At the end of Marcel Proust's ‘Time Regained’, the narrator attends the costume ball organised by the Princess of Guermantes. The party is a success: everyone has played the game and taken great care to transform themselves until they are unrecognisable, managing to change their gait, attitude and expression. The make-up distorts the features and alters the physiognomies, creating new pouts, grins and sometimes grimaces. The effect is accentuated by false beards, bald spots and bleached buns, and our character struggles to recognise all the people he knows so well, their appearance so distorted by the ingenuity of lifelike disguises.
Then, as if waking from a dream, he suddenly realises that there is no costume ball, that all the people there are not in disguise, they have simply passed through time, aged. There are no masks, no make-up, no dyes, no tricks, just the natural metamorphosis that time imposes on those who occupy a place in it at any given moment.
It is in this way that time seems to amuse itself with us. But its facetiousness perhaps allows us to understand that we are in time, that we have our place in it just as we do in space.
The energy that dissipates in the transformation of our beings, and that ends up destroying us, cannot - by virtue of the law of yin and yang, the law of opposites - not have its counterpart, which is to build. I believe that we are building together, even if it is difficult to define with certainty what is being built.
I share Stefan Zweig's vision that our lives have deeper currents than the external elements that constantly bring us together and separate us. And beyond the years, the ups and downs of the road, the companions along the way remain the companions along the way, there is a reason for them being there. The person who arrives is the right person, and no snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.
I therefore personally invite all my students, all those who wish to attend, all those who are available, to take part in the Aikido seminar which will be held at Corfe Castle, on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset, in England, on 29, 30 and 31 August.
This event is organised by ITAF, but it is open to all practitioners, regardless of the federation or group in which they practise Aikido. All are welcome.
I will be happy to welcome those who have accompanied me in one way or another, at one time or another. They are all close to me, even those I haven't seen for too long. I'll also be happy to meet new companions. I'll be happy to pass on what I've been able to understand about Aikido, in the spirit of building something together.
Philippe Voarino
A moment in time.
