Archeophiles, Lovers Of The Ancient Past

The Quiet Afternoon Of An Archeophile

Archeophile, from the Greek meaning 'lover of the ancient past'. Such people are especially intuitive beings indeed, as they feel and dwell on a different plane than most people. They live among us and must adhere to modern lifestyles and responsibilities as we all do, but when they come upon something ancient and old they are transformed into messengers bearing tidings from another time. Lucky are those who keep the company of such sensitive individuals, for that which they see is more than just a piece of sculpted marble sitting upon a pedestal in a museum from some scholarly estimated year or era, but rather the mere sight of the object opens up an entire world which but few are privy. More than simply learning or boasting facts, the archeophile feels deeply the meaning and the depth of the artifacts being viewed, as if they themselves were present at the time of their creation.

Can we really tell the age of the soul of the living, or guess the longitude of the heart of an individual? What we see before us, a man or a woman well dressed and groomed in the current fashion of our day, may not be that person we claim to know at all. For there is another life, a fully alive and conscious being within that body we see before us. Smiling shyly, glancing for but a fleeting second at us though the corner of her eye, as if knowing of a great a secret she maintains we will never understand. No, perhaps we never will, to our disappointment. 

Her name in Enderra, and she knows the secret of all things hidden. While the world revels around its lust for money and fame, Enderra is content with little in the realm of the material. Why does she smile at me like that, a childish and somewhat dismissing smile that is not quite demeaning ridicule but almost excusatory of some ignorance she senses about me and all who dare to try and read into her mind to so she might reveal her secret. It will take more than inquiries and interviews to unmask the heart that remains loyal to a promise made long ago to the creator and bringer of life.

No, not material wealth does she seek, though she would not refuse the joys and pleasures of the world for a temporary interlude. Rather, she is content with beauty and surrounding herself with beauty, for this is where her heart is found. She walks among the flowers and converses with the birds and the beasts who wander among them, yes even the honeybee is her friend. They are in tune with the Cosmos, and she knows this. But the world of Men is different. It is an untrusting and sometimes unfair place which they themselves have wrought from the fire of their lusts, a realm of genius and ignorance, charity and greed, absolute love and unrelenting hate, swift justice or no justice at all. Man was granted the power of the imagination, and some use that faculty for the betterment of their society, while far too many others misuse this gift and bring on death and destruction in their wake. The acts of Men are never beautiful when they are suddenly upon us but there, in the distant past, the stories and tales of mortals and gods and their deeds in overcoming or succumbing to the call of fate never fails to amaze us, nor to disappoint. 

These stories for Enderra are real, and as she learns things anew she is also raised to an epiphany of new heights when she glances upon a work of art from ages past. You see, she is an Archaeophile, a lover of all things ancient. She can be found climbing the steps of the great museum, which to her is the marble stairway of some mighty temple. She enters the halls and is announced by the angels who keep the gateway, then makes her way to the place where the beings of the past dwell forever in their designated place, for all eternity, their final resting place and abode for all to see.

In the halls surrounded by beautiful physiques, Enderra converses with the statuary carved and chiseled by the deft hands of some great artist, perhaps known or perhaps anonymous. The human being, the very epicenter of the Cosmos according to the ancient Greeks, in all perfection, male and female, the image of the gods. The life of the body is a reflection of the life of the mind, well trained and physically strong, muscles taut and tight, the human marvel in full control of his or her surroundings as if destiny itself was in the hands of Mankind and not the gods who dwell on high. The sinewy arms and the fully developed abdomens, perfect health and inner but also outer contentment, revealed in the astonishingly life-like eyes that peer at you as ye glance, and for two thousand years or more, they do glance back. In that great hall everyone who strides across that marble floor is a temple devotee, every man, woman or child a tribute bearer from some forgotten kingdom.

The vases and the wine kraters which held the sacred beverage made from the crushing of grapes are decorated with personalities from an old myth, conceived in the most ancient of days. Enderra brings her ear close to the vessels, and listens to the tale being recounted by Pindar and Virgil or that controversial Roman Catalus, describing the longing of lovers and the songs they sing to one another, recalling the love moans of ecstasy as they pull one another's bodies closer, as she Enderra is lulled into a near comatose state of non being by words that seem to usher forth from within her head induced by the chakra of pleasure. Painted upon another vase or formed into some frieze the din of battle suddenly awakens her up from her meditative slumber as the swords of warriors can be heard clanging upon the shields and helmets of adversaries, the blood splattered field piled high now with the dead and the dying, still glorious as they lie about randomly in their golden armor before it will be stripped from their torsos to be taken as a prize and proof of the victor's deeds. Listen! Homer is reciting his story! Yet even in this gory encounter, Enderra knows that beauty, the pursuit of which is a tool of the imagination, can be applied to beautify, embellish and glorify the horrors of war. She ponders a golden chariot on display, its sides clothed in sheets of gold embossed with the emblems of a king, knowing that even the horses that pulled this vehicle were bedecked with festoons of many colors, and were held in high esteem by their owner. Now, she is curiously drawn to a most personal item, as she might study a lone suit of armor and wonders to whom it did belong, its well designed bronze or iron breastplate revealing the perfectly muscled human torso of its owner crafted by a metal worker of incredible talent and skill. Here is the garb of champion who may have attained a victory or met death when, during an encounter, an adversary found a vulnerable place where to thrust their deadly sword unprotected by this well fashioned second skin. The glistening, muscled breastplate and fine helmet, the bright shin guards and shield all speak intimately to our Archeophile, as only she knows the outcome of the battle and the intimate fate of the mighty champion to whom this armor, which rendered its wearer as likened to a god, belonged. Enderra salutes and honors this hero, and places her hand over her heart in gratitude for mighty deeds performed in battle long ago, and forever keeps the love of this hero in  her heart. 

Beautiful women draped sometimes minimally in many folded chitons and tunics grace the gallery, with deeply contemplative downcast eyes or they display the fortitude true matriarchs manifest in day to day living. These are the visions of otherworldly dimensions reincarnated into our own plane of existence. Marble and skin are as one, rendered life-like by the hands of the passionate artist who believed, in the heart, that immortality can be achieved if one could only, with years of discipline, muster all the talent and strength within and bring forth such a masterpiece. Here are the goddesses of our imaginings, the muses of our inspirations, the holy mothers and daughters of our feminine selves and yes, even the warrior matrons who stand guard to defend their sisters who bring forth life and pass on to the young the virtues and principles of their society. For close by are the bearded men and the trim youths who dally on their own in a state of ego consciousness, believing in the myth of their supposed superiority, a false fabrication created by men, for men, about men, egotism in its purest form. To counter this worship of the self looms a warning, a well armored Athena who outwardly embodies the powerful, true inner soul of the matriarch.

Enderra gently strokes the sides of one of the many lofty columns supporting the tiled roof as she gazes up through the portico opening, meant for allowing illumination from the Sun and the sky and also for the purpose of catching the rain water which falls into the centrally located pool in the middle of her temple. She can hear the strumming of the lyre harps played by nymphs who sit around the pool, their feet gently splashing in and out of the cool water. Though his sculptured bust looks down from a high pedestal, in her mind he is reclining upon a couch - the emperor Marcus Aurelias, or possibly Hadrian, listening intently to their verses chanted from lovely voices sweet, like the song of birds. Poets of renown along with playwrights such as Aeschalus and Euripides, drink wine in cups from a large krater as Sappho recites her verses of erotic ecstasy, in love with handsome men but also with fair young maidens with smooth skin tanned brownish in the Mediterranean Sun. These old patriarchs remain in awe of this unique voice of individuality and the defiant independence of this one, solitary woman poet, as the great vessel they draw wine from is decorated upon its sides with a scene or event recounted in the Iliad or the Odyssey, or a timeless day in the life of the gods on high, while Homer's disciples and students compete to recite his stanzas. 

And when life has completed its term here in this dimension, as every life, whether human or beast will eventually taste death, the ancients embellished the arks and sarcophagi meant for a final place of rest or transport to that place beyond with carvings. Carvings of supernatural beings or singular events from myth decorate this place of permanence, Helios the Sun god receiving a visit from Selene of the Moon, surrounded by melancholy, miniscule cupids and angels from Olympus. More often than once Enderra gazed upon some ancient battle from the age of heroes, for these ancients did hold close to their hearts in life that entity called war, which tested intimately the resolve of men in life with the ever present reality of its end. Perhaps the tears we shed for those we permanently lose to death are the source of the river of compassion which in our own world is lacking. In war as in love, there is a price, as for some there is victory while for others, only defeat. 

Our visit to this temple is a day of joy for the Enderra in each of us. We gather our senses and reluctantly collect ourselves, then we rise to walk though the noisy crowds in which but a handful are the true Archeophiles who have come to marvel at the artistry and beauty of the distant past. Perhaps during their encounter they too sink into a deep sleep and revel in the arms of some muse who carries us on the mystical journey as we think and ponder the meaning of the art we see before us. What we can be sure of, what Enderra is certain of, is that this visit will not be the last as again and again and over and over we attend what we feel and understand to be our Temple Of Enlightenment... though for most people this place is simply a museum, a place to spend some time on a weekday afternoon. Killing time, as some call it, though we know from ancient wisdom that it is indeed time that kills us. This is a homage to those who have come and gone before us, artists of deep understanding and pure emotion. The ancients understood, long ago, what it is to be simultaneously both human and divine, and for this purpose the Archeophile is a regular devotee, a worshipper of and a witness to the power of the human artistic imagination, which lies within each of us. It is an aspect of our feminine side. Just as the ability to conceive life is feminine so is the power to create and bring forth from another realm a feature of the hidden goddess within.

The name Enderra is from the ancient Illyrian language, appropriate in its meaning- She Who Dreams.

                                 

                                                Images from Metropolitan Museum Of Art
                                                          and Model Colleen Aschoff by Hava Arifi 

      

         

           Ismail Butera, Copyright 2020