The Recovery of Archaic Lithuanian Thinking: A Mythopoetic Worldview

Abstract

This article argues that the recovery of the archaic Lithuanian tradition and the old way of life cannot be approached as the theoretical reconstruction of some artificially structured system; they can be recovered only insofar as they can be directly and naturally experienced. In other words, the very idea that the archaic tradition was a kind of an artificial system that can be reconstructed and preserved in a text today is limited and does not reveal the vitally important nuances of the way of life of our archaic Lithuanian ancestors. Any attempt to reveal the distinctiveness of the archaic Lithuanian tradition transcends the limitations of a merely theoretical reconstruction and can be approached as its recovery and preservation in another living organic whole that can be seen as a kind of a resonator, a certain shared understanding and openness of consciousness able to conceive one or another stratum of ancestral experience. Such an attempt should not be limited by the argument that an old cosmology, agriculture, or way of life is not directly applicable in its primordial form today. Creatively reintegrated into today’s world, the tradition can open up in unexpected, newly reborn forms revealing and preserving the distinctiveness of our Lithuanian ancestors’ way of life.