Prometheus

November 7, 2022

Man with a hat and a torch in a dark rock cave in Georgia, daylight falling in from the right — No signal, no calendar, just you and the beam of a torch.

Day one hundred and seventy-four, Georgia. I have to get out. Some days the learning and the work and the video calls pile up until I can't see over them. So: into the car.

Google Maps says the entrance to the Prometheus Cave is six kilometres away. Named, presumably, for the god who brought people fire. That will do.

“There are twenty-two halls in the cave. Six are open to visitors. Today we walk one point four kilometres through the underworld,” says the guide.

It sounds like a meditation with a ticket.

At home I loved squeezing through small openings into old caves and abandoned mine workings in the hills. Down there is nothing: no signal, no light, no calendar. You and yourself and the cone of a torch.

The Prometheus Cave is, quite literally, a stroll. The way in is a wide throat of rock, and into it disappear a Japanese couple, several Georgians, some Turks and one German.

We know so little about the world under our feet.

Lit stalactites hanging above a visitor walkway in Prometheus Cave, Georgia — The cave has twenty-two halls, and visitors are allowed into six of them.

Red-lit rock walls and a stairway with railings in the darkness of Prometheus Cave, Georgia — No signal, no calendar, just stairs and coloured light.

Daylight falling through an opening into the dark Prometheus Cave, with rocks and a walkway in front — Outside, the green is waiting; inside, it's me, myself and a cone of light.

Overgrown rock face with a dark opening above white, mossy stones at Prometheus Cave, Georgia — We know so little about the world beneath our feet.

Long, dimly lit tunnel with a wet floor and a line of lights along the ceiling in Prometheus Cave — Here the cave is more corridor than hall, and the corridor is long.

Dark water in a passage of Prometheus Cave, picked out by a bright cone of light — Down here I'm back in my element, only with better lighting than in the old days.

Large hall in Prometheus Cave with a coloured ceiling, a stalagmite and a visitor walkway, Georgia — A meditation with a ticket, scenery included.

Blue and violet-lit cave hall with a walkway leading far down in Prometheus Cave, Georgia — At home I squeezed through narrow holes; here a staircase with a handrail leads down.