Athos

 

I am with some friends. We are on our way to Pyrgos (The Tower) which is on eastern most peninsula of three that extend down into the Aegean. Our eventual destination is Athos, the holy mountain, on the western most peninsula The road we are on runs along the edge of the Aegean Sea. We have stopped for lunch. On one side of the road there is a beach, and on the other a Greek Taverna. I can hear the sensuous and slightly raunchy wail of “bouzouki” music coming from the Taverna.

The sun is high in the sky and pleasantly warm. The sea is clear and pure. My well delineated self dissolves like sugar in hot tea in the breezes, the sunlight, the sound of the Greek music, and the soft surf of the sea. I tire of the conversation between my Greek friend and some of his Greek friends, most of which I can't understand, so I wander up the beach a ways. I come to the sailboat that one of the friends of my Greek friend owns. He has promised us a little excursion in his boat. I stand at the bow of the sailboat which is positioned at the edge of the beach. I'm staring out at the sea when something captures my attention from the corner of my eye. I turn and look.

I see a naked boy of about 10 or so prancing up the beach toward me. He stops at the sailboat, and glances at me – a little apprehensively it seems. How shall I describe this moment? Hyacinthus has descended from the heavens. Never have I seen anything so beautiful. Yet I am wordless. He is slender and lithe. A wild child. I don't know how to describe beauty itself. Only its impact. Never will my understanding of myself or this world be the same again. The boy half smiles and climbs up into the sailboat. He will go with us on our excursion. It seems that he is the son of the man who owns the sailboat.

During the excursion my little Hyacinth hides behind his father and I don't see much of him. As we disembark I catch one last glimpse of him as he scurries down the beach. He is my Tadzio. I will be looking for him all my life.

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From the Symposium: “And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty and at last know what the essence of beauty is.”

Thus Diotima tells Socrates, and I don't doubt it. But I am a slow learner who can hardly take a step beyond his Tadzio.

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We have arrived at Pyrgos. I am looking out of an upper window of the tower after which Pyrgos was named. (We are guests of the two English speaking women who own it.) I imagine that I can see the naked boy, whom I saw on the way here, below me, playing on the beach. Or am I the boy being seen by the man in the tower?

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Precariously the bus crawls up the mountain to Karates, the capital of the “Holy Mountain” as it is called by some. A priest is telling me something in Greek. More interested in his Greek than the content of his dissertation, I tell them that I understand. He leans over the back of my seat for the matter is confidential – “the second great destruction of the world is coming.” Oh, yes, that. But why whisper? Isn't it out yet? “The flood. You remember the flood?” Yes I seem to remember hearing about it. God got angry and rained all over the world – something like that – say, that's good: God reigned over all the world, yes, well... but this time it's going to be missiles and bombs he is telling me. Now that's up-to-date theology – not bad for one who lived all his life on a mountain. His breath smells – breath of life – microscopic life more than likely. It's no use, I've got to inhale. What was that word? No not “the Word,” the other one. Lucky to have my lexicon handy. Apo... I'm missing out on the climax. Apokal... there it is... discovery, revelation. Revelation he must mean. I could've told you we are going to blow ourselves to bits just by reading the newspaper. Revelation. God whispers in his ear. Doesn't whisper in mine. There is something wrong with one of us. “And nation shall rise up against nation.” Maybe if I inhale just as he does I'll miss his exhale. Uge. Bad timing. Yes, nation is rising up against nation. I give you credit for that one. I wonder if he ever combs his beard. Would it make you sneeze to comb your upper lip? Up in front there – that one's knot is coming undone – gray hair hanging over black. There, he's tying it up now. What would that feel like? Tying up your hair.

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We been sitting in this village now all day waiting for our papers. Nothing happens. Nothing ever happens here. That's the whole point of having a Holy Mountain. No event, no women, only you and God. You would be bound to turn to Him sooner or later at that rate. “I eat, drink, and sleep with God. Sleep with God...HMM. Can't help thinking it must be something like that ... like kundalini.

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Here is Gopi Krishna's description of the first dramatic rising of the serpent energy: “The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light. ... I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of consciousness confined in a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe.”

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The priests are in their inter-sanctum debating whether or not to let us in. Barry, that Austrian fellow and I sit around a table in the lobby waiting for the verdict. I am worried about this. Although I am 23 years old, I shave only once a week. I look very young for my age. It seemed like it took forever for me to grow a little pubic hair. They prohibit all women and beardless youth on the mountain. I'm afraid they will see me as a beardless youth.

Tell a joke Barry. That was a good one, but the Austrian fellow didn't get it. He doesn't know enough English. But why are we laughing so discreetly? That monkish atmosphere reigns over believers and nonbelievers alike. Now the monks are laughing. They decide to let us in. I feel very manly.

- 0 -

I am sitting on the commode in the little bathroom off the kitchen, studying my pubic region. It's definite now. I can see some fuzz around the base of my penis. It's about time. At a glance a person might miss it, but soon I will be able to change in gym class and maybe even take a shower without shame.

- 0 -

I'm climbing the mountain toward the monastery where we will be staying for the night. Barry has gone on ahead. A little stream runs along one outcropping of rock. I feel the presence of pagan gods and nymphs. No one is visible, nor have we seen anyone during our climb. I take off all my clothes and sit on the rock. I am an animal among the others.

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Who is this boy?

What is he like?

What does he want?

What is my relationship with him?

Where does he come from?

He is between eight and 13 years old. A child of latency. He is on the verge of puberty, at the boundary between the child and the adult. He loves freedom – the woods – nakedness – his own body. He likes to be seen, touched, admired. He is especially proud of his penis. While mature sexual activity does not appeal to him, he is penis-like in his relation to space – that is to say intrusive. He likes to run – dive – jump – explore. He is in search of virgin territory – pine trees and pools that have never before been discovered. He wishes to be loved and guided by a wise old man who is firm, kindly, giving, admiring and tender. He knows love in the moment and in the sun. He is fascinated by the dark – by the moon. And yet afraid. He despairs of life in the city – of obligations and responsibilities – hates school – fears a life drained of its greenness.

My relationship to him? I am him. And yet I am not him. When identified with him, his desires, passions, and fears become mine. Yet I can hold him at an arm's distance. At times I see him in a Rolando or Ethan or Kyle.

The Name of My Love

What name shall I give to my love?

At it's source

lovely boy

Eros

God

Still naked

walking in the garden.

At its destination

plethora.

Some name him

perpetrator

though he has hurt no one

perversion

though it is only god

having a bit of fun.

What do I call my love?

kyle carroll and

boy

I call her destiny

Orlando in his yellow shirt

ethan 'n john

'n simon also

Like me

Drowned in the sea

Harbunchen

who watched the kite

Jay

who wanted us to escape

down the interstate.

Kayetta

roger-and-our-ocean

Richard-in-the-sky.

Mi vieja too.

Some days I wake up singing

to spirit

Who

even here

runsthroughallthings

like peachblossom

who is also my love.

He seems to be an other. Was he originally an other which I took into myself? Or was he from the beginning me – a me which I can now project onto an other. And when I love that other do I love him or only myself through him?

I am ashamed of this boy. Or perhaps it is only my love of him that fills me with shame. Not just that however – when identified with him I am ashamed to want what he wants – ashamed to claim these wants as my own. And afraid also – afraid that he will take complete possession of me – that he will usurp the position of the adult which I sometimes am.

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From "Dipshit" in "This Too Is Love."

“The boy turned his attention to me. I smiled and waved at him, wiggling my fingers slightly. He smiled back. I felt oddly thrilled by this ordinary response. Whether this child was retarded, or autistic or deaf I couldn’t tell. Clearly there was something different about him, but if his face revealed his character, he was neither dull nor crude. His mouth was delicate and his eyes wide set and clear. I discerned a faint little wrinkle of worry between his brows.

“He half turned slightly to one side, unzipped his pants, and urinated in the dust.

Perhaps it was his smile. Or maybe it was the bright, hot sun beating down on my head, or the sound of the crickets. Perhaps it was something about the way the urine splattered in the dust. Whatever the cause, all at once time seemed to stop. The boy became a mythical being — a luminous epiphany — an entity from another world that had, for some obscure reason, crowded its way into the ordinary little events of my life. All the other events and people in my life, both those that came before and those that were to follow, receded into a gray and only vaguely differentiated ground.

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Again. Who is this boy within that I seek in the world?

He is my hope and my despair. He is my capacity for joyful response, for love, for spontaneity. In him I have hope for a rebirth into a more vital human being and thus I have identified him with the divine child. But the rebirth does not happen – I remain divided against myself. Meanwhile the boy cannot act his part in the hairy body of an adult. My smoke scarred lungs are not up to his running – nor would the sun smile on an adult acting the part of a child. I cannot meet people as this boy – nor find a job. There is no room for him in the real world – yet his vaporous make-believe world fails to satisfy him. An absurd passion. Most of me cannot happen in the world.”

A Life of Sorts

My essential self --

That is to say, the one I really am --

(You know, you have one too)

Has suddenly become a Jew

In the time of the holocaust.

I keep him in the attic,

And when the SS men arrive at my door

In their earth bruising boots,

I say,

“A Jew?

In here?

I hate the bastards.”

And when they have left

I cry.

Where do all these inquisitors come from?

And why?

They have technology now --

Radar scanning the sky --

Cameras in every public place.

Still, despite their omnipresent eye,

I have a life of sorts,

An essential life

In my cramped and hidden space.

I picture him as being innocent. What of his shadow side? Wasn't it the same boy who appeared as Loose Willie the Bad Hatchet Boy who could split open a head as easily as he could tear the wings off a fly? What about his inclination to stick pens, poles, and protrusions into people's eyes. Not such a bad thing if the other happens to be a Cyclops, but to feel this way about ordinary people? The boy, then, is capable of tremendous rage. I am afraid of this rage and have little understanding of its content.

He is a mystic. Most conspicuous is his nature mysticism. He longs to become one with the rain – to lose himself in a plowed field – to be a porpoise. Nakedness and water are potent images leading to a hoped-for loss of self in the living cycle of death and birth. This impulse finds no realization in the world.

He has a fascination with eyes – with the look. To be seen is both his ecstasy and his despair. His pleasure is the eyes of his lover caressing his nakedness – yet to be seen is to be fixed, pinned to the wall – he wishes to destroy the eyes of the other.

With One Eye

The perpetrator of the look

Is the looker.

The victim of the look

Is the lookee'.

As Zeus split the primordial eight limbed androgyne

So we were split

By the looker

When we were primordial,

And then were split a second time,

So that now we must make do

With one leg

One arm

And half a face.

Suppose we were split yet once again?

What then?

With one eye we keep a wary lookout

Lest more lookers

Lurk in the shadows.

- 0 -

 

We are at a monastery waiting to be fed. “Here we sit like birds in the wilderness.” We used to sing that at church camp. There goes some bells... Ding... a bell at any rate. Ding. Now it's bells. Funny how all this is like church camp. Barry says the same thing and adds regretfully “but there were girls there.” Sounds like he means it. He's got itchy pants and wants to get out of this place. Ding. “We used to write letters to ourselves,” he remembers. “And a romance every summer. It must be pretty much the same for everybody. Not a hot lurid affair you know, just some girl around which to build fantasies.” Ding.

 

Response to Charles Wright

This counterpoint of dates is only in my mind of course

But in 1940, the year of my birth you recall

...fire, orange fire,

And his huge cock in his hand,

Touching my tiny one;

And nine years later you remember the night prayers of the children as they

talk to the nothingness.

The first in a kindergarten

The second under the covers of a bunk in a bible school

Salvation again declines and again.

When I was nine perhaps on the very night when catholic prayers

and little ecstasies were dissipating in a night sky I felt t

he hard cock of that tender man with whom I shared the

Motel bed.

Two religions grappling.

We are studying signatures in a guest-book. I want to ask that gracious old gentleman who is our host if he thinks its possible to read personality from handwriting. I'll bet he's a pretty good judge of character.

“Tell that French guy that I'm a psychologist, Barry, and that I'm reading personalities from this handwriting.” He gets his French mixed up with his Greek but the other seems to understand and looks interested.

“This one is cool” I say, pointing to a signature. “Independent bastard with a good aesthetic sense, and no pretensions. Tell them that, Barry.”

Barry tells him that the owner of the signature is “un bon type".

“And this one is a pretentious asshole,” I say. “Tell them that.”

Barry is afraid of what this guy will think of psychology in America. He says so, and tells the French boy that the other signature indicates a “un mauvais type”

“Asshole,” I say pointing first of the signature and then to my rear.

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A bit of dialog from "Koan":

“The issue of whether a love relationship between a man and a boy leads to higher things may not depend, as Socrates would have it, mainly on whether it’s expressed sexually. Socrates had an unfortunate prejudice against physical life.”

“On what then would it depend?”

“On whether the man puts the child’s needs first, I think.

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One of the monks is showing us around his monastery. He takes us to his room. Hanging above his celibate bed is the portrait of a sensuous woman – the front of her gown parted to partially reveal her welcoming breasts. He has this portrait by his bed he tells us, to help him to learn to resist temptation.

No matter how high you climb the women and those beardless youths are there waiting for you.

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Bibliography

Gopi Krishna,. "Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man."