Little Philharmonic

PETROS RALLIS STREET To spit blood into good hiding places take and eat, I shall say to him, this is your body, let him baptise me as his slave, let us share the loneliness and all the wild beasts of the mind his hidden winters let him dig deep to find tenderness, a lifeline in madness.

Echoing the voice of the great Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, the poet Nikos Karouzos writes: ‘We are in anguish, within history, in the state of death, where multiplicity is our natural state; yet we seek to emerge precisely from this, we seek liberation from individual consciousness, so that we may live in the fullness of the Whole, where the Word dwells.’ Nikos Karouzos, though a self-declared admirer of matter and a natural descendant of the Pre-Socratics, continues through his work the tradition of the Orthodox Desert Fathers and every other spiritual tradition that recognises, at the root of the Word, the trace of the Universal Man. Four texts, which do not remain strictly within the literary realm, but seek to explore the mystical visions of an important poet.

What is ‘real life’? This question has preoccupied philosophical and theological thought, as well as all intellectual schools and movements, from antiquity to the present day. Cleopatra Lyberis revisits this question, responding to the tragedy of the postmodern condition and the withdrawal of the Spirit. Her new book resonates with the thought of Ernst Bloch, whose utopian world of ‘not-yet-being’ (Noch-Nicht-Sein) is grounded in the imaginative dimension and the possibilities of the hidden future. K.L., from a different perspective, explores her own Utopia, that inner revolution which leads to the eternal present and the revelation of the Whole as the self. A book that seeks to reunite poetry with philosophy, without straying from the lyrical challenge. Enupnion For years, I was ashamed to write that one night in my sleep I was the ideal face of the Whole, a highly artistic self with many names and united souls (Spyridon, Maria, Katerina, Theocharis, Antigone, Malvina, Stylianos, and yet another radiant spirit at the centre – the name Anastasia). And these were my names, like little birds gathered in a tree, waiting for something amidst the fire, and all together they chirped – no, they will not fly away. In this tumultuous dream, Love reigned supreme. In the end, things are simple. One plus one makes two; every other possibility crumbles spectacularly. (Or perhaps not?)