THE RETURN - Keeping Ithaka in our minds With GUEST : JOHN VAN PRAAG

SMITTEN BY FAITH ISSUE # 0011 October 16th 2021

Since the publication of the first article in ‘Smitten By Faith’ in August 2021, many of my friends have generously shared with our readers, their refreshing, eloquent and poignant accounts of transforming moments in their lives. All are unique, uplifting and inspiring. Some are journeys – both physical and spiritual. On the latter, I am reminded of J.R.R Tolkien who wrote in ‘Fellowship of the Ring’, “ Not all those who wander are lost” and of Albert Einstein who said, “ Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.”

Today, I am thrilled and delighted to have as my Special Guest, my good friend Dr. John van Praag who has kindly shared with us his erudite and moving article, ‘The Return’ or ‘Nostos’ below.

The effect of reading John’s ‘THE RETURN’ helps me to keep my compass steady and ready – as he tells us to “ …keep Ithaka always in your mind”.  John van Praag is the very rare combination of classical scholar, author, poet, businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist. John is Dutch and like quite a few of  his fellow country people, speaks many languages. However, in John’s case, his multi-lingual skills extend to classical Greek ! You can see this in his brilliant article below, ‘THE RETURN’ or ‘NOSTOS’ in Greek. John is also a poet ( he has written a few bundles of poetry – ‘Echoes of Timelessness’ and ‘Empty Sea’- and as an author, he is currently working on a book on spirituality to be published under the title ‘Beyond Thought’.

John van Praag © Pat Fok

Nonetheless, John is not just up there in the clouds. John is also an extremely successful businessman and entrepreneur. He was Chief Executive Officer, then Vice-Chairman of the InterContinental Hotels Group worldwide, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (United Kingdom), Trustee and Chairman of the Dartington Hall Trust (United Kingdom) and Chairman of the Swiss Eranos Foundation, to name but a few organisations.

John van Praag is married to the very skilful, internationally renowned photographer and author from Hong Kong, Pat Fok. This very busy and accomplished couple travel often, to and from their various homes in Italian Switzerland, London and Hong Kong – I am sure, always keeping Ithaka in their minds.

John with his wife, Pat Fok in Paris © Pat Fok

So, let me take you directly to JOHN VAN PRAAG as he shares his thoughts and wisdom on “ …the human Odyssey through life”.

Athena Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses (Odysseus), oil on canvas

by 18th century artist, Giuseppe Bottani

Pavia, Musei Civici Del Castello Visconteo, Pinacoteca Malaspina

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THE RETURN

BY JOHN VAN PRAAG

Hong Kong, October 16th 2021  

Not long ago, a memory, a vivid image came to me of myself reading in the summer of 1955 in the Netherlands. It was an exceptionally beautiful summer, during which I read all 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey, in its beautiful Ionian Greek, in a hut in the back of the garden of my mother’s house. I was surrounded by dictionaries, commentaries, notebooks as well as fruit trees and flowers. Even though it was part of my preparation for my first university exam as a classics student, it was an experience of joyous recognition. I was transported, far away in place and time.

Today I know why this reading’s effect on me was so profound. It was a first vicarious experience of the archetypal “Nostos”, the Greek word for Return.

Cavafy, in his poem Ithaka (C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, Transl. Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard, Princeton University Press, 1992) finds his perspective on the meaning of life in the Odyssey’s Nostos:

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

…….

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

My own perspective was deepened by another archetypal “travel story” – the opposite one in a way: the one of the Forever-Lost-Return, the story of the cursed Flying Dutchman, the anti-hero, who could never return. I studied that theme in many of its appearances and different versions, both while in university, when I lectured on it, and later while serving as a naval officer, when I published an article on it in the naval officers’ magazine.

I had not thought about the Flying Dutchman for some time, when, after my naval service, I started work for KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines at a time when it still had the words “The Flying Dutchman” prominently displayed on the exterior of each of its airplanes. I always wondered how good an idea it might well be to associate one’s whole fleet, by this reference, with the fate of a cursed anti-hero, who was condemned to “fly” the seas with his sailing ship forever, and who would never return home, forever denied his Nostos.

N’oubliez jamais Ithaque! Don’t ever forget Ithaca! During one of my stays in our home in Paris, I became aware of a visiting theatre group - I believe they were from Brazil - who had set up a theatrical representation of the human Odyssey through life. One was sent alone through a sort of a maze, where different spaces represented the major stages of life. In these, actors interacted with each member of the audience, who thus went physically and psychologically through the various stages of life, from gliding down the “birthcanal”, through childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. The role-playing clearly was adjusted, with great psychological sensitivity and acumen, to the reactions of the individual “traveller”, and each participant travelled alone. I found myself going through a series of deep, cleansing emotions. But what makes this relevant to our story is that a voice from an unseen source kept reminding me, like all participants I suppose, not to get distracted by the life experiences I was going through, and to keep “Ithaque” in mind as the destination of my travels.

What does the Nostos really represent? A phrase from my own poetry (Empty Sea, Utrecht 2006) comes to mind:

I must go home

From far away

 My soul is calling me.

Yes, we are travellers in this lifetime, travellers away from our souls some of the time; but our goal must be the return to Ithaka, to return to our souls. All our energy comes from our deep longing for The Return, for the reunion with the Self. Thence comes our true creativity, our zest for life as much as our fatigue of life. For, also the deep feeling of sadness, of lack of fulfilment, of missing the purpose of life has its grounds in this longing.

So, what is this soul, a word that has been so misused, and so much used with so many different understandings? I believe it is what we experience when we ascend beyond thought to a space that is both empty and full, that is beyond duality, and therefore beyond judgment. There are moments, in meditation, in listening to music, in experiences of Love, when we are reunited with our souls. We are certainly not meant to have to wait to die before we are to experience our own souls, and it is possibly very desirable indeed to experience our souls, that is to return to a true union with our souls, before we die. I believe it is the divine part in us that various religions and teachers denote as High Self, Self, Holy Spirit, Buddha Nature, etc. The quest for it is beyond thought and beyond ritual.

So, The Return as the physical return to the place we come from is a coded representation, a metaphor, of the most important lesson to be learned in this life: we are originally perfect (forget original sin), and our life’s task is to deal with its challenges, learn all of its complexities and secrets, and then to unload it all, and become like little children again, as Jesus urges us, and as a painter like Picasso illustrates in his art. The Return is without baggage: we are to carry only love and gratitude.

To return to Cavafy’s lines:

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

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Editor’s Note :

Dear Reader, thank you for reading this weekly edition of SMITTEN BY FAITH. 

ALL articles in every issue are FREE.

For those of you who upgraded to be a PAID Subscribers for US$ 60.00 a year, thank you so much ! All proceeds go to the Regina Apostolorum Foundation to promote Catholic higher education. 

PAID Subscribers will receive the digital copy of the recent book by Joan Foo Mahony, ‘LATE HAVE I LOVED THEE’ and at the end of 2021, VOLUME ONE 2021 of Smitten By Faith, a yearly digital compilation of each year’s articles. Paid Subscribers will also receive additional exclusive material from time to time.