Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain 13

13


I meet Aristotle

Another day Kalogiros asked if I would like to meet Aristotle.

I said I would certainly like to but that it was rather impossible because Aristotle was long dead. “Not so”, replied Kalogiros. “Aristotle is simply the title of a very special person. An Aristotle type of person.” He explained to me that there is an “Aristotle” in every living generation of Greeks and he happened to know this generation’s Aristotle very well. He also said that the other famous Greeks I had heard of like “Sophocles”, for example, were not historic individuals at all, but simply living persons “holding” the title for a time and having the attributes of a “Sophocles” type of person.

Kalogiros explained to me that our generation’s Aristotle is a gentleman educator and writer living on a beach near Thessaloníki. That afternoon we rode his motorcycle in tandem out to Aristotle’s place so I could meet the great man.

I discovered that our Aristotle had a small house with the things a house typically has, but that he himself could usually be found near his house seated on a six foot square platform on top of a steel tower maybe thirty feet high engaged in writing using a small mechanical portable typewriter —and sure enough, on top of the tower is where we found him. Kalogiros called up asking permission for us to climb the ladder to his platform. He invited us to climb on up and I was soon being introduced to someone I had never thought to meet in this life: Aristotle.

The day was very hot so Aristotle was only wearing a pair of tattered tan shorts. He was a man of about seventy, I suppose—short, very brown and bald but with a long white beard, brilliant Santa Claus eyes and a congenial smile. At the time of this visit I had long brown hair and beard since I had been pilgrimming by bicycle for many months. I was wearing rubber sandals, shorts and a tee shirt. Kalogiros was also simply dressed.

Aristotle spoke no English but was obviously delighted that I had come with Kalogiros to meet him. He and Kalogiros had a lively discussion in Greek for half an hour and then it was time for us to go.

I was absolutely charmed by the whole incredible meeting and before we climbed down from the platform I reached down to touch the feet of the great sage as a sign of respect. He laughed joyfully when I did and reached down and touched my foot! Then he climbed down the ladder with us, went into his little house and brought out a bound copy of his book—a most unusual professionally printed book using several colors of ink with one layer of writing superimposed upon another in a different color. (Oddly enough, I had dreamed of holding pages of similar multi-colored print and pictures on and off for years.) He gave me a copy of his book and asked me to take it with me back to America—which I did.

Later at his apartment, Kalogiros found me painstakingly translating the book with the aid of a Greek/English dictionary. “No. That’s impossible,” he said “There are only about four people on earth beside me who can understand Aristotle’s writing at this time, and we are all very familiar with classical and modern Greek. It is an encoded book—not intended for just anyone to understand.” Kalogiros told me that he had been a student of Aristotle at a university before Aristotle left his position as a professor to write in freedom on the beach.

He said that Aristotle’s writing was not for this age anyway, but for a future time when people were ready for it.

(Several years after this meeting, I carried the copy I received from Aristotle to Albuquerque, New Mexico and gave it to a professor of Ancient languages at the university there who was an old friend of my father. Perhaps this singular copy of Aristotle’s mysterious book will be preserved for that future day in the dry New Mexico desert.)

Tomasito, 2009


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