Nietzsche
"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."
- Nietzsche
"Creativity is carnivorous, and it is most carnivorous when it smiles."
- Zenovia
- Zenovia
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EXCITING NEWS!
The novel on Nietzsche is due to be published in 2024! Keep checking this website for updates! |
Notes from the Madhouse, in which the central character will be Nietzsche, has been in the darkness and fertility of my creativity for some time. But you cannot count time in the art of making, creating, shaping and inventing.
All my writing is about 'those who do not know where they belong' - the poets, the wild birds and the sirens of our world who struggle and resist the resignation of the human imagination, of the human spirit and the deep benevolence of humanity. So my writing would not appeal to those who are comfortable and resigned to the world of the safe, the taught, the domestic and the planned. Nietzsche was correct to describe life as 'a Dancer'. 'I dance after you. I follow you even when only the slightest traces of you linger. Where are you? Give me your hand!. Or just your little finger' ... from Thus Spake Zarathustra (the second dance song). In Notes from the Madhouse Nietzsche is the teacher and mentor to a student he has not met, and yet his defiance, rebellion and the yellow pollen of his imagination has overlapped into the world of another time, another place - another world. It is true what he wrote - 'some are born 'posthumously'. |
'Nietzsche's Yellow Dancer' by Zenovia
"Does it dance? Does it catalyze a joyful affirmation of life?"
- Nietzsche |
I discovered Nietzsche when I was very young and lived in solitude and exile. He did guide me to the pre-socratic philosophers and so many other thinkers: their message and essence is familiar - know thyself. In my 'creative quick' (DH Lawrence) I did not belong to any tribe, to any group, to any family, in the spring of my life, by accident or serendipity. Do accidents of discovery, cross-fertilisation of past to present, from dead to living exist when one finds another from the valley of the dead, who has left his soul and his "mad dancing feet" in the valley of the living? Or if I were to put it another way, does death silence or remove such a man and his ideas from people he has never met: the living, the present? Is Plato really dead if generations after him have spent their lives with him, hoping to understand the messages and paths for us to explore and find our way to ourselves. So again, I ask the question: are such men dead? Or as Pablo Neruda writes: “the dead feed me and I feed them”. Or as TS Eliot writes: “the dead make more sense than the living”. The Delphi Oracle would tell you, if you want to learn to live, “learn to study the dead”.
I understood this in my wilderness and solitude. I lived in the wild forests of Samos, Greece, where the Borean warriors had left their dance and song. My illiterate peasant Greek grandmother told me “you must stay awake at the post of your life, for if you do not, they will take ALL your life”. Thomas Moore says that your life is like water in your hands and you must not let it slip through. When I read Thus Spoke Zarathustra I was back in the mountains of Samos. Nietzsche was a dancer. I have always danced when in pain and when in joy, for one would go mad without dance. Or as Nietzsche writes “without music, life would be a mistake”. Nietzsche is a dancer, always moving, always shaping, forming, taking one into places that others cannot capture or confine or imprison. Or as Helen Keller writes: “the most beautiful things, one cannot touch: they feel them with the heart”. Nietzsche takes one into the depths and labyrinth of the forming, destroying, creating self, the ownership of the self, or as Socrates said “to know thyself”. For if one does not know themselves, how can they be fully alive? Are they not full of doubts, fears, shadows and regrets, but are never in their lives? Or as my grandmother said “better to be on your feet for five minutes, than fifty years on your knees”. So, meeting Nietzsche in the spring of my life, was coming into the essence of a blood-family. George Seferis tells us, if one is meant to be free to be themselves, to form their character and to find their path and destiny, one must never be a sheep or a wolf. Nietzsche, in his work, also advocates for this agon (struggle; battle) to form your true nature and your true path. And since Nietzsche came before Seferis, I suspect he was also influenced by the “mad dancing feet” of Nietzsche. Years later when I studied Nietzsche at university level, I found he was more alive in his thinking than the actual university lecturer who tried to understand what he had not lived or experienced with his blood. Nietzsche taught me to remain true to my blood and to follow my nature. But before I taught myself to read English, I experienced the company of my illiterate, Greek peasant grandmother, who, without having read Nietzsche, lived a battle of agon and affirmation, a battle of life and death, and death in life, lived fully alive and free. She was the only woman who I know breathed in freedom. She was free. She knew who she was, she fought for who she was, and she loved her destiny with the deepest passion. So one would have to ask the question: is this cross-fertilisation for the noblest way of living, from the dead to the living, achieved also without having read a book? Is this what Nietzsche means with “write from your blood”? I am so glad I went into that second-hand book shop and I was drawn to his book. These are the bread crumbs that others leave for us to find. We have not met them, and yet they are and become kindred and family to us. Nietzsche also believed that his family were the thinkers he had studied and written about. Therefore, without knowing of my existence, he offered freely to me knowledge and the seeds from another generation, another time, another world – the seeds of this world as it makes itself over and over again. I thank you, Nietzsche, for waiting for me. I thank him for teaching me. (from Zenovia, Penelope and Ulysses, 2012) Ideas and people take root in your being like seeds that you have breathed in at the spring in your life. It is not until many years later - or ‘something about Autumn’ (Nietzsche) - that you realise that you are fertile and heavy with this person or idea, and desire to give birth to what you have been weaving and evolving from the seed of the invisible and the unknown.
There is ‘something about Spring’ (Nietzsche) and its bright colours of yellow. I came into the Dionysian dance, legally, by watching the dance of Nietzsche in print. By this I mean that teachers and mentors are not meant to change your life - that would mean that you were not alive and did not have substance of your own. Rather, they encourage you to ‘continue in your incorrect ways’ as you read the defeats and inspirations of their journey. In the spring of my life, by accident, I came across the agon of Nietzsche. Reading his first book Thus Spoke Zarathustra I knew he would be seduced by the nymphs of Dionysus and would not return to us. I do not desire to be intellectually factualised. I have studied Nietzsche’s work at university level and beyond. I seek to go deeper into the fire of his creation and make his presence real and vibrant. It is important for me to state that I am neither a follower nor a leader in any ideology, system of thought, or of any group or individual. I am a seeker of truth and beauty. Plato wrote that ‘the good is of truth and it is beautiful and dangerous'. "All that I write is from myth, fact and nonsense." - Plato. |
Read the background papers here:
EXCITING NEWS!
The novel on Nietzsche is due to be published in 2024! Keep checking this website for updates! HERE is the sound of the Cretan lyra which features in Nietzsche's travels in the upcoming novel in which he plays the central character. Since Nietzsche was a dancer, music was vital to his life, and mine, "for without music, life would be a mistake." (Nietzsche)
Erotokritos by Nikos Xilouris
from the poetry of Vikentios Kornaros Sillogi ℗ 1974 Minos - EMI SA Released on: 1976-11-19 Associated Performer, Vocals: Nikos Xilouris Associated Performer, Recording Arranger: Stavros Xarhakos Adapter: Stavros Xarhakos Composer Lyricist: Paradosiako If you want to study the philosophy of Nietzsche, the best place to go is the Nietzsche Channel.
Nietzsche's notebook
"Today I wasted my day. I did not dance."
Nietzsche "Without music life would be a mistake."
Nietzsche Read the background papers here:
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