The People Of The Labyrinth

The other day I realised that a very large number of people I have come across over the years who rank in the relatively quite well-off, tend to act in a noisily ungrateful way regarding their spouse's wealth and more or less everything else about them...! Why do they get involved, afterall, one may well ask, if they so detest their situations. You get the typical answers – chemistry at the start, wild optimism, all the apparent material benefits, and so on.

But I say! This churlish behaviour once the reality sets in.

The fact is some people are thoroughly nasty when you get right down to knowing them. Louis Theroux could do himself a great big favour by turning his cynical lens on the daily life of Rupert Murdoch, for instance – but of course, neither would he be allowed to nor does he have the guts to try.

Yet I still feel for some who enter the world of moneyed society and rather innocently become skewered on the naked rapier tips poking up all around the place there.

It is not a morally bad place. This is not what I am implying at all. But I am saying one needs to be advised about certain things: poverty closes doors that ought in any case not to be opened to too many human beings under any circumstances! Money, opens doors but it opens too many doors!

Which brings me to the continuation of my myth story from the last time – the labyrinth. The modern Western myth recounts the tale of the seven young boys and the seven young girls sent to King Minos to be sacrificied to the monster the Minotaur inside the labyrinth from out of which it was virtually impossible to escape. The victims would wander around the twists and turns ever more lost until they would suddenly make one terrible turn into the waiting Minotaur who would kill them and literally eat them. The ships that subsequently returned to Athens would hoist a black sail of mourning.

However this is not the story certain Greek families tell. For a start I have to tell you that the word 'labyrinth' has a particular meaning that is not transmitted commonly today. Yet, in some parts of modern Sicily, they still preserve the doorways to certain shrines said to have been built by Daedelus, the architect of the original labyrinth, and upon which there are carved mazes and symbols that have some reference to that famous legend – or myth, if you like. Daedelus retired to old age in Sicily, as you know. Like Plato also did later on. Labyrinth, is a word which means 'two leaved,' and is mostly rendered to be a metaphor of the two-leaved axe that was supposed to be favoured by warriors and used in sacred rituals around the time of the mythical King Minos. But this story is actually about the two leaves on the sides of the outer vagina. People commonly have supposed the 'two leaves' to be about the dual halves of the puzzle 'labyrinth,' but it is about the types of doors and doorways at the beginning and inside the segments of the unicurved maze, and it is especially about the symbolism and psychology of sex – about which the rite of the labyrinth is in fact actually concerned.

And so, I shall extenuate my explanation and now advance to quote a little of the Roman Pliny, about the ancient mythical city of Minos, namely that it had sacred, rich, and wonderful palaces of 'many doors and galleries which mislead the visitor.'

So do not think that all who lead lives of extreme wealth spend all of their time generously tolerating the simple, or the unlearned, or the noisy nouveau riche, and welcome them into their inner sanctums where they can easily trample unrestrained all over olde wealth culture and cause mischief and mayhem. The world today, by one reason and another, even has such uncouth people trampling around in very high places, in dictatorships, at the head of large corporations, very especially in the media, and in churches and open democratic politics as well.

At a certain time, the gods will destroy such antics. First, societies use rituals properly, and retain an understanding of their proper meaning and purpose, and then, when there is degeneracy, and people lose the meaning of their culture, there is eventual destruction. One cannot grab and hang onto power and money because of brute force and selfish ignorance and stubbornness. Well, that is to say, one can – until something happens to you. The point of the Noah story is that one can and prudently ought to build a safe haven against the deluge caused by divine displeasure, and that one can and ought to hand-pick who and what is allowed in. For me I suppose, it is just a matter of whimsy really, that I quite like the fashion stance of the Dutch fashion House 'People Of The Labyrinths.' All the same, there is a great meaning behind such myths and stories, and advisedly such things are well-recommended to those who would step into the real world of old wealth and aristocracy. I shall not be talking about the Dutch men's clothing group 'Suit Supply' just for the moment... But you might look them up to get an idea about it!

Regards,

Calvin J. Bear