Poison
_I: Whenever I have had the opportunity to see the sculpture of Laocoön and his sons devoured by snakes, a strange sensation invades me that distances me from the story that tells this event, and leads me more to think about something more metaphysical that I makes you feel a bit uncomfortable.
_AM: What is your story?
_I: Laocoön was a high priest in Troy, a famous kingdom on the northwestern coasts of Anatolia, on the Aegean Sea. The story of his final is what everyone still knows: the prince of Troy, Paris, falls in love with Helen, daughter of a Greek king, an impossible love, which makes Helena decide to leave with Paris. The Greek king had asked that Helen return or he would start a war against the Trojan peoples. But they themselves decided to respond in the name of love and there was no choice but to advance against Troy, a story we know from Homer's "Iliad." Despite the efforts of the Greeks, Troy seemed to win. Then Calchas, a soothsayer, had an idea. Feign surrender by giving an offering to the city: a wooden horse, but inside it would hide Greek soldiers who would open the city gates to the army from within. Laocoön was the only one who shouted in front of everyone warning of the trap, supported by his sons. But then, two sea serpents, sent by Athena, devoured them in front of everyone, which made it clear that Laocoön seemed to be wrong. They brought in the horse, and well, everyone already knows the rest...
_AM: This is the myth. And what was the truth of the story?
_I: I suppose that the advance of the Persians on the Hittite territory in Anatolia caused insecurity in the Achaean peoples, and all the Hellenists, Greeks, decided to create a kind of barrier and defend the eastern islands and the Bosphorus canal, so they did not There was no choice but to try to take those lands to defend their interests and security. Laocoon was perhaps warning that the Greeks claimed to bring security, when in reality they planned to keep the territory. It's like, that which promises to do us good but ends up being precisely what harms us.
_AM: Like eating sugar, flour... It fills your stomach, it makes you feel happy, but it poisons you.
_I: Yes... Everything we consume in the world today is like the Trojan Horse of the Greeks, everything is dressed up as something that does good but ends up doing us harm... When I see Laocoön and his children, I feel that sensation, like that which meant: “Hey! Be careful, this can go wrong!”, but that he himself was devoured by what he said, and therefore no one believed him, and everything went wrong.
_AM: “Do as I say and not as I do.”
_I: Yes. Beyond the history, the myth, and the fact that it explains a war situation, the perfect sculptural work of Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus of Rhodes about 2000 years ago, continues to awaken in me something very personal and metaphysical, as if the Artists would have in turn summarized the story of each human, agonizing from the bite of their own internal poisonous creatures. The detailed face of suffering of the three characters shows the pain beyond the attack, of having lost faith, of being defeated by the same gods they worshiped, betrayed by the same people they tried to defend, consumed by their own beliefs. , emotions and actions.
_AM: In history, many philosophers, heroes, leaders, teachers, have been poisoned, reminding us in mythology and facts, that in most cases, the first poison is created within.
_I: What is that poison?
_AM: Are you ready to know what poison means?
_I: I guess so...
_AM: Venom (Venom), is known to be a corrosive and life-destructive chemical compound that paralyzes and leads to death. It is a defensive weapon of many creatures, such as snakes, spiders and scorpions, who use these toxins to defend themselves or paralyze their victims and eat them calmly. Thus, this word has for us a negative and life-destructive connotation. However, you will see the paradox when you know that poison is the origin of the word “Venus.”
_I: The Roman goddess of Love?
_AM: Exactly, and do you know why?
_I: Clearly not…
_AM: Because Poison (“Veneno” in spanish) comes from the Indo-European “wen” which means “love”.
_I: What?!
_AM: That’s what you heard. It seems incongruent. Right ?
_I: Absolutely… But I don't understand why…
_AM: The same word poison gave rise to the word “venerate”. Venus and veneration are similar, because one venerates what one loves, what one admires, venerates gods, people, couples, loves, objects, places... But Venusian is not only related to pure love, but to all types of love, sensuality , sexuality, possession, attachment, the tender, the virginal, the carnal, the taboo. Tenderness and pure virginity are represented by the Deer in Spanish, a word that also arises from “wen”, but in its darker aspect, it also gives rise to the term “venial”. Venial refers to everything sinful, lustful, carnal errors of blood, that which is unforgivable. The concept makes us see the negative aspect of poison, that which destroys. For ancient cultures there was no such thing as Good and Evil in an external way, but evil was interpreted as the inner poison of the person. The same blood we carry inside can give us life or destroy us from the inside. In this way, life and love can also be understood as death and hate, since they are not external opposites but internal expressions.
_I: Oneself creates one's own poison from what one loves...
_AM: Tell me, who really started the Trojan War?
_I: Paris… For his love for Helena…
_AM: And tell me, how did you find Helena?
_I: Looking for the most beautiful, looking for true love…
_AM: And who was capable of giving him that love?
_I: …The Goddess of Love… Aphrodite (Venus).
_AM: Do you remember how Aphrodite gives such a woman's love to Paris?
_I: …Oh! I remember it! "The Apple of discord"!
_AM: Eris, the goddess of dispute, created a beautiful apple destined for the most beautiful in the world, which was awarded to both Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. To resolve the dispute, they decided to have a third party give their opinion and make the decision, and they chose our friend Paris, prince of Troy. The three offered things to Paris: Power, Wisdom and Love, respectively. Paris chose Love, so Aphrodite kidnapped Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, for him.
_I: Love was the Poison that started the War…
_AM: In the ancient interpretation, the sacred trinity that every human must recognize is Will, Wisdom and Love, the three goddesses. The bone of contention is in the constant dispute that individuals make to debate what they will put as the main motivation of their lives. The Power, the Will of Hera, provides the capacity for action, manifestation, pragmatism, the realization of every objective in life. The Wisdom and mental strategy of Athena leads to a calculating mind, outside of emotions, that can foresee all future movement, giving understanding in existence and glory in consciousness. The Love of Aphrodite encompasses all emotions, the feeling of fullness in life, the unity of all things, and in turn, all the comforts and pleasures of human life. Humans usually choose Aphrodite, because her gift is immediate, pleasant, related to the idea of happiness so sought after. But feeling love without having inner power makes us live for others, destroying our own lives. To love without wisdom is to live in disorder, since energy does not have a specific direction. In the same way that having power without love makes you selfish, that wisdom without love makes you a frivolous calculator. That power without wisdom makes you a tyrant, that wisdom without power makes you useless. It's a holy trinity. But nevertheless, Love turns every emotional and energetic base that mobilizes your wisdom and will into fuel or poison. Thus, for the ancients, poorly administered love is the poison of the soul.
_I: Wow… That makes sense. As with a snake or scorpion, the same thing that saves their life is what can kill them. They carry within themselves the death sentence of others and themselves if they do not know how to administer the doses.
_AM: Everything is based on harmony, coherence, knowing how to use inner power in a balanced way. We all carry a poison inside us, because we all have poorly managed energy of love.
_I: What would that be like?
_AM: Jealousy, control over the other, attachment, punishment, projections, emotional manipulation, addictions, both sexual and drug addiction, anger, resentment, hatred, pain, desire for revenge... All of this is poison that once was love.
_I: How do I make my poisons pure love again?
_AM: You must first accept that the poison exists in you. That the kundalini snake is not flowing in your favor, and has coiled around your waist, biting your Sacrum as happens to Laocoön. Then, you must identify what poison is corroding your life. Thus, you must identify how long you have been experiencing it, when was the first time or circumstance in which you felt it. And there you will discover that it was born because of a failed love, that is, because of something that did not meet your expectations of feeling happiness. You expected to feel, and something stopped you, a thought, idea, belief, situation, emotion, circumstance. Something changed or didn't go the way you expected, leaving a void that needed to be filled with something, and that something became your poison. That sinks you, towards the dark and dirty waters of the subconscious... And that is why today I advise you that before going to sleep, think about your poisons, and allow your subconscious to show you what is there in relation to them.
_I: I will do it. I understand, then, that poison is poorly administered love, and that when people say: “that poison must be eliminated” or “he is a poisonous person” or “he swallows his own poison,” and all those phrases, we must rethink them. recognizing that we ourselves have created that poison to defend ourselves from something in which we feel weak, due to lack of love. Like the snake, the spider and the scorpion, they created poison in order to supply tools that they did not have, and in this way they could protect themselves. “If the love I seek does not allow me to radiate, then I create a poison to take care of myself,” would be the logic of the body…
_AM: The mind has created stories and myths to remind us of our greatest regrets. For this reason, maps to psychology are found in the legends. Myth comes from the Greek word “mythos” and means “story”, that is, words that become action. Psychology comes from the Greek “Psijé” (soul) and “logos” (knowledge), meaning that myths are the words that tell what the soul knows. They should never be taken literally, since their narrators told stories that only the soul of a poet in love could understand. That is why you now know that the story of Laocoön hid what your soul felt and your mind could not explain: the frustrating look of someone who suffers the betrayal of wisdom and will in the hands of love that, without consciousness or empowerment, becomes the poison of the soul
_I: Now I will look at the sculpture with different eyes, as well as at my own weaknesses and poisons. I will put all my intention in recognizing them, and from there releasing them in consciousness and empowerment, returning them to Love again.
_AM: Meanwhile, humanity will continue fighting over the Apple of Discord... Trying to identify whether Will, Wisdom or Love is the most beautiful thing in life, creating senseless wars, until the day they see that the three They were equally beautiful and beautiful, and that the apple can always be shared.