words of the day "Apotheosis" & "Daimon"

Well, well, my dearies, what have we here? ( said in the tone of the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz).

I am packed and ready to go to Amsterdam. I have miraculously made time to do nothing but answer email and write blogs for the next 3 hours. I had an amazing weekend attending the Landmark Wisdom Course 5th weekend. I am about to repeat that weekend with the European "Landmarkians" in Amsterdam. While the course here is mostly full of people from Vancouver BC, Portland and Seattle. The European course is full of well, uhm, Europeans. Silly, I know it is one of those peculiarly American handicaps that I rarely think about world geography. How small Europe is geographically. I mean what if every state in the USA had it's own language and it's own government ( well states do ya' know...). What I mean is I will get to meet a great many people from a wide diversity of countries by going to a country that is barely larger than the geography of Seattle by itself. Yippee!

I hope to adequately express some of what I learned this past weekend here and my struggle for self acceptance.
I want to explain the title of this blog entry:

"Apotheosis": 1) deification 2) exaltation as of a person or ideal. Basically, Apotheosis refers to the act of turning a person or ideal into a god.

I had a lot of exquisite conversations this weekend. Many of the conversations involved people praising and complimenting me. I struggled with being able to take in the compliments and be present to my impact on others. I struggled against self demeaning thoughts and unwillingness to recognize my greatness. I wondered if people were actually seeing me or projecting some grandeur onto me that was not inherently there.
The compliments about my hair and my appearance were paradoxically the most welcome and the most feared. I did get a new haircut. I have been working out doing Yoga and Water Aerobics. I do look attractive and healthier. Simultaneously, my high school aged self was muttering responses to the compliments like: "What do they want?"; "Why are they saying that?"; or, "What was wrong with the way I looked before?"
My partner David has been telling me for weeks that I look radiant and that my hairstyle is "sporty". It is easier to dismiss compliments from the ones you love most because , well, they love you. More than 10 people told me they liked my hair. I guess my hair must be cool now. Ironically, it has been a joke of mine for the last few years that as I continue to find my Femme identity, I am still not able to "Have a hairdo". I guess I'll have to retire that conversation.

Upon reflection, I find that there have been many instances in my life when I have " fallen into apotheosis". Usually this synchronizes with when I have "fallen in Love". Hmm, really? Oh yes, of course, you betcha'. There are also times when I have a new concept or idea and I am certain this idea is the center of the Universe or can explain all things. In fact I made an art piece for Bruce Nealley in 1998 called Apotheosis when I realized I had once again left the center of my being to adore and idolize another human. Apotheosis. It is tempting to move the location of the divine out and away from your own core. So much easier to see love in another. So much easier to worship at an altar outside of the SELF. I need constant reminders to build my life around the core of myself. The Divine inside of me is the relationship that needs tending to when I am out of balance. It is just too easy to make another person your god and then beat them up because you are worshipping them. Ya Dig what I mean?
I also think that I frequently lapse into asking another person to fill spaces and do things for me that are not appropriate for another person to do for me. David Schnarch calls this being other- referenced. In his world the ideal is to be self-referenced. Being as spiritual as I am I sometimes prefer SELF-referenced or SELF centered as in "centered in SELF". For example, I say this every now and again to a counseling client or friend in need: Is it really ethical to ask another person to do something for you that you are not willing to do for yourself? I mean why should I ask Ms. X to love me when I am not willing to love myself. It is my job to "get right with the gods" and mend my relationship with the SELF and the Universe ( all that is). Why would I ask another person to do that for me? That's an inside job. Rainer Maria Rilke is a great writer to turn to to help explore these ideas. A book of his essays and poems called "On Love and other Difficulties" is very helpful for ordering yourself and preparing for "the work of love"

Saturday evenings during the Wisdom Weekend intensives there is always some sort of social event. Social events are opportunities to expand our network of conversations and to participate in our originating circles and to acknowledge and appreciate those in our lives who "give us our lives" by simply being in our lives. During the social events, in fact during every Landmark event, there is a time for Sharing. This means people get up to the microphone and talk about what has been happening in their lives. The ways of thinking and speaking given in Landmark Education are different from our common culture and definitely have an impact. Sometimes people have breakdowns and some times people have breakthroughs, these two perspectives are usually hot on the heels of each other.

On Saturday I was asked to share "What has the Wisdom Course given me". I told everyone present the story of "How I manifested my trip to Amsterdam" which you can read here as my November 8th blog post. I also told them a lot of other stuff which I will post here under a separate title soon. After my share several people came up to tell me how inspired and awed they were by my sharing. The next day more people said the same. One person in particular said that their guest who had never been to any Landmark events before asked " Do you think that's really true what she said about going to Amsterdam?". I laughed and realized that to some people, maybe a lot of people, my story could seem like a fairy tale. It may occur to people that I am lying or telling a made up story.
Frequently, when people hear or see something that is beyond their common experience they will either exalt or demonize the person or event. We are constantly , conditioned by our dualistic uber culture, evaluating all experience as if it could only belong in one of two boxes 1) good
2) bad. We are trained to be so judgemental that our ability to even listen to another person or experience life itself, is eclipsed by our brain making judgements and comparisons: "Is that true?" "Do I believe that?" "Did that just happen?" Our squirrel brains natter on creating a filter between ourselves and life itself. Good/Bad Male/Female Light/Dark Matter/Light it just goes on and on.
False dichotomy as my over educated feminist soaked brain is fond of spewing out. Kate Borenstein taught me to use a more easily digested phrase "either/or" choices. Realize that when you can only think of two options in a situation that you are living in the illusion of dualism. There are always more than two options, there is always more than two of anything. Think about that for a minute, okay?

Daimon is the origin or root word for the word Demon (etymological source: Latin. daemon or daemonium, Greek. daimonion:a guardian spirit). Daimon originally referred to a spirit of place that protected or guarded that place. As history rolled over the Greek and Latin cultures and brought the great dualistic and father idolizing religions into prominence, spirits of place were eclipsed by the " one true god". Daimons became demons and the animate world became an empty world of things, spiritless objects. Demons are now evil spirits. To demonize someone is to project evil intent or assign an evil essence to a person

So commonly when we are in the presence of a new person or new experience that challenges our knowledge base, ( the knowledge we had up until exposure to that new person or event), we are tempted to either elevate or denigrate that person or event. They are either a god of some kind, or a demon of some kind. Immediately our tendency to judge and evaluate comes into play and we compare ourselves to the person or event. " I can't do that", "I can do better than that". "That's good", "That's bad!" In a very simplistic either or culture this might become: "They are like god", "They are like the devil". we then look for ways to justify the judgemetn we have made.

"When I am good: Apotheosis occurs and when I am bad, I'm a demon".
Okay so what? What's with all the definitions and mini history lessons already?

Okay, I'll tell you, I'm trying to get to the point but it takes a little background.

When I was studying Ghandi in my peace studies class in Stephens College ( yes, 1981!), I really did not like Ghandi. I was a pleasure seeking pagan feminist. He was a body aviodant spiritual devotee to deprivation who held his wife responsible for his own lustful impulses. I had a lot of judgement as a 20 year old anarcho-feminist "should". I had to write a paper on how Ghandi was relevant to me. I had a hell of a time and i fought within myself fiercely to find a way to relate to this guy. I mean lots of dudes do great works socially but are complete demons in their personal lives, right? So I read and reread his biography and finally there was a quote from him in the introduction that gave me a "eureka!" moment. I just returned from an hour long web search but failed to find the exact quote I am looking for.
The intent and one possible meaning of the quote is: Ghandi says , "Do not call me Mahatma, Saint" or other revered titles, for when you do you remove from yourself the responsibility to find your own Truth and live it. In "getting" this quote I realized that I had been so busy judging and comparing myself to him, that I was not able to even see who he had been. Why did Ghandi's greatness threaten me so? Why was I so alarmed by his legacy that I had to demonize him? The paper I wrote was about this realization and my new understanding that Ghandi's life called me to be present to my own life. I saw that I had a responsibility to determine my own Truth. I saw I had a responsibility to examine the values that underpinned my actions. I saw that I must think critically and become a self-created individual.

My own thinking about experiences where it becomes clear that people are deifying me is 1) they are not seeing me as I am 2) they do not want to or know how to do the work necessary for them to see me as I am. 3) they do not want to or know how to do the work necessary for them to see themselves as divine 4) I am obsessively fixated on turning everything into a philosophical situation and I need to go take a nap. Perhaps they are not experiencing their own Immanence ( inner divinity/Life force). Perhaps they have never known or developed skills that would allow them to access Immanence. If I have an emotional investment in being close to the person and I have the free attention and energy to engage them, I will try to redirect their judgemental behavior towards self-reflection on self acceptance and worthiness. A lot of the time I am too tired or caught up in myself to do provide such guidance .

Usually when people are demonizing me, I have no access to them. The people who demonize me do so in their heads , in a monologue or they gossip about it with others and I never hear about it first hand. Which is fine. I may feel it in their energy fields but I do not have to deal with it on a 3-D level. In my recent experience, when people who are uncomfortable about my level of free self-expression and power tell me that they are aware they are demonizing me, we then have a conversation that builds intimacy and connection.

In my relationships with Connie and David, there is a lot of apotheosis and demonization. Actually, come to think of it, in most relationships, intimate or friendly or only acquaintances... Hmmm... Well, I need to stop writing now and go tend to physical things like eating. I hopeto have provoked you in some way! Blessings, Teri