We women, when we‘re searching for a meaning to our lives or for the path of knowledge, always identify with one or four classic archetypes.*****
The Virgin (and I’m not speaking here of a sexual virgin) is the one whose search springs from her complete independence, and everything she learns is the fruit of her ability to face challenges alone.
The Martyr finds her way to self-knowledge through pain, surrender and suffering.
The Saint finds her true reason for living in unconditional love and in her ability to give without asking anything in return.
Finally, the Witch justifies her existence by going in search of complete and limitless pleasure.
Normally, a woman has to choose from one of these traditional feminine archetypes, but Athena was all four at once.
What did Athena do? She did a little of everything, but, if I had to summarize her life, I’d say: she was a priestess who understood the forces of nature. Or, rather, she was someone who, by the simple facts of having little to lose or to hope for in life, took greater risks than other people and ended up being transformed into the forces she thought she has mastered.*****
She was a supermarket checkout girl, a bank employee, a property dealer, and in each of these positions she always revealed the priestess within. I lived with her for eight years, and I owed her this: to recover her memory, her identity.
The most difficult in collecting together these statements was persuading people to let me use their real names. Some said they didn’t was to be involved in this kind of story; other tried to conceal their opinions and feelings. I explained that my real intention was to help all those involved to understand her better, and that no reader would believe in anonymous statements.
They finally agreed because they all believed that they knew the unique and definitive version of any event, however significant. During the recordings, I saw that things are never absolute; they depend on each individual’s perceptions. And the best way to know who we are is often to find out how others see us.
This doesn’t mean that we should do what other expect us to do, but it helps us to understand ourselves better. I owed it to Athena to recover her story, to write her myth.
But the fact is that, to a greater or lesser extent, all creative human beings have such experiences, which are known as ‘possession by the sacred’. Suddenly, for a fraction of a second, we feel as if our whole life is justified, our sins forgiven, and that love is still the strongest force, one that can transform us forever.*****
But, at the same time, we feel afraid. Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. It means loving in the deepest sense of the word.
..Love arrives, moves in and starts directing everything. Only very strong souls allow themselves to be swept along, and Athena was a strong soul.
As I later learned, music is as old as human beings. Music isn’t just something that comforts or distracts us, it goes beyond that – it’s an ideology. You can judge people by the kind of music they listen to.*****
As I watched Athena dance during her pregnancy and listened to her play the guitar to calm the baby and make him feel loved, I began to allow her way of seeing the world to affect my life too.
A saint is someone who lives his or her life with dignity. All we have to do is understand that we’re all here for a reason and to commit ourselves to that. Then we can laugh at our sufferings, large and small, and walk fearlessly, aware that each step has meaning. We can let ourselves be guided by the light emanating from the Vertex.*****
Vertex is the top most angle of a triangle. In life too, it’s the culminating point, the goal of all those who, like everyone else, make mistakes, but who, even in their darkest moments, never loose sight of the light emanating from their hearts. The vertex is hidden inside us, and we can reach it if we accept it and recognize the light.
There was a sect who believed that they found the remedy for all ills through a particular form of dance, because the dance brought the dancer into contact with the light from the Vertex.*****
“Dance to the point of exhaustion, as if you were a mountaineer climbing a hill, a sacred mountain. Dance until you are so out of breath that your organism is forced to obtain oxygen some other way, and it is that, in the end, which will cause you to lose your identity and your relationship with space and time. Dance only to the sound of percussion; repeat the process everyday; know that, at a certain moment, your eyes will, quite naturally, close, and you will begin to see a light that comes from within, a light that answers your questions and develops yours hidden powers"
Although I get tired when I’m dancing, when I stop, I seem to be in a state of grace, of profound ecstasy. I want that ecstasy to last throughout the day and for it to help me find what I lack; the love of a man. I ca see the heart of that man while I’m dancing, but not his face. I sense that he’s close by, which is why I need to remain alert. I need to dance in the morning so that I can spend the rest of the day paying attention to everything that’s going on around me.*****
Ecstasy means ‘to stand outside yourself’. Spending the whole day outside yourself is asking too much of body and soul.
Do you know what I learnt? That although ecstasy is the ability to stand outside yourself, dance is a way of rising up into space, of discovering new dimensions while still remaining in touch with your body. When you dance, the spiritual world and the real world manage to coexist quite happily. I think classical dancers dance on pointes because they’re simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies.
During any dance to which we surrender with joy, the brain loses its controlling power, and the heart takes up the reins of the body. Only at that moment does the Vertex appear. As long as we believe in it of course.
*****
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