“The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible.”
Simone Weil inspired my awareness that Aphrodite is the keystone of the Sky-Veil cosmology
The cosmology of the Sky-Veil is one of heralds, veiled presence, and foreshadowing by the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera who are not metaphysical entities but hypostatic heralds1 of the faith the Greco-Roman world yearned for before the coming of Christ. The keystone to the vaulted archway leading into the Veil is Aphrodite as the herald of divine beauty and love. She is not the incarnation of beauty and love which alone comes in Jesus Christ. However, her beauty in the ancient world—and even today in our latent sense of being drawn over the threshold toward divine love—makes the possibility of Incarnation feel real. The mythopoetry of the Sky-Veil is, in part, for the purpose of revealing Aphrodite’s heraldry of divine beauty and love in the liminal space.
The inspiration for this awareness of Aphrodite’s central role in the Sky-Veil comes from Simone Weil, who did not speak of the goddess directly but wrote with piercing insight that nevertheless sheds light on Aphrodite’s role.
Poetry: impossible pain and joy. A poignant touch, nostalgia. Such is Provençal and English poetry. A joy which by reason of its unmixed purity hurts, a pain which by reason of its unmixed purity brings peace. Beauty: a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.
Weil, Simone. Gravity And Grace (p. 153). (Function). Kindle Edition.
The “Provençal and English” mythopoetry of the Sky-Veil is the unconcealing of an “unmixed purity” that hurts—Aphrodite—the pain of which brings peace. In the Sky-Veil, Aphrodite is no longer the capricious, seductive, troublemaking goddess of ancient pagan imagination, but the “unmixed purity” of Beauty “we look at without trying to seize.” In this revealing, Aphrodite shimmers as a light in the darkness, drawing us through the archway into the Veil in the pain that brings peace. She is not a real entity—such as a saint—but a dynastic bearer2 across the liminal meadows of the Sky-Veil. As a gleaming herald, Aphrodite is not a goddess to be worshipped but an awareness of the presence of Beauty directed to God in the liminal valleys, rivers, and streams—the “experience of the experience.”
In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty there really is the presence of God. There is as it were an incarnation of God in the world and it is indicated by beauty.
Weil, Simone. Gravity And Grace (p. 153). (Function). Kindle Edition.
In this cosmology, we do not pray to Aphrodite—she is not a divine entity. She is not an entity at all. However, we do give our “attention” to her as the faintly shimmering light heralding the truly divine on the far boundaries of the Sky-Veil where we do pray. “Attention” is another key theme in Weil’s writing. For Simone, attention is highly correlated with prayer.
The key to a Christian conception of studies is that prayer consists of attention. The quality of attention counts very much in the quality of prayer.
Weil, Simone. Awaiting God (p. 21). (Function). Kindle Edition.
There is an attention to beauty in the Sky-Veil cosmology that is of the highest quality and leads to the highest quality of prayer. As the highest quality, this beauty cannot be expressed in mere language, much less in “concepts.”
For me, prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The Story of a Soul (Manuscript C)
The Being-ness of Beauty can be sensed only by a shimmering “herald.” Aphrodite.
The cosmology of the Sky-Veil is not expressed in metaphysical terms. To place one’s attention on beauty as a concept or an ideal—such as in Plato—is to fall from the Sky-Veil, back to the Grey-Beneath of shadows (a stunning paradox to Plato’s Cave!). The expression of Beauty—Aphrodite—in the Sky-Veil is a “thinking of Being-ness.” Therefore, we do not look to faceless, humorless Platonic “ideas” but to the shimmering aura of Beauty which can best be embodied in language and imagery as “Aphrodite.” This shift in our gaze from calculative intellect to untouched “thinking” is a necessary “not-understanding” that moves us closer to the mystery we seek beyond the veil in Thérèse’s “surge of the heart.”
Although today we seem ignorant to it, the formation of the faculty of attention is the true goal and unique interest of all studies. If someone searches with true attention for the solution to a geometric problem, and if after about an hour has advanced no further than from where they started, they nevertheless advance, during each minute of that hour, in another more mysterious dimension. Without sensing it, without knowing it, this effort that appeared sterile and fruitless has deposited more light in the soul. The fruit will be found later, one day in prayer.
Weil, Simone. Awaiting God (pp. 21-22). (Function). Kindle Edition.
The effort will produce results. Though there is no indication that Weil was influenced by Martin Heidegger, the resemblance of her “attention” as the liminal antecedent to productive prayer with Heidegger’s “thinking” is striking.
Aphrodite is the keystone of the Sky-Veil cosmology for this reason. In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty there really is the presence of God. Metaphysically, we can create concepts that rely on Platonic forms. However, to do so is never to ascend into the Sky-Veil and beyond. It is merely to “think beautiful thoughts” while foraging through the Grey-Beneath seeking sustenance. To be free of the Grey-Beneath and ascend the Sky-Veil is to “think” rather than intellectualize. It is to give “attention” to beauty rather than describe it in the scaffolding of philosophical ideas. It is to see Aphrodite not as a metaphysical entity but as the faint shimmering circumscribing our attention that draws us through the Veil to the true Beauty of God.
The ancient Greeks had a sense for this. As pagans they could not see beyond the shadows. However, God prepared the Greco-Roman world to receive his Son. Upon His resurrection, He redeemed them, and their impulses formerly lost in the shadows became gleaming lights in the liminal space—The Sky-Veil.
In the Sky-Veil, Aphrodite makes the possibility of Incarnation feel real.
“The gods of the heathen are not nothing; they are shadows of God.” ~ St. John Henry Newman.3
Enjoy “Aphrodite - This is Remembrance” from my newly released album, “The Sky-Veil” available on my website, WalterEmerson.com and all your favorite streaming platforms.
Lyrics ©Walter Emerson Adams. Music and vocals by Suno. ©Walter Emerson Adams.
Aphrodite - This is Remembrance A Vision at the Threshold of Love Quietly. There was not a sound No thunder shook the sky or ground Only beauty. Only presence. Aphrodite’s speech, love’s essence She held in hand a flask, soft light Smooth and clear like drops of starlight Aphrodite, radiant, spoke “A Remembrance” in you awoke “It will not tell you who you are It will remind what is not far” She softly placed it in his palm The rose beside glowed bright and calm At her feet, a seal unfolded Like dew catching daylight golden The Blooming Rose over Water Aphrodite, Love’s first daughter “Love does not name but it prepares The soul who’s called and wills to dare” Then she was gone into the mist Along the path, the fields amidst ©Walter Emerson Adams
Hypostatic Heralds - Figures who bear the presence of a hypostatic form. The goddesses are hypostatic heralds: they do not possess Being, but they announce it. As heralds, they invite the soul to a deeper contemplation of divine attributes. They are real in their effect and presence, though not personal subjects or metaphysical beings.
Dynastic Bearers - Figures or presences—such as the goddesses—who carry and transmit the lineage of divine attributes across time and imagination. They are not beings but serve as the shimmering of Being. As dynastic bearers, they prefigure the ultimate reign of sanctity in the saints.
St. John Henry Newman, in Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 2, Section 1
“The religion of Christ is the fulfillment of the promises of the old Law; it is also the completion of the revelations of nature and of the aspirations of the human heart. The gods of the heathen are not nothing; they are shadows of God. For they are not creations of mere fancy, but perversions and distortions of the truth.”
“They are the witnesses of man's need and of God's providence: they are not the truth, but the expression of it when there was nothing more than expression. They are not divine, but they are the ghosts of divinity.”