by Gary Powell

There are different genres of betrayal, to use a musical term. By definition, betrayals are compromises of our trust either by greed or passion. However, there are worse betrayals.

The source of these betrayals is always detectable in psychology, but how do we divine the source and prevent it from happening again? More important, how do we recognize any responsibility we may have in it?

There are those secret-life betrayals which cause offense outside of all acknowledged agreements or honored traditions. A Herculean effort must be mounted just to go forward after this kind of disconsolate discovery. These are the private betrayals, but the public betrayals can be more injurious yet.

There is also the betrayal served to us at the secret discretion of the institution, the corporation or… wherever large groups of individuals with, what Austin therapist Amy Person calls “lost voices”, gather. All manner of atrocities have been perpetrated on humanity in the name of “US”, at the price of “ME”. This is the slow-burn betrayal which can unknowingly obstruct our productive and passionate contributions to this world for an entire lifetime.

All these different shades of betrayal are common and experienced by nearly everyone.

On the other hand, we are seldom aware when our APTITUDE or our POSSIBILITIES have been hijacked!

Slavery, certainly, is the blackest of all betrayals as it extinguishes our corporal, natural, inherited, learned and earned humanity. Common slavery is easily identified. However, how do we know when our very “personal intellect” itself has been misappropriated or conscripted into service? This idea of “personal intellect” lives at the core of Galileo’s wonderful gift, which unfortunately existed during an unenlightened time in a place where the keepers of “lost voices” held court.

Galileo Galilei knows betrayal. Under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church Inquisition Court, Galileo, one of the greatest minds ever produced by humanity, was sentenced to life in prison for THINKING. Actually, he was way past just thinking. His thoughts were not idle musings. They were scientifically PROVEN, yet a small-minded institution stripped him of his intellectual voice and every other expression of freedom.

In the show, Aristotle’s Prayer, Galileo’s grief is presented in the song, “How Do I Go On from Here?”, and was written from this intellectual giant’s very public perspective of his own betrayal. It immediately follows the song of his trial, “The Boys in Red”. It’s not a dead, historical betrayal with no meaning or feeling. It is a betrayal which we each may share with Galileo, but have yet to feel the knife.

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