Psyche & Eros
Spirit, Soul and the Business of Love
What’ll It Be?: photo by Jim Wileman
Hello all, incrementally I’m having little moments away from the desk: I snuck off to Oxford to be with Iain McGilchrist and others, and was part of a Devon festival the next day, including an appearance at the above Field System gallery in Ashburton. I’m informed they are doing a brisk business on the drawings, but there’s still a few left: Field System. I got drenched on the way back to the car from the Oxford event and have the lurgy.
To dry out I thought we’d head off to Greece for an early summer holiday for the next few weeks with a telling of one of C.S. Lewis’s favourites, Psyche and Eros. I must have written my version about fifteen years ago – in the last gasps of my thirties – and I want to see how it lands all this time later. There’s a floridity to the language that surfaces less these days, but I’ve been enjoying another rummage under the Hellenistic hood.
It’s a sumptuous tale and surprisingly current. It’s all about the Underworld initiations of love and how the furnace of amor can bake the bread suitable to serve up at a wedding worthy of the name.
I’ve never written a full commentary but will leave a few reflections at the bottom to respond to in your own musings. My mind is still a little wayward with cold, so please forgive anything excessively random. I would suggest clicking the audio link just below, rather than just reading the text solo.