chapter 10 the monism of darkness and the dualism of limit and ...

MONISM OF DARKNESS - DUALISM OF LIMIT AND INDETERMINACY 73
The common element of the three archetypes is in that they all
express the fertile creative power of Chaotic Indeterminacy, of the
terrible Abyss of Water, of primordial Darkness: the symbolism resides
in the intrinsically continuous and flowing attribute of the fluid
current, of the temporal dimension and of the serpentine progression.
The Ocean is truly, according to Proclus interpreting Orphic
doctrines, the giver of all motion (ÎÈÓ‹Ûˆ˜ êapple¿Û˘ ¯ÔÚËÁfi˜
Commentaria in Platonis Timaeum 40e, III 180.8 Diehl). The Chaos
of Indefiniteness (\AappleÂÈÚ›·) far from being exploded into selfannihilating
multiple mobility assumes one single impulse of
cooperative multidynamism: it becomes a current; it flows into
coming-to-be and such self-disciplined focusing begets the World and
every natural existence within it. This constitutes the flux of Á›ÁÓÂ-
Ûı·È. The philosophical notion of becoming as continuous flowing
finds in this cosmic-religious experience of a cosmic current its root
and subsistence.
The first outcome of the confluence of chaotic fertility generative
of a permanent and stable issue is the separation of Heaven from Earth
which is the beginning of the present World-Order formation. It is
now that the Ocean gains its more specific significance and function as
the current that embraces the Earth at the limits of the World precisely
where Earth is united to Sky in a continuous re-creation of the
archetypal conditions for the fusion of parts in undifferentiated chaos.
Time also becomes homogeneous and uniform succession, measure of
all movements, instead of indefinite, amorphous duration. Ophioneus
is confined to the extremities of the World and beyond, as the first
principle of prolific Unlimitedness, the Universe-encompassing
uroboros Dragon, divinity of the extra-worldly Indeterminacy (\AappleÂÈ-
Ú›·), of precisely the Indeterminacy which when in part limited
produced, at that part, Order out of, and in the midst of, total
Disorder. The separation of Sky from Earth presupposes, in the
Orphic cosmogonies of the Hieronymus-Hellanicus type, the
transformation of Chaos, by means of Time-Ophioneus, into a
Cosmic Egg, and leads to the emergence and manifestion of Eros-
Phanes as the very first creator of Cosmic Order (¢È·ÎfiÛÌËÛȘ). In
all systems, the creation of Sky and Earth is followed by the common
mythological succession of Cronos (Titans), Zeus (Olympians) and
Dionysus (Dionysian company, ı›·ÛÔ˜).