A Chaperon called 'Hoi '

I don't suppose people engage a chaperon these days … for their dates. But it was there … at the turn of the last century and it featured a matronly lady … whose presence … was expected to be a stimulation on the lovers … not a hindrance. It creates the awareness among the lovers … that someone is watching them … and so … they have someone to refer to as the subject. This transforms into the observer … witness … and speaker … in the conversation … between the lovers.

 

Indic traditions referred to Vishnu as the third person … everytime two people got together. He is all those things … that is representative … of the relations … speech … and conduct between the two persons. Its an awesome job all together … and involves the chaperon in the exchange that takes place between the two persons … that may extend to dreams … sensual natures … and the general husbandry of the experience.

 

I was musing on this recently … when I was … moved to recall the two boyfriends my sister … used to meet. One after another of course. I was between the ages of 10 �" 12 .. and my mother had insisted that she take me along as chaperon. Of course nothing much happens on these occasions. And the only busy person in the experience is the chaperon … himself … as the scene conjures great possibilities of the passions … its joys … and promises … that are the great pastime we engage in human experience.

 

I was therefore stimulated into … into an active condition of the muses … in the play of the eros … that was led by mysterious smiles … eye movements … facial expressions .. and body postures. As a result I began my teen years … with an active Adonisian condition … that was in some ways both a help and a problem in my own relations with girls. I responded fine to female companionship … but there was that … sudden pull away … to position myself simply as observer … as my companion engaged the physical nature of the man I was.

 

It led to a period of reading romance novels … princess comics … and movies … that gave expression to the muses … on the great possibilities of love. And it wasn't without the occasional … day-dreaming … in class … or in a conversation … that was always marked by someone yelling ' hoi ' … in my ear. I was to realize later … that it had a wonderful effect in stimulating the mind … cultivating social skills … and an intuitive understanding of the passions.

 

But an important principle emerged that … made a significant impact on my experience of the muses. It referred to a purpose … in its endeavors … as if it was in the pursuit of something … an ideal … a compliance with the will of evolution. I looked around to see how I might represent its intent … and stumbled into the Indic experience of the Puranas. It was engaged as an instrument of mind … in the early representation of man's life in the world.

 

It was the enthos … inherent in the quality of its experiences … that grew into a representation of form … that was in turn … claimed as the physical nature of man … in society. In a subsequent handling of the issue … man separated the eros based experience from his physical person … and referred to it as the muses … and then into Gods. The example was followed elsewhere … and the Indics evolved the Siva family.

 

In today's experience … the Oriental preserves a remnant of the former experience … and applies it with an arm's length attitude … to life in society. It explains the near mythical nature of the world experiences of the East … as in the Middle Kingdom experience in China. The Westerner continues to work … with the objective of separating the related impulses … but that's not without … a curious play of … light and mirrors … to strategize an optimum mix of possibilities. Perhaps they have been hasty … in wanting to separate it completely.

 

The eros impulses … like the way … Argos ' chaperoned ' a Zeus and Io at Hera's instructions … tends to experience a collusion of purposes … by the powerful effulgence … that the view provides of perfection … in the love experience … and the possibilities for human society. Like an infant … Argos fell into a deep dream sleep … and  emerged … flabbergasted … that an ethical rule we maintain in society had been broken by his lack of vigilance.

 

In man today … we continue to practice that block … in our dreams … but make every effort … to comply only with the physical nature of possibilities in life. It does allow for that … in some moderated form … or in the beginnings of the love experience … but thereafter it asks us to … work at achieving that … in reality. Its here that we could do with more help … to try to make our dreams and reality … achieve an actualization.

 

The physical reality of the individual … and that which we refer to as the world's experience … does seek to come to itself … in the perfection of the dream within. At this time our societies … continue to work to move it in that direction. In what form … specie … activity … or domain … will the accomplishment finally come to rest … is something we wait to ascertain. But its possibilities are certainly real … and any aggrieved denial of it … always comes to defeat … by the subtle strength of its healing responses.

 

To all the heart broken lovers out there … we can only counsel … to take heart … and to return to the dream … and then to manage ourselves better. We can better manage the denials … and the hasty rushes … and cultivate a knowledge of its workings … in a way as to be associated with its own will on the matter. Its a long way to its achievement … but returning to a confidence of its possibilities … is a place to start.