAL I........................................................................83 CHAPTER XXI:
THE FIVE POISONS ACCORDING TO BUDDHA AND ACCORDING TO HOMER ........88
CHAPTER XXII:
WHY DOES HOMER CHOOSE ULYSSES?.................................................................97
CHAPTER XXIII:
THE PRAYER OF THE ULYSSEANS.........................................................................108
CHAPTER XXIV:
REFLECTIONS ON HADES .....................................................................................131
CHAPTER XXV:
THE HYBRIS OF ULYSSES .....................................................................................135
CHAPTER XXVI:
THE OX-SKIN OF WINDS AND THE POISON OF ENVY ...........................................146
CHAPTER XXVII:
A CLOSER LOOK AT ENVY .....................................................................................150
CHAPTER XXVIII:
THE SUN GOD’S CATTLE AND ULYSSES’ GREED ..................................................157
CHAPTER XXIX:
MORE ABOUT ENVY ..............................................................................................160
CHAPTER XXX:
GREED AND ENVY ..................................................................................................163
CHAPTER XXXI:
GREED AS THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY’S SUFFERING ...........................................168
CHAPTER XXXII:
THE PAIN OF OUR TRIALS .....................................................................................170 CHAPTER XXXIII:
THE ISLAND OF THE PHAEACIANS........................................................................175
CHAPTER XXXIV:
WHO ARE THE PHAEACIANS, ANYWAY? ................................................................183
CHAPTER XXXV:
ULYSSES, FROM POWERLESSNESS TO HUMILITY THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF
HYBRIS. .................................................................................................................186
CHAPTER XXXVI:
FROM POWERLESSNESS TO VIRILE PERSONAL POWER BEFORE THE DEVOURING
MOTHER ................................................................................................................191
CHAPTER XXXVII:
THE SUITORS ........................................................................................................193
CHAPTER XXXVIII:
THE SUITORS AND THE POISON OF ARROGANT DEMANDS .................................203
CHAPTER XXXIX:
FROM VIOLENCE TO NON-VIOLENCE ...................................................................211
CHAPTER XL:
ULYSSES AND PENELOPE .....................................................................................214
CHAPTER XLI:
CONCORDANCE AND IMMORTALITY ......................................................................221
CHAPTER XLII:
MORE ON THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY THAT ULYSSES TELLS PENELOPE .......225
CHAPTER XLIII:
COMPLICITY AND ARROGANT DEMANDS ..............................................................227 CHAPTER XLIV:
ULYSSES AND POSEIDON......................................................................................230
CHAPTER XLV:
CHARYBDIS AND THE FIG AS THE WORLD’S AXIS................................................240
CHAPTER XLVI:
THERE ONCE WAS A MAN WHO WANTED TO FLY.................................................247
CHAPTER XLVII:
ALCHEMY AND COSMO-ART..................................................................................251
Acknowledgements.............................................................................................. 253
OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR .......................................................... 256
INTRODUCTION
I am deeply convinced that Homer composed the Odyssey to tell his contemporaries, as well as those from future generations, that the gods are not immortal divinities. Rather, they are only symbolic representations of cosmic and human spiritual forces, and the meaning of a human life lies in the ability to unite these forces and create immortal beauty for the individual and for the entire Universe. He came to this conclusion centuries before the pre-Socratic philosophers did. On reading the Odyssey, I formulated the following hypotheses on Ulysses and on the Odyssey that can help illuminate Homer’s thought:
a. This fusion of cosmic and human forces can create a truly immortal beauty, a beauty so great that the beauty of Aphrodite or Ares is only a pale shadow of it, worthy only of the derision of the gods.
b. The meaning of life - the life of the cosmos and of human beings - is found in the creation of this supreme type of beauty, and not in the military glory expounded upon by Homer in the Iliad.
c. Great courage is required to create this fusion between cosmic and human forces, courage even greater than that shown in military battle; much suffering must be faced and overcome, not as victims, but as artists capable of creating beauty that does not yet exist by extracting energy from pain, from guilt and from the continuous transformation of one’s self.
d. The struggles that Ulysses faces during his voyage home to Ithaca is a great metaphor that describes, in poetic form, the spiritual alchemical process that a man and a woman can undergo so as to meld into “a single soul”. This can then create a type of immortal life that is immensely superior to the earthly life that we all have.
e. It is not possible to create this type of superior and immortal life without operating on the earthly level where humans, not the gods, live.
f. Not only human beings but also the entire cosmos wants immortality; the cosmos, however, even with all of its potent energies, can never create the immortality it longs for without the collaboration of men and women. Humanity would not long for immortality if the cosmos had not placed this aspiration within us.
The immortality that writers and poets attributed to the Olympian gods is a false immortality that does not hold up through the ravages of time. This is why Ulysses refuses to accept the immortality that the sovreign goddesses Circe and Calypso offer him if he consents to marry them.
g. Terrible, negative forces violently oppose the positive, spiritual cosmic and human forces. These negative forces create interminable obstacles within the process of fusing cosmic and human energies.
h. The god Poseidon on one hand (the cosmic side), and the Suitors on the other (the human side), are powerful symbols that Homer uses to portray the dark negative forces.
i. At the end, however, the Suitors are exterminated and Poseidon is forced to surrender before the positive forces that are at work. If we look closely, both Poseidon and the Suitors, although against their will, play a role that actually favors the positive forces. Both are necessary to reach the cosmic goal.
j. The “sacred wedding” between the cosmos and humanity (represented by Ulysses and Penelope) most certainly will take place and from this union a new form of life will be created that is made up of true immortality and indestructible beauty.
k. Whereas the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Orphic Mysteries – whose adepts also aimed at achieving immortality – have remained veiled in mystery and their secret rites died along with the death of their adepts, it will not be so for Ulysses’ path to immortality. This is because the instructions to follow it are found between the lines of Homer’s poem. One must only read the poem and meditate carefully on its meaning; these instructions can be understood by anyone and can are available to all who care to find them.
l. Zeus, the father of the gods and of men, is the axis of the world. He has all the wisdom and intelligence necessary to guide the universe and humanity towards the goal of the creation of supreme beauty. Athena and Hermes are the gods who act as messengers between Zeus and humanity.
m. This wisdom is available to all, even to those who are about to commit a crime (Aegisthus, for example). Each person is free to welcome it, by listening to one’s heart, or to refuse it, by closing themselves off from what they hear. If they refuse to listen, they will be the only ones responsible for the struggles that will befall them.
This is a world-view never proposed before, in either the East or the West. There is no god to offer either rewards or punishment, and no karmic entity forces anyone to pay for the wrongs they committed in a previous life. All are responsible for the life given to them, and they must only decide whether to live as unhappy victims or as artists called to contribute to the life of the entire universe, by creating immortal beauty.
n. The Odyssey is not an adventure tale but is a book of wisdom (every great culture has one). We all can use it to profoundly understand ourselves and to learn to create beauty and immortality, both our own and that of the entire universe.
o. It is only partially true that Ulysses faces obstacles that Poseidon threw up against him during his return to Ithaca. The whole truth is that Zeus chose Ulysses to be submitted to continuous “trials”. Through these trials, he could strengthen his courage and his determination to reach the goal of the fusion of cosmic and human forces and the beauty this creates. He does this even when he must risk his life, if necessary.
The Bible is another book of wisdom, and it tells about a man named Job who underwent the most horrible suffering possible at the hand of his god, but we never know why this happened. The reason for this is surrounded by the mystery of a god who never revealed to patient Job why he had to undergo so much suffering. Why so much pain? We never know.
p. Ulysses, the patient Ulysses, the man of many woes, as Homer often calls him, undergoes many trials. This is stated in the poem’s forward and is repeated in the second to last book, where it is also stated that Penelope, and not just Ulysses, has to face many trials as well. The reason behind these many trials is not a mystery; it is described in detail throughout whole Odyssey. One must only know how to read into between the lines and meditate upon what they find there. One must only compare one’s own life with Ulysses and Penelope’s lives, and the truth will emerge. Everything we go through today is mirrored in what Ulysses and Penelope went through, if not in exact detail, then at least in substance. They, however, listened closely to their internal wisdom and to cosmic wisdom, represented by Athena and by Zeus. Doubts and indecision often plagued them, but in the end they always chose the right course of action. This is why they have become immortal archetypes of men and women across the ages.
q. Sex, Homer says, is nothing to feel guilty about if it does not cause violence for anyone. If, instead, one accepts to remain stuck in intrauterine incest and in a perverse enmeshment with the devouring and castrating mother, they are guilty. When one remains victim to repressed hatred, greed, envy, hybris and arrogance, suicidal and homicidal decisions and life lived based on arrogant demands they are also guilty: these are all poisons that destroy one’s own life and the life of others.
I formulated these hypotheses while I was living through painful life situations and while I was creating Cosmo-Art. During this time, I discovered the profound correspondence between the anthropological and cosmological vision of Cosmo-Art and the vision of Homer.
Cosmo-Art is an artistic movement, developed within the context of the Sophia University of Rome and its Institutes and Centers.Those who would like to know more can read the books I have written on the subject: The Ulysseans, Published by the Sophia University of Rome, (S.U.R.) 2009, “La nascita della Cosmo-Art”{The Birth of Cosmo-Art} Published by the Sophia University of Rome, (S.U.R.) Rome, 2000, Theorems and Axioms of Cosmo-Art, Published by the Sophia University of Rome, (S.U.R.) 2009, “Il mito di Ulisse e la bellezza seconda” {The Myth of Ulysses and Secondary Beauty}, Published by the Sophia University of Rome, (S.U.R.) 2005, and “I Laboratori Corali della Cosmo-Art” {The Cosmo-Art Group Laboratories}, Published by the Sophia University of Rome, (S.U.R.) 2006,
I will speak of the above hypotheses and others as well in the course of this book, while following my own particular train of thought.*****
CHAPTER I
Franco Ferrucci, in his acute and eloquent paper entitled “Oltre l’assedio e il ritorno” {Beyond the siege and the returning}, found on pages 123-133 in the volume of the Acts of the Congress “Ulisse: archeologia dell’uomo moderno” {Ulysses: archeology of the modern man}, published by Bulzoni in 1998, says two interesting things.
The first is that Homer’s two poems contain all the development of western literature: the second is that, beyond the theme of the siege and the return, “tertium non datur” {there is no third possibility}. Between the perception of nothingness portrayed in the beginning, says Ferrucci, and the perception of nothingness in the end, man has no chance other than to plan a siege on life, or to console himself with the epic of the return to nothingness, after having experienced the siege.
I don’t believe that this is the second Homer’s thought, the one that composed the Odyssey.
Ferrucci did not reflect at all on the fact that Ulysses twice renounces immortality as promised him, first by Circe and the second time by Calypso.
Neither does he ask himself the reasons why Ulysses refuses this offer twice, with so much conviction.
So what does Ulysses’ decision mean? What lies behind it?
I think I have an answer to these questions and I want to offer an interpretation of the Odyssey that can explain my answer.
However, I want to ask the reader two fundamental questions.
The first is, when does the voyage of the light that departs from a star end? Can there be a return to the point of departure if the star that generated it has been dead for billions of years?
The second is when does a work of art’s voyage end?
Does it ever end, or is it a voyage that lasts forever?
Is there ever a return to the artist that created it, who has been dead for who
Cyanobacteria, the first forms of life, fed themselves on light and with it, they created oxygen.
A work of art also feeds on light. But to create what?
Human beings also feed on light, not only so they can stay alive, but especially so they can create a life form that can travel from one universe to the next, into eternity.
I call this life form Secondary Beauty and it is a type of immortal beauty that once created never dies. It is a field of energy that is superior to any type of physical energy and only human beings can create it, if they desire to do so. It is an unknown energy field just as the soul of an art form is unknown; however, the soul of an art form exists and exerts and influence on us, and no one can deny this.
I would like to answer Ferrucci by saying that this, in my opinion, is the possible alternative to the siege and the return.Clearly, the alternative that I propose comes neither from a scientific truth, nor from a religious one. It comes from a poetic-existential truth that I believe is contained in Homer’s poem and coincides with the poetic vision of Cosmo-Art that I have created.
I believe that the elegance and the beauty of my alternative proposal can fascinate many readers that are trying to give meaning to their lives.To create primary beauty, like a beautiful face, a beautiful view, the sky and many other forms of beauty, natural and human forces are sufficient.
Secondary beauty, instead, requires an immense energy that is the result of the fusion of human and cosmic forces.
It often happens that human beings must use their best energies to construct and maintain defensive or offensive systems, from the time of intrauterine life onward.
If they do not first free these energies from their investment in such mechanisms, they cannot use them to create secondary beauty.
For this reason, the individual must undertake a journey back into the abyss of his or her intrauterine experience.
This is what Ulysses does during his odyssey, so he can free up all that energy hitherto invested in defending himself from his internal monsters. Only afterwards can he fully use this energy to create immortal beauty.
While Dante identifies the cardinal sins as the negative forces that destroy people during their lives after they have left the womb, Homer sees them as operating on an intrauterine level, within the sea of amniotic fluid. He not only identifies the vices (the five poisons) but he also shows us our internal monsters and the trauma they produce, as well as the immense pain they cause us.
Ulysses does not undertake this journey alone. He has the constant presence of Athena (internal wisdom) by his side, and the loving presence of Zeus (cosmic wisdom) is always in the background. There is also the presence of Hermes, which is decisive in at least two situations that human forces alone cannot solve.
There are also the chthonic forces and they Ulysses’ trip to Hades represents them well.There is also Poseidon’s violence, which is necessary for smashing Ulysses’ hybris into pieces, along with all of the arrogance that blinds him for so long and makes it impossible for him to be responsible for his own guilt.
Human guilt also contains precious energy. One must learn how to extract it, so it can be used to create secondary beauty.After Ulysses returns to Ithaca, he leaves again to undertake a long journey, this time by both land and sea, as Teiresias had told him to do. He will stop only when he will have learned the difficult art of extracting beauty from guilt.
Ulysses must be willing to embrace all of these human and cosmic forces one step at a time, and he must learn to synthesize them continuously so he can transform his life.
The story of the Odyssey is not an epic poem about the valor of arms and military battle; it is the story of a man who learns to battle against himself so he can become an artist of his own life and of the life of the universe. No one else has ever told this story in the way Homer tells it.
*****CHAPTER II
Man cannot live on bread alone but on bread and .... beauty.
By now, it is certain that beauty is the only sure connection between immortality and human beings, and there is no one who does not wish to become immortal in their innermost self.
Works of art that contain true beauty are immortal and those that do not contain it wind up in oblivion.We all surround ourselves with beautiful things when we can, but this does not satisfy us as we wish it would.
The poor during past centuries were more careful; they created beautiful temples and cathedrals where everyone could go to enjoy the beauty and the majesty that were the fruits of their money and their labour.
Still today in Myanmar, thousands and thousands of gold leaves cover the cupolas of the temples and even the poorest families throughout the nation supply them.
Today’s poor, instead, chase after comfort. For this, they are willing to indebt themselves up to their necks as well as to risk their lives, while undertaking endless migrations.
This too, perhaps, is a way of creating beauty and immortality, even though it is distorted. When, as so often happens, disillusionment and unhappiness arrive, people often realize that it is another type of beauty they are looking for, and not material comfort and wealth.
The kind of beauty that we are familiar with is present under various forms; we will here name three in particular, primary beauty, secondary beauty and the beauty of life.
Primary beauty is a fruit of nature and is always subject to death.Secondary beauty is a fr