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The Platypus Reads Part IX


This is what was on the other side of the hill. -just hop the stone wall in Pratt's back yard.

How much of life is an attempt to reconcile past and present? How much of ourselves has already been defined, and how much is open to us to change? These are questions I find myself asking. Most of the time it's about other people. - sometimes it's about me.

In Aeschylus' Oresteia, past and present meet and reconcile. Through the sufferings of the House of Atreus, we come to learn that our history and our future are inseparable, and therefore present with us every moment of our existence. Far from being things to be escaped or desired, rushed on to or gotten over with, they are a unity that we must accept with wisdom. Apollo, the eternal youth, attempts to use brute strength to destroy the past, in the form of the Furies, and force the future, in the form of Orestes, and fails. Athena, goddess of wisdom, accepts both and succeeds, bringing renewal and balance to the realms of gods and men. The play ended three years ago, but I'm still pondering what that means.

All-Seeing Zeus and Fate embrace, down they urge their union on. Cry! Cry in triumph through the streets! Carry the dancing on and on!

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