Maya: The Point of Departure

Myth is the twilight speech of an old man to a boy. All the old men begin at the beginning. Their recitals always speak first of the origin of life. They start by inventing this event which no man witnessed, which still remains mystery. They initiate the history of their race with a fiction. For, whether it was first in the sense of time, life is, for all men, first of miracles in the sense of prime. This is a fact. Myth is the facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter.

Mitul este cuvantarea din amurgul vietii pe care un batran i-o tine unui baiat. Toti batranii incep cu inceputul. Relatarile lor vorbesc intotdeauna mai intai despre originea vietii. Incep prin a inventa acest eveniment caruia nici un om nu i-a fost martor, care ramane inca un mister. Isi incep istoria rasei lor cu o fictiune. Pentru ca, chiar daca a fost prima in din punct de vedere al timpului, viata este pentru toti oamenii primul miracol, din punct de vedere al intaietatii. Acesta este un fapt. Mitul inseamna fapte ale mintii facute manifeste intr-o fictiune a materiei.

My comment:
I would say here inner reality for mind and concrete reality for matter. Our inner reality needs to cope with this fact that does not belong to the concrete reality (as nobody witnessed the beginning). So you force your inner fact to carry a concrete face (to be able to express it). That's the myth. Only, we should agree that our inner fact is real, though not concrete. I am trying to understand this, to understand her movies.

As zice aici realitate interioara pentru minte si realitate concreta pentru materie. Realitatea noastra interioara are nevoie sa se acomodeze cu acest fapt care nu apartine realitatii concrete (pentru ca nimeni nu a fost martor inceputului). Asa incat fortezi realitatea ta interioara sa poarte o fata concreta (ca sa o poti exprima). Asta-i mitul. Numai ca ar trebui sa cadem de acord ca faptul nostru interior este real, desi nu concret. Incerc sa inteleg asta, ca sa inteleg filmele ei.

The speech of an elder in the twilight of his life is not his history but a legacy; he speaks not to describe matter but to demonstrate meaning. He talks of his past for purposes of his future. This purpose is the prejudice of his memory. He remembers that which has been according to what could and should be, and by this measure sifts the accumulation of his memory: he rejects the irrelevant event, elaborates the significant detail, combines separate incidents of similar principle. Out of physical processes he creates a metaphysical processional. He transposes the chronology of his knowledge into a hierarchy of meanings. From the material circumstances of his experience he plots, in retrospect, the adventure for the mind which is the myth.

Cuvantul unui batran in amurgul vietii nu este istorie, ci testament; el nu vorbeste ca sa descrie o realitate concreta ci ca sa demonstreze un sens. El vorbeste despre trecut avand ca tel viitorul. Acest tel este in dauna amintirilor sale. Pentru ca el isi aminteste ceea ce a fost gandindu-se la ce ar fi putut sau ar fi trebuit sa fie si aceasta este masura cu care isi cerne amintirile adunate de-a lungul vietii; respinge evenimentele irelevante, dezvolta amanuntele semnificative, combina incidente separate care apar guvernate de acelasi principiu. Creaza din procese fizice o procesiune metafizica. Transpune cronologia a ceea ce cunoaste intr-o ierarhie de sensuri. Din circumstantele concrete ale experientei sale el deseneaza, retrospectiv, aventura mintii care este mitul.

My comment:
Thomas Mann begins his Josef und seine Brüder with a long essay on the same subject: he thinks that many similar events create significance and eventually plot a unique story; this is the genesis of the sacred story. There is a radical difference: Maya Deren starts from the need of the mind to give material shape to its reality while Thomas Mann considers the opposite - the material becomes significant by accumulation of similar experiences; for Maya Deren the realities of the mind create a fiction of matter; for Thomas Mann the realities of the matter create a fiction of mind.

Thomas Mann isi incepe Iosif si fratii sai cu un lung eseu despre acelasi subiect: el crede ca un numar mare de evenimente similare creaza semnificatie si in cele din urma se combina intr-o poveste unica; aceasta ar fi geneza istoriilor sacre. Este o diferenta radicala: Maya Deren porneste de la nevoia mintii de a da realitatilor ei o forma materiala pe cand Thomas Mann considera opusul - materia devine semnificativa prin acumularea de experiente similare; pentru Maya Deren realitatile mintii creaza o fictiune a materiei; pentru Thomas Mann realitatile materiei creaza o fictiune a mintii.

Who's right and whos' wrong, Maya or Mann? Let's ask Arghezi:

Am luat cenusa mortilor din vatra
Si am facut-o Dumnezeu de piatra...

(My friend Jean offered me a French version for these verses. Here you go:

Le l'âtre, cendre des aïeuls j'ai pris
Moulant ainsi le Dieu tout empetri.)

This adventure is composed, then, as all fictions are, from the matter of memory at hand - from the specific physical conditions which circumstance imposes and the particular processes which time composes for each individual race. The differences between the tales of the venerable ancients of the various nations are differences, then, between the matter of them. But in all this cosmic variety, the constant is the mind of man. Where it has least to describe outside itself, it displays this constancy most purely, as in the fictions of origins. It is as if the mind, by-passing the particularities of circumstance, the limitations and imprecisions of the senses, arrived, by paths of metaphysical reason, at some common principled truth of the matter.

Aventura aceasta este compusa, ca toate fictiunile, din concretul pe care memoria il are la indemana - din conditiile fizice specifice pe care circumstantele le impun si procesele particulare pe care timpul le compune pentru fiecare rasa. Diferentele dintre povestile batranilor venerabilil din diferite natiuni sunt deci diferente intre concretul lor. Dar in toata aceatsa varietate cosmica mintea omului este cea care ramane constanta. Si unde ea are mai putin concret la indemana, acolo aceasta constanta apare mai pura: este cazul fictiunilor despre origini. Este ca si cum mintea, ocolind particularitatile circumstantelor, limitarile si impreciziile simturilor, ajunge, pe cai ale ratiunii metafizice, la un adevar comun de principiu al concretului.

My comment:
So the myths differ from culture to culture in their concrete envelope only. The need that imposed the creation of myth, the fact of the mind, as Maya calls it, is constant. Paul Tillich says that God is beyond cultures, and that we deal only with an image of God, shaped by culture - when Nietzsche was saying God is dead he meant the death of a certain culture, so of a certain image of God (at least this was the way Tillich was interpreting Nietzsche).

Asadar miturile difera de la cultura la cultura doar in invelisul lor concret. Nevoia care a impus creatia mitului, faptul mintii, cum il numeste Maya, este constant. Paul Tillich spune ca Dumnezeu este dincolo de culturi, iar noi avem treaba numai cu o imagine a lui Dumnezeu, slefuita de cultura - cand Nietzsche spunea ca Dumnezeu este mort el intelegea moartea unei anumite culturi, deci a unei anumite imagini a lui Dumnezeu (cel putin asta este felul in care il interpreteaza Tillich pe Nietzsche).

The fictions begin with a solemn fanfare, less for the Person of the First Source, than for the moment of creation. The metaphors of the diverse myths differ; the nature of the Cosmic Catalyst is the same. It is an energy which, out of the anonymity of void, of chaos, of the wholeness of a Cosmic Egg, crystallizes the major elements, precipitates the primary areas, and finally differentiates the first androgynous life (as the solitary Adam) into the twinned specializations: male and female. This is the function of beginnings, couched in the past tense. But the chants are not in memoriam. They may be heard as a celebration of each contemporary recapitulation of that first creation. The microcosmic egg rides the red tides of the womb which, like the green tides, still rise and recede with the moon; the latest life, like the first, flows with the seas' chemistry, is first anonymous, then androgynous, becomes differentiated, is beached in a surf, its heart reverberates a life-time with the pending momentum of the primal sea pulse. The beginning, which no man witnessed, is ever present, ever before us. When we come to perceive the final fact of the matter, we find that it was conceived by the mind in the first fiction of the myth.

Fictiunile incep cu o fanfara solemna, onorand nu atat Persoana Cauzei Prime cat momentul creatiei. Metaforele diferitlor mituri difera intre ele; natura Catalizatorului Cosmic este insa aceeasi. Este o energie care, din anonimitatea neantului, sau a haosului, sau a Oului Cosmic, cristalizeaza elementele principale, pregateste precipitatele zonelor primare, iar in final diferentiaza prima viata androgina (solitarul Adam) in specializarile pereche: mascul si femela. Aceasta este functia inceputurilor, exprimata la timpul trecutului. Numai ca aceste cantari nu sunt in memoriam. Ele pot fi auzite ca o celebrare a fiecarei recapitulari contemporane a primei creatii. Oul microcosmic calareste mareele rosii ale pantecelui care, la fel ca mareele verzi, creste si descreste odata cu luna; viata cea mai recenta, la fel ca prima, se deruleaza odata cu celelalte transformari chimice care au loc in apele Cosmosului, este mai intai anonima, apoi androgina, devine diferentiata, este azvarlita pe plaja de catre miscarea valurilor, inima ei reverbereaza cu acel moment de timp indepartat al primului impuls al apelor. Inceputul, caruia nimeni nu i-a fost martor, este totdeauna prezent, totdeauna in fata noastra. Cand percepem actul final al Materiei, ne dam seama ca mintea l-a conceput in prima fictiune a Mitului.

My comments:
Microcosm mirrors Macrocosm. The everyday mirrors the Beginning. Matter mirrors Idea, only we should free our eyes, to see beyond the obvious.
Watch the first images of At Land: life is beached in a surf...

Microcosmosul oglindeste Macrocosmosul. Cotidianul oglindeste Inceputul. Materia oglindeste Ideea, doar sa ne eliberam ochii ca sa vedem dincolo de evidenta.
Uitati-va la primele imagini din At Land: viata este azvarlita pe plaja de catre miscarea valurior.

But the accomplishment of matter is always as an overture to the major movement of the myth, the accomplishment of moral man. Matter creates the matter of man. But this creature, who may intermittently feel hunger and fatigue, would not understand the intervals as time; it might sense itself at first weak, then strong, then weak again, but would not comprehend this change as age; it might come to perceive the logics of matter and might observe, eventually, the reason for the succession of seasons, for natural sequences of natural events. But the reasons in matter are still a property of matter; its meaning, conceived in the marriage of matter and mind, is a property of the human mind. As chaos contained the possibbility of matter, so this creature contains the possibility of a mind, like a fifth limb latent in man, structured to make and manipulate meaning as the fist is structured to grasp and finger matter.

Dar implinirea materiei este intotdeauna o urvertura catre miscarea majora a mitului, implinirea omului moral. Materia creaza materia omului. Insa acesta creatura, care poate simti din cand in cand foamea si oboseala nu va intelege intervalele de timp; s-ar putea sa se simta mai intai slab, apoi puternic, apoi din nou slab, dar nu va intelege aceste schimbari ca varsta; i se poate intampla sa patrunda logica materiei si s-ar putea sa observe, in cele din urma, ratiunea succesiunii anotimpurilor, ca insiruire de secvente naturale a unor evenimente naturale. Dar ratiunile din materie sunt inca proprietati ale materiei; sensul lor, zamislit in cununia dintre materie si gandire, este o proprietate a mintii umane. Asa cum haosul continea posibilitatea materiei, si aceasta creatura contine posibilitatea gandirii, ca un al cincilea membru, alaturi de maini si picioare, dar inca latent in om, structurat sa creeze si sa manipuleze sens, asa cum pumnul este structurat sa apuce si sa se joace cu materia.

My comments:
Superb demonstration for the place of the myth in human nature: to differentiate the human from the rest of the nature.

Superba demonstratie a locului mitului in natura umana: pentru diferentierea omului fata de restul naturii.

And I come again to Arghezi:

Din graiul lor cu-ndemnuri pentru vite
Eu am ivit cuvinte potrivite.

The fictions of old men are their final fecundity. As their flesh once labored to bring forth flesh, so the minds of the elders labor, with a like passion, to bring forth a mind. By rites of initiation they would accomplish the metamorphosis of matter into man, the evolution of a mind for meaning in the animal which is the issue of their flesh. By this they would insure that the race endure as a race of men. The rites of this second birth, into the metaphysical cosmos, everywhere mime the condition of the first physical birth. The novice is purified of past, relieved of possessions, made innocent, placed nascent in the womb solitude of a dark room. The matter, which is himself, and the myth of the race, are joined. His solitary meditation is a gestation and, in the end, a man emerges by ordeal, to be newly named, newly rejoiced in.

Povestile batranilor sunt fecunditatea lor finala. Asa cum carnea lor a lucrat odata pentru a aduce carne, acum mintea lor lucreaza cu o pasiune egala pentru a aduce minte. Ei vor indeplini, prin rituri initiatice, metamorfoza materiei in om, evolutia mintii spre sens, in animalul care este produsul carnii lor. Prin aceasta ei se vor asigura ca rasa dureaza mai departe ca rasa umana. Riturile acestei a doua nasteri, in cosmosul metafizic, mimeaza pretutindeni conditia primei nasteri, cea fizica. Novicele este purificat de trecut, eliberat de povara averilor, facut inocent, bagat precum un prunc pe cale de a se naste in singuratea de pantec a unei camere intunecoase. Materia, care este tanarul insusi, si mitul rasei, sunt puse unul langa celalalt. Meditarea solitara a tanarului este o gestatie si la sfarsit din chinurile nasterii iese un om, pentru a primi un nume nou si pentru a fi un nou motiv de bucurie.

My comment:
Ritual finds in this paragraph its glorious chant. After assessing our need for myth Maya starts to explain here the place of the ritual, as a support for myth.

Ritualul isi afla in acest paragraf cantarea sa de slava. Dupa ce a stabilit nevoia noastra de mit, Maya incepe aici sa explice locul ritualului, ca suport al mitului.

Says Arghezi,

Aseaz-o cu credinta capatai,
Ea e hrisovul vostru cel dintai
Al robilor, cu saricile pline
De osemintele varsate-n mine.

But who first informed the ancestral elders of the various nations? What was the common inspiration of their common fanfare for origins, their common fiction of initiation, their common metaphor of metamorphosis? No man has ever witnessed the moment when life begins; it is in the moment of its ending that the limits of life, hence life itself, are manifest. Death, as the edge beyond which life does not extend, delineates a first boundary of being. Thus the ending is, for man, the beginning: the condition of his first consciousness of self as living. Death is life's first and final definition. The fanfare for cosmic origins is followed by this major fugue: the initial figure is a lament of the living for the dead; and the voice which first propunds the major themes of life, love and generation is borne up from the abyss as the flesh was first, and is still, born from the deep seas of chaos. The hero of man's metaphysical adventure - his healer, his redeemer, his guardian - is always a corpse. He is Osiris, or Adonis, or Christ.

Dar cine a fost primul care i-a informat pe stramosii ancestrali ai diferitelor neamuri? Care a fost inspiratia lor comuna pentru imnul comun de slava a inceputurilor, pentru fictiunea comuna a initierii, pentru metafora comuna a metamorfozei? Nimeni nu a fost martor momentului cand viata incepe; este momentul sfarsitului cand granitele vietii, deci viata insasi, devin manifeste. Moartea, culme dincolo de care viata nu se mai extinde, ea delimiteaza un prim hotar pentru fiinta. Astfel ca pentru om sfasitul devine un inceput: pentru ca este conditia primei lui constientizari de sine ca fiinta vie. Moartea este pentru viata definitia de inceput si de sfarsit. Iar cantarea de slava pentru originile cosmice este urmata de acesta fuga principala: prima tema a fugii este un lamento al celor in viata pentru cel mort; iar vocea care care pune in discutie temele majore ale vietii, dragostei si generarii, se naste din abis, asa cum carnea s-a nascut de la inceput si mereu dupa aceea, din apele adanci ale haosului. Iar eroul aventurii metafizice a omului - tamaduitorul, izbavitorul, pastorul - este intotdeauna un cadavru. Este Osiris, este Adonis, este Crist.

My comment:
Maya will speak further about life and void: life starting from void and ending in void and I will comment this for the next paragraph. For now, I can see here Maya's link between myth - ritual - dance: facts of the mind, initiation, metamorphosis - myth as a metaphor for the facts of the mind - ritual as a metaphor for initiation - dance as a metaphor for metamorphosis through myth and ritual - and I come again to a phrase that I read long time ago in a book about Bach - the liturgy in the Ethiopian Church contains moments when priests dance in the altar.

Maya va vorbi mai departe despre viata si neant: viata incepe in neant si se sfarseste in neant si voi comenta aceasta pentru urmatorul paragraf. Acum vreau sa spun ca vad aici legatura facuta de Maya intre mit - ritual - dans: fapte ale gandirii, initiere, metamorfoza - mitul ca metafora a faptelor gandirii - ritualul ca metafora a initierii - dansul ca metafora a metamorfozei prin mit si ritual - si iarasi vin la o fraza pe care am citit-o cu multa vreme in urma intr-o carte despre Bach - liturghia in Biserica Etiopiana contine momente in care preotii danseaza in altar.

But death itself we recognize not so much by what it is by the fact that it is not life. As the land and the sea define each other at the shore, so life and death define each other by exclusion. These, which are immediate neighbors in the realm of matter, are separated by a difference which is as a vast distance in the realm of meaning. Myth is the voyage of exploration in this metaphysical space. The point of departure is the first meeting between the quick and the dead.

Insa moartea insasi nu este recunoscuta de noi prin ceea ce este cat prin faptul ca ea nu este viata. Asa cum marea si pamantul se definesc una pe cealalta la tarm, tot asa viata si moartea se definesc una pe cealalta prin excludere. Vecine imediate pe taramul materiei, viata si moartea sunt separate printr-o vasta distanta pe taramul sensului. Mitul este calatoria de explorare a acestui spatiu metafizic. Punctul de plecare este prima intalnire dintre nestins si stins.

My comment:
On the gravestone of Ozu there is only one hieroglyph: MU. It means VOID. Life is surrounded by void.

You can see the separation between them as a shore. Remember the movie of Jarmusch, Dead Man: it ends on a shore, and the character played by Johnny Depp leaves us in a small boat - the whole movie is actually a journey in the metaphysical space between life and death.

Also the perfect movie of Maya, Meshes of the Afternoon (a friend of mine, Dan, has found a splendid Romanian title for it, Paienjenisul Amiezii) explores the shore between life and death.

Or you can see the separation between life and death as an edge. For Arghezi, it is a high edge looking down at two universes, teaching us about meaning, value, and duty:

Hotar inalt cu doua lumi in poale,
Pazind in piscul datoriei tale.

Pe piatra tombala a lui Ozu exista doar o hieroglifa: MU. Inseamna NIMIC. Viata este inconjurata de catre nimic. In afara vietii exista nimicul. Putem vedea separatia dintre ele ca pe un tarm. Amintiti-va filmul lui Jarmusch, Dead Man: se termina pe un tarm, iar personajul interpretat de catre Johnny Depp ne paraseste intr-o barcuta - intregul film este de fapt o calatorie in spatiul metafizic dintre viata si moarte. De asemenea, perfectul film al Mayei Deren, Meshes of the Afternoon (unul din prietenii mei, Dan, a gasit un titlu splendid pe romaneste, Paienjenisul Amiezii), exploreaza tarmul dintre viata si moarte. Sau putem vedea hotarul dintre viata si moarte ca un pisc. Pentru Arghezi, este un pisc inalt, privind in jos spre doua universuri, purtand invatatura despre sens, valoare si datorie.

To enter a new myth is a moment of initiation. One must return to the moment before myth, anterior to all its inventions, when the myth of any man might still become the myth of any other. It is to enter, in one's mind, the room which is both womb and tomb, to become innocent of everything except the motivation for myth, the natural passion of the mind for meaning. It is to meditate upon the common human experience which is the origin of the human effort to comprehend the human condition.

Intrarea intr-un nou mit este un moment de initiere. Trebuie sa te intorci la momentul dinainte de mit, inainte de toate inventiile produse in numele lui, la momentul acela in care mitul oricarui om poate inca deveni mitul oricarui altuia. Inseamna sa intri cu gandirea ta in incaperea care este si pantece, si mormant, sa devii inocent in toate, pastrandu-ti doar motivatia pentru mit, acea pasiune naturala a gandirii pentru aflarea sensului. Inseamna sa meditezi asupra experientei umane comune care este originea efortului uman de a intelege si cuprinde conditia umana.

My comment:
Maya came the first time to Haiti to make a movie about Voodoo dances. The movie would remain unfinished, she would be absorbed by the whole Voodoo culture. The remaining years of her life would be devoted to understand deeper and deeper the Voodoo universe. She spoke in the preface of her book about the metamorphosis: she had come as an artist, she realized that the reality was to powerful to be manipulated in an artistic way. So Maya was considering that Haiti was for her a defeat as an artist while a victory in understanding something fundamental about the human condition.
My guess is that Maya had been looking from the very beginning for the prime truth, for the fact of the mind beyond the fiction of matter. It was in Haiti that she realized the power of her call, but it was from the beginning. Her movies are silent, because they search for the fact of the prime truth, beyond the words. Words make it manifest, also envelop the truth in their fiction. Silent ritual express the prime truth more honestly. Dance express the prime truth more honestly. That is what her movies are about. Maya was looking for the moment before the myth.

Maya venise prima oara in Haiti ca sa faca un film despre dansurile Voodoo. Filmul va ramane neterminat, ea va fi absorbita de intreaga cultura Voodoo. Anii care aveau sa ii mai ramana de trait vor fi dedicati intelegerii tot mai adanci a universului Voodoo. Ea a vorbit in prefata cartii ei despre metamorfoza: venise ca artista, a inteles ca realitatea era mult prea puternica pentru a fi manipulata artistic. Asa incat Maya considera ca Haiti fusese pentru ea o infrangere ca artista, dar o victorie in intelegerea catorva lucruri fundamentale pentru conditia umana.
Parerea mea este ca Maya a cautat de la bun inceput adevarul prim, acel fapt al gandirii care se afla dincolo de fictiunea materiei. In Haiti ea a inteles puterea chemarii sale, dar chemarea a fost de la inceput. Filmele ei sunt fara cuvinte, pentru ca ele cauta adevarul prim de dincolo de cuvinte. Cuvintele il fac manifest, dar il si imbraca in fictiunea lor. Ritualul in tacere exprima adevarul prim cu mai multa onestitate. Dansul exprima adevarul prim cu mai multa onestitate. Despre asta sunt filmele ei. Maya cauta momentul dinainte de mit.