Borissey

On board this small ferry to Ærø (Aero island), it seems a perfect place to read the last chapter of Homer’s Odyssey.
“There’s nothing more evil for mortals than to be a wanderer.”, Odyssey, “that man of great cunning” says on his way home to Ithaka.
“Here at home am I, truly myself,” states Homer’s hero 20 years after leaving Troy victoriously and before staging the blood-soaked vengeance upon the Suitors. It is only after the divine intervention of Zeus, who calls to “Let there be friendship among them,… and let wealth and peace abound”, that his daughter Athena intervenes to end the further carnage: “Stop this harrowing war, you men of Ithaka, so you may go your separate ways without bloodshed, right away.“
While the threat of future bloodshed looms in the air, there is a promise of peace, and that, nearly two and a half millennia after Homer wrote the poem, is what Our story is about.
Peace | War

Our civilization story is about endless wars and the fragile promise of peace.
But what makes the Odyssey so special is the personal dimension of struggle between two other elements that define human existence.
Home | Away

Beautifully crafted for eternity, Homer’s lines are building blocks of Western culture.
It’s an homage to oikos (household = ecology/environment) and xenia (stranger = guest). Family household as a main social unit is the socio-economic foundation of our civilization, and its constant interaction with xenia (the same word defines both stranger and guest). Balancing between them is the skill required to navigate the social complexity through aligning the interests of others with one’s own, which is by definition the art of governance.

But more than all, Homer’s Odyssey is the cathedral of ontology of language.
Heroes, friends, monsters, and enemies- they all live and are made alive through conversations. The poem is the hymn of storytelling that is the fabric that keeps our social world together.

And while the tale of the Odyssey ends, Borissey continues.
The same as Odysseus had hoped things would get easier after leaving Troyan wars behind, I too expected things to get easier after leaving behind the wars in my old country. But, as it turned out, Poseidon (circumstance) had other plans.

Some time after arriving on the beautiful shores of Catalunya, I was diagnosed with Odyssey syndrome. (Syndrome is a condition of intense stress and grief related to experiencing significant difficulties during migration, such as loneliness, helplessness, or lack of opportunities, and is expressed as tension, nervousness, recurring worries, sadness, difficulty sleeping, headaches, and other discomforts.)

My restless nature, boosted by the volatile will of gods (circumstances) left me stuck in a dark place between Home and Away.
After years of forced migration, as a refugee, I got trapped in the labyrinth of Spanish administration. Waiting to get work turned into a never-ending quest filled with absurd and meaningless pursuit of documents, stamps, and appointments.
I got stuck in a dark hole, and only thanks to my beautiful friends and free sessions of psychotherapy did I get out stronger. When I was diagnosed with Odyssey syndrome, I didn’t fully understand more than it is a state that many migrants experience, being trapped between the place of departure and the promise of arrival to something better.
Home | Away

Twenty years later, the winds have carried me North, and I am finally reading the Odyssey.
But my cure came through other Ithaka. It was Cavafy’s lyrics (written in the 20th century) that helped me accept my condition and move on:
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

Both Odyssey and Ithaka are poems, and poetry is mathematics of the soul. For me, reading it is the source of equations that provide me with resilience. Whether it is Homer advising that “In all things, moderation is better”, “This will all come to pass” or Cavafy’s prescribing the journey, it all resonates with me. It is all part of the same equation:

Count on yourself.

As for you, my dear friend, sail on and go on bravely with your life for “Some of it you’ll think up on your own, while some Power will suggest the rest. For I hardly think that you could have been born and raised against the will of the gods”

Odyssey is about Active Hope. It sets the stage for the appearance of religion as active imagination. Today, more than ever, we need Active Hope to navigate Our Ship Earth through the mortal danger of climate change.

I am grateful to whatever wind has brought me here. I pray for some favourable winds to accompany the journey of a wanderer whose name emanates from Boréas, the North Wind, and that it continues aligned with our journey into a Sustainable Future.