Aqua ardens

In Greek mythology, as in many religious systems, the Underworld had a very precise and definite contour.

Each part of it was a land unto itself, with certain characteristics, which served some function.

Tartaros, Elysian fields, Acheron on which Charon sailed, leading the dead past Cerberos etc.

Obviously some were meant as a place of felicity for virtuous souls, while other gloomier parts where for eternal punishments.

These parts, coexisted in this vast land of the Underworld, which was ruled by Hades, or Pluto, the god of “plenty” and hidden richness (by irony, or a certain form of wisdom).

Landscapes in this world were not as much made of space as they were of feelings, each of them blending into each other. The symbols in it were meant to convey that sense of awe and of an out-worldly place so that anyone could feel exactly what and where they were.

As in many religious mythos, the purpose of these depictions were also to forebode after-life conditions, and to give the transitioning soul a sense of familiarity and direction.

In a way, each one of us has an idea, and beliefs about what is –or is not– to be happening during her or his personal transition. Even when people deny adhering to such collective hallucinatory designs, they have been building up ideas about what is to be. In that sense, our own twenty-first century mythos about death, as disparate as it may be, evolved from these ancient designs. Integration of various concepts occurred and is occurring at a conscious or unconscious level, our tantalized minds playing with them in a vast pot-pourri of deities, demons, pitch-dark nothingness (are we even able to imagine total nothingness?), or new-age fields of consciousness tinted of karma.

When we go back to the myths, we sometimes tend to see them as old tales rigidified in time, and see the depictions as colorful and imaginative but not very practical for all we know (or believe to know). Doing this, we fail to see how vivid and real and evolving they where for people of their time, just as real and terrifying or comforting as our own myths are to us, and as malleable as our blockbuster movies are to our minds toying with fantasies and concepts.

Back to the Greek Underworld, it was in fact believed to be crossed by great currents, which where also ancient, primitive deities, born from the very primal gods, themselves born out of Chaos itself.

One of these streams was Phlegethon, a river-god of fire and lava, and the other, Styx, cold and mighty oath-protecting river goddess.

Styx was well-known for being the first of her kind to assist Zeus in the War of the Titans (or Titanomachy, a symbol of Order brought to Heaven over primal forces of Nature), with her children –Nike (Victory), Cratos (Force)… As a reward, her name was deemed sacred when invoked for a oath, and held into a respect mingled with fear by other gods.

Both Styx and Phlegethon were roaming in Hades (the Underworld), their flows going to the opposite direction of the other. They met with other rivers in the middle of Hades in a great marsh.

It does not entirely pretend to explain why it somehow felt fitted to this picture.

Though something in me agrees with this rather portentous, not to say bombastic naming, which is strange enough to challenge some questioning on the viewer part, another part is at odds with it, not wanting to congeal the image into something definite that is indeed not even the primary incentive behind its creation.

How so? Well, obviously, if you abstract from the personification of the depicted forces, and the all too convenient interpretation, it perhaps will remind you of other pictures seen for instance in South American or Indian ancient art, or in relation to alchemy: fire and water principles melding into one another, utterly contradictory in nature, yet able to merge and yield something greater in meaning.

In alchemy, Aqua ardens (or burning water, Aqua vitæ spirit or æther) was obtained as one step towards the quintessence (quinta essentia) thus combining the properties of water and fire. Its properties were those of union, elevating of spirits.

Conversely, Aqua Stygia (literally Water of Styx, as a reference for the corrosive powers of Styx) was a name used for Aqua regia, that solution able to dissolve/absorb precious metals, like gold which is nothing less than a symbol of the Work.

So what is this image about? Convergence and congealment above duality? Held in an eternal present, as a frail balance? Or perhaps a reminder of the powerful undercurrents of our sub-conscious, pushing for individuation, and resisting in fear of their own oblivion?

Or perhaps something ever-changing, ever in-between, like a zen koan¹ that reflects our own issues in the very moment.

• ¹ kōan 公案 refers to short sentences or situation in the form of riddles used in Zen teachings. A famous one is for instance “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

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