What exactly is pothos? In Greek mythology, pothos is longing--it's a longing, a desire to posess that which is unattainable.
Doing more reading about pothos, I came across a neat article at terrapsych.com along the lines of a longing for a "lost" ecology. It made me wonder--if pothos embodies what is absent and cannot be attained, is it fair to say that pothos is a constant in and of itself? It must always be present in one form or another for human beings. We are always wanting for things that we cannot have.
The article also touched on the theme of "wandering". Is pothos the wandering soul? Is pothos part of the archetypal nomad? And, are we all archetypal nomads when it comes to wanting things that we'll never attain?
Sorry for the rambling.
1 comment:
I hadn't checked your blog for ages. Anyway regarding my particular instance of Pothos, I kept casting the i-ching (which Jung liked but not sure about Hillman) about this issue and it gave the following:
56. Lü / The Wanderer
above LI THE CLINGING, FIRE below KêN KEEPING STILL, MOUNTAIN
the mountain, Kên, stands still; above it fire, Li, flames up and does not tarry.
Therefore the two trigrams do not stay together. Strange lands and separation are the wanderer's lot. When a man is a wanderer and stranger, he should not be gruff nor overbearing. He has no large circle of acquaintances,
therefore he should not give himself airs. He must be cautious and reserved; in this way he protects himself from evil. If he is obliging toward others, he wins success.
A wanderer has no fixed abode; his home is the road. Therefore he must take care to remain upright and steadfast, so that he sojourns only in the proper places, associating only with good people. Then he has good fortune and can go his way unmolested.
THE IMAGE
Fire on the mountain:
The image of THE WANDERER.
Thus the superior man
Is clear-minded and cautious
In imposing penalties,
And protracts no lawsuits.
When grass on a mountain takes fire, there is bright light. However, the fire does not linger in one place, but travels on to new fuel. It is a phenomenon of short duration. This is what penalties and lawsuits should be like. They should be a quickly passing matter, and must not be dragged out indefinitely.
Prisons ought to be places where people are lodged only temporarily, as guests are. They must not become dwelling places.
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