Journeys – Page 3

Higher Self Yoga: Consciousness in the Divine Comedy

December 30, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“[. . .] As an example, consider this scene at the bottom of the mountain of Purgatory. These souls have figured out how to get out of hell and have crossed the river to this mountainous island. The journey up the mountain (toward increasing freedom from destructive patterns and closer to higher consciousness) waits for them.

“What do they do? They turn away from the mountain, hang out on the shoreline, and stare out at the water waiting for entertainers to arrive: TV channel surfing, 14^th Century style. Fortunately, Dante himself is being guided to start to climb the mountain because there is much more waiting for him if he ascends. He does so, and at the very top he meets Beatrice, his Higher Self, who then guides him into higher states of consciousness in paradise.” [. . .] –Dr. Richard Schaub Ph.D., Higher Self Yoga, July 8, 2020

Darby’s Inferno Blog Post by Wrestling Fan Molly Belle (2021)

November 26, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“Of all I have found fascinating about the journeys within All Elite Wrestling since its inception, one has piqued my interest more than any other. It’s one that has been a masterful work of art since the beginning, both in storytelling and in execution. Highlighted by subtle, emotional cues and incredibly beautiful black and white independent film work, Darby Allin has become this enigmatic darkness while simultaneously existing as AEW’s light.

“He doesn’t shy away from challenges – even in the face of certain destruction. His body, merely a vessel for a drive unmatched in professional wrestling; Darby walks alone. The obstacles he has had to overcome – both in his life and in his career – have been immense. Yet, he hasn’t strayed when many would have. He stays true to himself and grinds through the blackness to walk out the other side a changed man, but not in the way many would change. No, Darby emerges from hell as determined as ever and ready to fight another day.

“But that doesn’t mean his journey isn’t a perilous one. He will have lost pieces of himself along the way. Defining moments in one’s life require such sacrifice. Not only does Darby enter such hazardous conditions willingly, but he does so with the understanding that one day one journey will be his last. Until then, he walks on – half of his face painted to remind us and to remind himself that many years ago, part of his soul already entered into the unknown. He walks, still with honor to distinguish himself among monsters who may do him harm. He walks, still determined to walk through hell and climb out not unscathed but instead unburnt. He walks, still…

“This is Darby’s Inferno.” [. . .] –Molly Belle, Wrestle Inn, March 3, 2021

Belle makes further connections between Darby Allin’s journey within wrestling and Dante’s Inferno including references to various sins (namely, violence). Read more here.

Inferno, Romeo Castellucci (2008)

November 21, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

[. . .] “Romeo Castellucci attempts to ‘hurl down The Divine Comedy on the earth of a stage’. He offers the spectator, in three stages and at three venues of the Festival, a crossing, the experience of a Divine Comedy.

“Inferno is a monument of pain. The artist must pay. In a dark wood in which he is immediately plunged, he doubts, he fears, he suffers. But what sin is the artist guilty of? If he is thus lost, it is because he does not know the answer to this question. Alone on the large stage, or on the contrary, walled in by the crowd and confronted with the world’s hubbub, the man that Romeo Castellucci puts on stage fully suffers, bewildered from this experience of loss of self. Everything here aggresses him, the violence of the images, the fall of his own body into matter, the animals and spectres. The visual dynamic of this show possesses the consistency of this stupor, sometimes this dread, that seizes the man when he is reduced to his paltriness, defenceless faced with the elements that overwhelm him. But this fragility is a resource, however, because it is the condition of a paradoxical gentleness. Romeo Castellucci shows each spectator that at the bottom of his own fears there is a secret space, marked by melancholy, in which he hangs on to life, to ‘the incredible nostalgia of his own life.'” [. . .] —Festival D’Avignon, 2008

Watch segments of the show here.

Relatedly, see our post on Romeo Castellucci’s earlier 2002 commendation here.

This theatrical piece will be discussed by scholar Sara Fontana in her contribution to the forthcoming volume Dante Alive.

The Mathematics of The Divine Comedy

November 19, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“As God’s Creation, we experience a physical realm of differentiated entities and perceive multiplicity in our material reality. The character of Beatrice utilizes this fact in Paradiso 2 when she proposes the mirror experiment. The experiment combines mathematical, geometrical, and optical/physical principles to demonstrate spiritual truths. This experiment, especially its utilization of reflection, plants a seed in Dante, prodding him on his journey to the Divine: ‘Nature offers to the symbolic poet clearly denotable objects in-depth and in the round, which yield the analogies to the higher senses.’ [19] In the Primo Mobile, Dante the poet utilizes these same principles as he approaches the dimensionless punto of the Divine, the source and ground of all being.”[. . .] –Matthew Canonico, University of Notre Dame: Church Life Journal, April 28, 2021

Read the full analysis here.

Hexperos, “Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life” (2020)

November 14, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

Hexperos’ 2020 release, “Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life” draws inspiration from Canto I of the Inferno.

“‘Midway upon the journey of our life, we could found ourselves within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.’ Never there was a sentence more apt to describe the disturbance we all feel at some point of our lives, when we feel lost, empty and we don’t know if the road that we have chosen, the journey of life undertaken, is actually the right one for us.

“The songs are stories of life, of sharing as well as in the Divine Comedy. As a matter of fact, who is in pain, often makes new encounters, shares their stories, through sharing and listening to the experiences of others we grow, we find a light in the darkness.” [. . .] — Alessandra Santovito, Hexperos

Listen to the song here.

Learn more about Hexperos on their website, here.

Album art by Nicolás Menay

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