Exile

This is a journal entry from the writings of Mircea Eliade.  He kept a journal between 1945 and 1969.  This entry was written 1 January 1960:

Every exile is a Ulysses traveling toward Ithaca.  Every real existence reproduces the Odyssey.  The path toward Ithaca, toward the center.  I had known all that for a long time.  What I have just discovered is that the chance to become a new Ulysses is given to any exile whatsoever (precisely because he has been condemned by the gods, that is, by the "powers" which decide historical, earthly destinies).  But to realize this, the exile must be capable of penetrating the hidden meaning of his wanderings, and of understanding them as a long series of initiation trials (willed by the gods) and as so many obstacles on the path which brings him back to the hearth (toward the center).  That means:  seeing signs, hidden meanings, symbols, in the sufferings, the depressions, the dry periods in everyday life.

The image of oneself as an exile is useful on many levels.  Spiritual teachings suggest that we are exiled from our original unity, a unity symbolized by the Garden of Eden and also the cosmic egg.  I think in our "modern," technological age, we can come to feel we are exiles in our own lives.  We have lost many of the rituals and ceremonies that once bound us to the greater whole of the earth and the universe.  So we often find ourselves searching.  This search can be lonely and painful.  But even so, there are meanings we are meant to glean.  Even in the "depressions," even in "the dry periods of everyday life."

I think it's intriguing that Mircea Eliade wrote this entry on the first day of the new year.  I think I want to read this entry every year on January 1st from now on.

Entry excerpted from No Souvenirs:  Journal 1957-1969, Mircea Eliade.  (Harper, 1977).

http://www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/eliade/mebio.htm