Faidrerie Themelia: How Polemos defines our identity.
[ENG]
Writing the text for a Themelia is always, for one reason or another, a challenge. It is a philosophical challenge, as one must seek out and describe, within the space of a few lines, a problem that is truly felt as such by the community participating in the celebration. It is also a rhetorical challenge, since it is necessary to describe the aforementioned problem not through mere assertions, but by means of open reflections that leave room for the community to speculate, counter, and comment. It is, finally, an anthropological challenge, because the diverse cultures to which the members of the Synodus belong may interpret differently every thesis maintained and every comment written.
When I sat down today to write this Themelia, my dear brothers and beloved sisters, I thought at length about what subject might best suit the nature of our celebration and the emotions I am experiencing at this very moment. Whilst reflecting upon this, a verse from our Liber Spirarum came to my mind, which reads: «The wisdom of the Serpent is curved. The straight line leads out of the Spiral.»
I do not believe there could be a better way to describe existence in a broad sense and, at this particular juncture of my life, my own existence in particular. For this reason, I take the opportunity afforded by the space of our celebration today to share with you all those upheavals which, though initially incomprehensible, have always kept me within the spiral. And I would wish for you to do the same within the space we shall dedicate to commenting on this text tomorrow afternoon.
At the age of seventeen, I suffered the loss of my mother. This was, without a doubt, the first great change that a young man cannot but struggle to accept. To be confronted so young with the idea of transience, finiteness, and limitation cannot but lead a young man or woman of that age to question the meaning of all this pain. And yet, had I not experienced that pain, that absence, I would never have arrived at the conclusion that the search for the meaning of pain is the most futile pursuit a man can undertake, thereby laying the first philosophical foundations of that system which we today call Ophidism. Furthermore, that pain did nothing less than lead me deeper into my interest in alternative spiritualities, bringing me, a few years later, to found the Ordo Adamantis Atri.
For the first time, I felt at home. Many were the satisfactions of that project: from its registry as a new religion in the CESNUR, to the organisation of the Sitra Ahra Convention with the participation of authors (and friends) such as Michael W. Ford, Thomas Karlsson, and Nikolas Schreck, to the founding and publication of the journal Endecagrammaton, in which we published the greatest authors of alternative spiritualities worldwide. So numerous were the achievements reached that I had convinced myself I had attained the epitome of what I could accomplish in life. Never would I have thought that this fortress would one day fall. Yet, so it did. Even the most impregnable castle of all finally yielded under the weight of Polemos, and thus, once again, I found myself shedding my skin, reshaping the Ordo Adamantis Atri into what is known today as The Ophidian Synodus.
In this journey, innumerable are the people who have accompanied me, just as innumerable are the times I have leaned upon them, thinking that their support would never fail. And yet, my dear brothers and beloved sisters, their support did fail, in one way or another.
During this period of transformation and evolution, never would I have thought I would fall in love. Yet, this too happened. And I experienced a love so intense and so profound that, when it ended a few weeks ago, I found myself once again questioning the meaning of all this pain, of so many upheavals. How is it possible to heal a wound so deep? What sense does it make to love someone so profoundly, only to return to pretending not to know each other? Finally, is my relationship with the Divine truly real if, in a mere thirty years of my life, I have had to face all these losses, all these bereavements, all these changes?
And then the answer came like a bolt from the blue. It is change that defines us. Just as Heraclitus wrote thousands of years ago, a river is only such because the waters flow within it. Identity is a fallacious construct, something we have convinced ourselves we possess without ever truly being able to control it, as it remains forever subject to upheavals, shifts, and mutations.
Today, what I am I owe entirely to my relationship with the Divine.
It is true, I have suffered. It is true, I might be alone. It is true, my faith is beset by doubts and uncertainty. But, thanks to my awareness of Polemos, I have succeeded in transforming doubt into the fertile ground wherein my faith may grow, abandoning every scientific certainty, every philosophical notion, every absolute truth.
Today, my identity is my relationship with the Divine. Everything else is change. Everything else is Polemos.
Ita fiat.