THE PORCH OF CELESTIAL DREAMS

Long after Asclepius and his daughters, Hygieia and Panacea, established their Sanctuary at Athens, the cult of Leander came to be celebrated regularly each year. Many were the mystic rites, all of which were performed against a background of musical ballets, acting in mime and poetic renderings. Other arts too were practised in the gardens which abounded with orchards of health-giving fruits, flowers and herbs, so that in all a euphoric state was in continual being.

On the eve of Artemis-tide an old sage of wide renown came to celebrate a liturgy of regeneration which was based on the story of Hero and Leander; how Hero long ago swam the stormy Hellespont in a nocturnal bid for Leander's love and in so doing paid for it with his life, a fate levied by the unremitting Furies. Unwilling to be a prisoner of timeless separation from Hero, grief-stricken Leander plunged into the raging waters to be forever with his truelove in the celestial dream of Elysium.

By the columns flanking a flowered temple walk on the site of an oracle, midst the peace of yesteryear's ruins a host of people who now sat at the feet of the sage of Ancient Wisdom would later see the apotheosis of the departed lovers. The story told, the sage then addressed himself to his spellboung audience thus: “Allegories from the books of old reveal from beneath their literal content profound truths which for long remain locked in parabolic kernals, and there they live till the adept harvests the seed of his understanding. Contemplation rewards the seeker with many aspects, for though one aspires to glimpse an absolute, the vision is not changeless.

The living truth resides in many levels, Finis cannot be written on the pages of the realm of time. The poets wrote in order that one might not so much mourn a death or applaud a life, but rather perceive a many facetted truth”.

A long departed friend was quoted by the sage, who said, “When Socrates recited the drama of Hellespont, to some it appeared unrelieved Tragedy, for others it was love's unfulfilled dream, far from being the end it was for some a beginning”. In each era, eyes are opened to see Leander's leap to death metamorphose into the dance of life, Psyche spurning mortal claim to grasp the fire from heaven. And so the visionary can journey on the timeless path of further perception, hand in hand with Hero and Leander to the Celestial lakes and gardens of Ancient Wisdom.
- DANIEL

One of Daniel's most beautiful and symbolic paintings, it vividly depicts cupids journey of the departed lovers to Elysium. The apotheosis of Leander and Hero is a consummation of love unfulfilled and is immortalized by the cult of Leander and Hero.
- LJO