Crystals IV

Zeus’ final trial-4

Ever since the day brown-blond-haired Zeus was born, all his training had something to do with the pyrrhic dance. For 18 years, Zeus was being trained in martial dances and in bare-hands wrestling. His training had reached such high levels that even the Kourites themselves could not find any fault in it. Even the Diktaies and Iades Nymphs who had discovered the meaning of dancing and were the supreme dancers of the universe, had been enchanted by Zeus’ subtle dancing moves which ‘flowed’ into the four-dimensional space and stepped right into the microcosm of quantum physics, influencing the person himself, impacting even on the strong nuclear force, that so cohesive a force. Only such a well-trained body in dance could become the best in martial moves as well.

When young Zeus was about eight years old, he started receiving training in Pangratium and the Pyrrhic Dance. The Pyrrhic Dance had been called by Plato the dance of dances and he believed that it was gods’ gifts to the Greeks. It was the ‘Dance’! Initially, it was discovered by the Kourites with the help of the Iades Nymphs during the reign of Cronos, when Zeus was yet an infant and the Kourites had to dance around him, making a horrible clatter with their weapons and shields to cover his cry. Thus, even since Zeus’ first years of life, the pyrrhic dance became his entertaining, athletic, peaceful and martial training. When Athena jumped out of Cronos’ head, the first thing she did was to dance the pyrrhic dance in its many variants, thus revealing her multifarious character. After that, the pyrrhic dance became Athena’s official dance she would engage in after every one of her successes. That is what she did right after her victory on the Giants that we shall read about in the 5th Battle of the Titans. Goddess Athena taught the Pyrrhic dance to Achilles and he to his son, Neoptolemus or Pyrrhus. From Achilles the dance spread to all the Greeks. Naked Achilles danced the pyrrhic dance on top the funeral pyre wood before he committed the body of dead Patroclus to the pyre. After him, his son Pyrrhus danced it after his victory over Eurypelus, which was an ally of the Trojans. Either it had been promulgated by Achilles and the Achaeans to the Black Sea or was taken there during the time of the colonization of the area by the Greeks, the pyrrhic dance appeared in the coastal settlements of the Black Sea that is still danced to this day. During ancient times in Laconia, the pyrrhic dance was taught as early as the age of five. One of the first and most renowned dancers of the Laconians was Pyrrhichus. During the classical times, the dance was imported to the Attican land and was considered the dance of all dances for the Athenians. In the beginning of the 20th century, following the persecution of the Greeks of Pontus, the pyrrhic dance returned to its motherland, the Greek Peninsula. But it also remains on the land that accommodated it for three thousand years for the people who remained there to use. Some would conjecture that the dance was created in the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, while others that it was a product of the Laconian land, while still others that it was born on the Cretan Land. Those are the stuff of lore and tradition, but everything was lost in the myth and history, while the oldest evidence would guide us back to Crete, the area where that dance remained under the name ‘pentozali’. But in any case, Pancratium and Pyrrhic Dance would remain inextricably connected to heroic acts with bright heroes and Warriors of the Light.

The fifth trial was quite demanding since it demanded absolutely rhythmic and well-studied moves, sometimes so subtle and imperceptible, that a move even a millimeter too much, would destroy the sum total of the particular moment. From the morning till noon, Zeus was tested in the sacred and group dances without a hitch. While the examinee was only Zeus, in that particular trial, the Kourites and the Nymphs also took part. The Diktaies and the Iades Nymphs also participated in the group dances. They would open the dance and then Zeus, accompanied by the Kourites and the Diktaioi Daktyloi would join in. While dancing, they either formed an attacking war group, and other times they formed two opposing groups that attacked each other. Despite the fact that everyone else was also taking part in this dance, the umpires had of course their eye fixed on Zeus whom they graded.

In the afternoon, Zeus was tried in Pangratium and the Pyrrchic dance as the epitome of that trial. That trial of his was the most important one. In that respect, even if his performance during the rest of the tests during the fifth day had been less than expected, the trial would have been considered successful if he was successful in those two last tests. But in any case, he had been impeccable in everything, and so, towards the end of the day, right before Gaia’s altar, the umpires declared the whole trial successful and beautifully executed.

On the sixth day, Zeus was tried in the supreme thematic unit, philosophy, which was the sine qua non of the whole set of trials, since all the rest would depend on it. He was examined on difficult and complex philosophical problems and questions, maintaining a discourse with three discussants at the same time, who tried to make their discourse as difficult as possible. Here, the Path of the Philosopher came particularly handy to him. So, the sixth day was therefore the most difficult trial yet and the only one that he risked failing at.

Full of youth vigor, Zeus got up in the morning of the sixth day since the crack of dawn. He did not have a clear understanding what exactly was to follow during the rest of that day. He of course knew that it was his last trial which concerned his philosophic clarity, but beyond that he didn’t know anything else. But despite all that, he was not particularly anxious, since he had had similar trials down the Path of the Philosopher.

Although it was still night, just when the crack of dawn came and night was pushed away by the incoming day, vigorous and energetic Zeus stepped out of his abode. The night was quiet and everyone seemed to be sleeping. He walked to the nearby grove towards the point where a seasonal stream was quietly flowing and forming a little pond in a stony area beyond. When he reached the pond, he undressed and dived into the cool waters. The coolness of the water revitalized even his last cell. He stayed for a bit in the water, contemplating about his next trial. A momentary numbing spread all over his body, making it shiver, creating a lot of small waves around his body which however quickly moved away and disappeared. He got out of the pond, dressed up and returned to his abode. The Kourites had already woken up and understood Zeus’ absence but they were not worried. They saw him returning from the side of the woods invigorated and some of them went out to meet him. They met him outside in the yard where Gaia’s altar was, at a point where the earth had been cleared and completely flattened out and a square had been formed for about fifty square meters, comprised of a strange kind of red, soft soil. It seemed freshly dug, and its surface was completely smoothed out with not even a pebble or leaf of grass on it. They crossed the corner of that red earth, with their steps sinking just a few millimeters into the ground. But they were still plain to see. But when they crossed out of that area, a soft breeze blew and erased all traces that had been marked on the earth. That area remained again absolutely smoothed out and kept to its original, perfect and flawless dimensions. It behaved as if it was a divinely-bounded and specified area that would self-correct each and every one of its flaw.

Just a few moments before the sunrise, upstanding and rigorous Zeus, was sitting on the particular wooden recliner made from a thick tree trunk, opposite three stone thrones. The left and the right one had already been occupied by his grandmother Gaia and Mitis but the central one was empty. He assumed that someone else would soon join them, possibly his mother, Rhea, but he was mistaken. The middle throne remained empty, since he noticed that his mother had been sitting at the side, along with the Kourites and the Nymphs, to watch Zeus’ trial.

Wondering but not worrying, Zeus was calmly and peacefully watching all the arrangement with his attention fixed on Gaia and Mitis. He knew that any moment, at the strike of the first sunray, he would be asked the first question. So, he entered into a meditative state and waited. He was seeing no one but felt everything. There was absolute silence reigning! No one spoke in that sacred moment. Everyone was expecting the first sunray!

And the moment came that the first sunray hit Gaia’s altar. As if the order had been given directly from the heavens, Gaia started talking immediately: ‘Dearest Zeus, you have learned a lot all this time, but we would like to know whether four issues are quite clear in you. We would like to assess whether four important issues are clear in your mind. We would like to see how exactly you perceive them and the interconnections that exist between each intelligent being with the ‘true being’. But be careful before you give us each of your answers. You have to be certain for each of your answers’. These were the words of Gaia and she was responded to by Zeus as follows: ‘Most reverend and sweetest mother-Earth, there is no doubt in what I am going to be asked, but all that would concern only things up to this moment. What will happen or change in the future no one knows, although some of those facts can be presaged, of course. So, go ahead and ask directly about those four word concepts you wish to know whether I have mastered to the extent I should or the circumstances demand’.

His response was pleasantly received by wide-breasted Gaia that provided for everything. So, she started the discourse immediately:

Mitis: Reality, Phenomenality, Truth, and Actuality or True Being: what is their relationship, and what is their relationship in the thought of an intelligent being, as well as the content of each?

Zeus: This is really a difficult question, but I’ll answer it as well. But first, I will refer to how I conceive of those, because each person might interpret them as he wishes. I believe that clarification is in order first.

Mitis: I agree with what you are saying. The content of each concept must be clarified as a conceptual orientation.

Zeus: Certainly, always referring to the intelligent beings, we have to consider how those concepts are perceived individually or collectively: I consider reality as representing the maximum degree of the perceptive ability of intelligent beings, the degree of conscientious awareness of the ‘true being’, that is, the clear and secure consciousness of each one. I consider phenomenality as a concept more or less akin to reality, with more or less knowledge of the ‘true being’ which includes conscientiousness, not ideation or hypocrisy, that is, the opaque and insecure consciousness of each one. I consider truth as the capacity of the emergence of the ‘true being’ for the intelligent beings, an entity that captures and supersedes the particular knowledge of each one and is collectively showcased, while the greatest truth becomes identical to the ‘true being’. Finally, I consider actuality or the true being as the entity that actually exists (actuality), the entity that truly is (true being), regardless of the degree truth emerges (truth), or how exactly it is perceived (reality) and how it appears (phenomenality) to the intelligent beings. So, the true being is over and above everything else.