Page 292 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

292 from Italy to the Canary Islands

Medieval navigational chart of the Eastern Mediterranean.

itself, Justice, Peace, reuniting with the One.
But those who thought of locating Eden in the East - even St. Thomas
is one of them - would soon have to compete with those who argue that the
exact place is the West. Navigation, especially of thought, ancient myths
brought back to light, the fervour of peoples such as the Celts and the
Cimbri who, referring - maybe lyrically - to the natural phenomenon of
the decline of the sun, from its drowning in the horizon, conceived those
“marvellous islands” beyond the ocean, where the immense ball of light
sets. From there the sun rose to the role of revealer: its (momentary) exit
from the world of men, in a yonder ocean, would become the decisive
moment to feed one’s certainty. Right there! Even belief needed a picture,
and there was visibility.
The sun’s decline at that point was a sign, like fortune telling. The For-
tunate Isles, at that point, with that sublime and daily sinking, had to be in
the West. But were the Fortunate Islands actually Paradise? A voyage led