Athens (1)

Chapter Nine. BACK TO ATHENS

Sailing back to Athens, I felt if I were the navigator that I could
do it blindfolded--after having taken this route so many times!
Interestingly, I arrived in Athens just in time to watch the festive
parade to the nearby town and great Temple of Eleusius.
The famous Mystery School of Demeter was located there.

The goddess of the Earth, Demeter intrigued me. I found out
that the rites of this school focused on "seeding," Considering
the initial reason that I had come back to Athens, this seemed
a good sign. *Apropos,* at least. As for the Eleusinian
Mysteries, they were held once a year. Being secret, those
initiated into such were fairly closed-mouthed. Still, over the
years, some information about these rites came to light.

These rites revolved around the agricultural cycles of the
seasons, about planting seeds, about growth and harvesting.
But, in the case of the Eleusinian Mysteries, this seeding was
really about the odyssey of the human soul. At the beginning,
the soul is conceived in darkness, it traverses through suffering,
it faces the terror of death, and eventually is reborn into a
divine existence.

I found even this little amount of information come from
Eleusius fascinating. This was the very kind of territory that
I wanted to study! However, not expressly from a religious
perspective. Still I had to wonder about the "intuition" that
circulates around this particular religious cult. That proposal
would have to wait for another day, when eventually I would
examine all my religious notes over the years via this very
perspective.

In the meanwhile, I made inquiries at the Academy regarding
its lecture schedule. Early Spring, I happened-on just at the
right time. I was given a layout of the entire academic year,
and I was able to make my lecture selections as well as picking
a mentor for individual conversations that followed the lecture
topics.

Happily, I would have time to refine any notes I might take.
And I would also have some time to devote to the beauty of
Athens. Also, my lodgings were perfect--looking out towards
the Acropolis.

At the very beginning of my study at the Academy, I was thrust
into unknown territories. During the first lecture I attended, we
scholastics were told that Plato believed that we humans were
born with *a priori* knowledge which we could process
intellectually, through our capacity for reason.

Oooh! Deep waters already! I had absolutely zero conception
as to what *a priori* might mean. Right off I had to dig around
and work, trying to understand. Eventually I found out that we
were dealing with a philosophical term that presumes that we
humans are born with a certain knowledge base that can allow
us to access "universals" such as Plato's Forms.

Most of our knowledge is empirically derived via our observations
of the physical world, which the philosophers call *a posteriori*
knowledge. But this transcendental knowledge we possess,
that we call *a priori,* is something implanted into our soul--perhaps
even before we are born, or at least before we begin to accrue
*a posteriori* knowledge.

Being so dense, so unlearned, I had to hope that I was getting
at least a partial grip on all this new information. I had to break
it down into simple terms before I could move into more sophisticated
philosophic territories. At this point I wasn't sure that I was "right"
about anything!