Penia

Poverty.

Plotinus' aforementioned tractate on Love mentioned that it was well known that Eros was the child of Aphrodite, even with Plato, but then went on the mention a line in Symposium that revealed Eros to not be the son of Aphrodite, but born on her birthday, child of Penia and Poros (possession or wealth).  This, in my mind, would make love the child of have and have not, which would make Eros the basic human condition of wanting what you don't have, and reducing something that (in terms of the "Eros, Philos, and Agape" of loves) was passionate love, to something material.  Unless, being the child of poverty and wealth, he would want not because he has both, and thus simply be free to just love, without distraction from silly things like possession or lack thereof.  That would, of course, mean that true, passionate love amongst us mortals is dependent upon this material distraction, and the only way to truly achieve and appreciate this aspect of love is to successfully want not.  Then you have to insert the Western mind, which defines passionate love as wanting something, instead of simply appreciating the beauty that exists in something, and reducing it to the uselessness of a possession.

This seems to be completely contradictory of Greek philosophy, from which the Western mind evolved.  How did something so absolutely beautiful evolve into something so disgustingly shallow in the same chain of though?  There is one thing that changed the landscape of mankind's mind and attitude dramatically over the last 2500 years, and only one thing: religion.  I don't much like it when people refer to the Greeks as "Western" philosophy, because they weren't nearly as severely Patriarchal as what the Romans and Religion did to the world, the aftermath of which we are still suffering.  In fact, I have found all the Greek literature that I've read to be incredibly spiritual and beautiful, even downright Zen, especially with the Stoics.  Religion destroyed that mind and philosophy.

Monday is Sienna, in my neck of the woods (Joshua Tree sunrise), and I am embarrassingly emotionally unprepared.  I've been so knee deep in work lately that this completely snuck up on me, as did June, in general.  Everything will be beautiful, because that's how everything turns out, but it dawned on me that... this is it.  The season of a little bit of extra money for models is over, as of now.  Who really knows what this summer will bring, or life itself for that matter?  Right now, however, we are back to making ends meet, which is depressingly beautiful in its own right.  Just keep breathing, Penia.  Just keep breathing.