By Deligina Prifti
It begins with a leap.
A scorching soil soaking a drop of water, a hollow clam luring a grain of sand, an open set of arms encircling another pair of battered and morose shoulders, a plum dough infolding a handful of seeds, a remote neuron enclosing the remains of a melody, a dry and dark room fermenting clusters of grapes into a liquid emotional activator also known as wine, a cardiac muscle pulsating tens of times faster within the duration of a sudden kiss.
Leaps of physical, biological, social or emotional urges take off with one sole purpose. To be received. From a submicroscopic to a galactic scale, every moment countless such leaps are trying to get across and complete a known or unknown journey of transformation. This transformation is nothing else than a form of reception.
Reception is simultaneously an action and a process since it requires from both sides to be introduced with one another, engage in a form of transaction and finally acquire a new identity. If we were to apply the idea of reception as a universal transfiguring process of practically everything, it is of no wonder that humans borrowed the basic principles of reception and employed its patterns to the center of every social and personal ceremony.
First of all, humans survive and evolve in the realms of innumerable biological receptions taking up both the roles of the receiver and the accommodator which is why under the eluding surface of stillness, the human body sets its sensory and cellular receptors to perform an impressive and highly complex number of tasks in order to remain alive. Our bodily and psychological alertness is basically our primary means of survival and thrive. The bitter taste of a fruit, the heavy smell of ash in the air, the uncanny smile of a stranger or the roaring sound from the deeps of a warm cave, were nothing less than physiological extensions of our sensory receptors that created an experiential “hard drive” of dos and don’ts which later came to be baptized as intuition or even acts godly interventions.
Apart from its physiological dimension humans borrowed from the processes of reception the basic tools of learning, behaving and feeling. Most of our valuable relationships derive from the duality that is taking place within and during a reception: master and student, merchant and buyer, artist and visitor, host and guest, priest and believer, lover and lover. The examples are of course endless and they seem to multiply by every passing minute during our lives. However, in contrast to chemistry or physics the aspects of social and emotional receptions are often quite mysterious and perplexing, mimicking the course of human life itself.
Take for example the relationship between humans and works of art. Their significance, layers of meaning, added ideas such as of beauty and timelessness and overall value, are shifting not just within social trends and fashions but within ourselves. A work of art can become an alluding vanishing point of discovery and rediscovery of a truth that we never noticed was there before. Thus, through a continuous practice of cultural receptions we can construct a perception of the world around us. If several similar perceptions start to collide we can safely call it the dawn of a new civilization. Of course, there can be no form of perception without the quintessential preceding need and discipline of reception.
We can imagine every act of reception as an encapsulation of time within which there is a constant change of endless billowy moves trying to balance the scale between the accommodator and the receiver. If this balance is acquired then the transaction leaves them both altered and in some cases in possession of something else that is being derived as well. A new relationship, a new substance, an experience. Because what is an experience other than a conscious or unconscious intention to receive any kind of external stimulus, transcribe it and carry it as an invisible tattoo?
When it comes to shaping and noting our complex understanding around the idea of reception, none of these traverses would have been possible without the use and existence of the present continuous. Something is being now, but how long is now exactly, and what is changing during this series of ongoing nows? In this instance, the invention of the present continuous reflects our profound wonder and acuteness on the impact of every act of reception that a human is choosing or is bound to experience.
From point A to point B a dot sets to cross a minute distance and whether this is a repeating route or an endeavor to the unknown is of little importance since within this leap a vital transformation of incorporeal or even physical identity is taking place. Let us now sculpt this dot into a human hero beginning a journey on a wooden ship or a high speed boat. During their quest for food and water or a luxury suite, something fundamental shifts and our hero becomes an unknown, a xenos.
Xenos is one of the most fascinating ancient Greek words that encapsulates social, cultural and philosophical origins of multilayering meanings. Within its wide semiotic spectrum a xenos can either be a person who is simply not indigenous to the place they are visiting, a hostile outside threat or even a traveler seeking refuge and—most importantly—friendly reception. The last aspect became a sacred ceremonial commodity of antiquity during the Homeric times as an act of profound theological roots. Zeus, the king of the gods, was often named Xenios, since he oversaw all the acts of philoxenia that were held in his name. The deriving word philoxenia is still in use today and also holds a complex semiotic charge that can only be partially explained.
Philoxenia literally means to receive every xenos as a friend (philos) and sheds light to the extents of a sacred ceremony of reception that varied from highly elaborate and lush to the most humble of circumstances. The act of inquiring to be received without any back thoughts of deception and accordingly the honoring of such a request without malice was a reflection of virtue and respect not only towards the gods but also among fellow humans. Some archaeologists believe that due to philoxenia the first great Greek cities began to flourish and develop impressive connections of economic and cultural importance. If we were to look for instances of philoxenia in the context of Homeric poems, we could safely say that the Odyssey is basically a twenty-year-long narrative of differentiating receptions varying from catastrophic examples (reception on the island of Cyclops or the suitors in Ithaca) to knee-shaking ones (reception of the Phaeacians or Odysseus’s final reception).
Since we took the fascinating road of etymology I would like to explain the title of this text. Dexiosis is the Greek word for reception and derives from the verb “dechomai—δέχομαι” which means to receive. The root dek- also extends its branches to a vast number of words three of which are dexi, dexiosi and dexamenes.
Dexi is called the right side and the word dexiosi was used to describe a very particular reception for the ancient Greeks. It was said that right was the hand with which they gave or received something, the hand with which they greeted or welcomed and finally the hand which was raised when they addressed their gods.
Dexiosi was the embrace of the two right hands and was used as a sculptural symbol of burial monuments. Thus this handshake became the last farewell, the last act of grief created by death but also a symbol of continuity, a memento of deeper understanding about our circular presence and about the notion that the last and most important remain was the impact that we had with our fellow humans.
Finally, Dexamenes are still called the tanks, the containers of liquid substances, mainly of wine. Within these containers both a material and a ceremonial process was taking place and this cultural fermentation can still be traced with the term “think tanks”. We like to believe that cognitive and unconscious forces are being received within actual or imaginary boundaries within which we inquire as xenoi a warm and understanding reception. Our bodies and minds often carry the load of a weary wanderer who only asks a contemporary refuge where they can allow and even desire some kind of transformation to happen.
And who knows, what kind of experience can be transcribed within a space of Dexamenes?
