APOTHEOSIS / Fulfillment of the Quest

Fulfillment of one’s quest promotes “apotheosis” in Joseph Campbell’s terms pertaining to the Hero Cycle. That is our topic for September. In The Hero With 1000 Faces, Campbell presents apotheosis as an initiation stage by which duality is dissolved into unity.

The merging of opposites: masculine + feminine, positive + negative, physical + Divine; such fulfillment transcends merely apparent paradoxes.  Neutrality is achieved, being neither for nor against. Equanimity allows us to resolve differences and internal as well as external conflicts. Stasis occurs at the eye of the storm. From here one attains Higher Consciousness.

Freedom is born; a new, heightened sense of freedom from any attachments. Now one is free to move on to new adventures, no longer trammeled by whatever tension of opposites might have brought him/her to overcome obstacles and navigate stormy seas to arrive here.

In life we are constantly asking ourselves—if we are at all reflexive about our progress, or Being—who am I? And then again, who am I, Now? This ‘I’ that we are asking after, this Higher Self, resides always in the Apotheosis state.

I think of Rumi, who must certainly have many a poem about apotheosis. Here’s a verse:

“Through your love

existence and nonexistence merge.

All opposites unite.

All that is profane

becomes sacred again.”

 – Rumi

Have you experienced times in your life when cycles have shifted and you have felt a special calm after fulfilling some deep quest? Sometimes when I have worked on a difficult project and have completed that successfully, either alone or with others in service, I know, as Frederico Lorca expressed so poetically:

“Something has come

to an end here,

It has been

accomplished.”

I feel the ending of a cycle as an equinox in my life. It has often seemed to me in such a moment that I could willingly die then, translating my life experience into new forms in another dimension. But then, so far anyways in this life, the next project or adventure appears on the horizon, so I am off again to meet it.

images are from pixabay.com

The attainment of Fulfillment for any one Quest brings strength and understanding we can apply evermore.

Do you have a story to share?  I invite and welcome your comments and stories.

The DESCENDER Rising, Part II: Protest Marchers of the Night (Waxing Poetic)

Why is it that protesters such as now occupy the streets of many American cities for anti-Trump rallies often choose the Night to stage their marches? I propose this may not simply be due to their daytime work schedules, especially on weekends. These protests are an outcry from the collective archetypal DESCENDER, whose domain of expression and action is a Deep, often submerged realm, in what James Hillman called the “underworld” of the dynamic Unconscious.

A “call in the Night” embodies a passionate, ardent outcry for all concerned. Protesters in America are often not even well organized; the nighttime rallies are organic, spontaneous. Much is being brought to the surface at this time in America and in much of the world in this and recent times of economic and political uncertainty. Black Lives Matter marches over the past summer; anti-Trump rallies that began during the terribly bitter campaign in protest of bigoted statements and threats by the candidate; raucous campaign rallies themselves: all of these demonstrate the frustrations and divisive polarization occurring in the world perhaps since the 2008 Great Recession and subsequent Occupy Wallstreet movement in America.  Many have not yet recovered lost jobs or feel disenfranchised either from the experience of enormous economic disparities or from becoming the target of racial, religious, or gender and sexuality coded attacks.

“Things fall apart,

The Center cannot hold”

… echoes W. B. Yeats from his grave (warning of an impending Anti-Christ).  Yeats also penned in “The Nineteenth Century and After”:

“Though the Great Song return no more,

There’s keen delight in what we have;

The rattle of pebbles on the shore

Under the receding Wave.”

I like Yeats (can you tell?)–as I once memorized virtually an entire Collected Works of Yeats volume late in high school thanks to a dear mentor (D/M)–, and I find myself returning to Yeats’s sage, deeply reflective poetry often this past week.  Yeats’s poetry and the theosophical philosophy underlying his poetic vision (read his book, A Vision) reminds me of the cyclical nature of life and politics in this world of appearances, this phantasm:

“Once, while on the old grey stone I sat,

Under the old windbroken tree,

I knew that One is animate.

Mankind inanimate phantasy.”

But here’s one I am reminded of this week as I struggle to come to terms, to find a balance of acceptance while yet feeling protective of my liberal values of appreciating diversity and freedom of religion (implying due separation of Church and State):

“Outworn heart, in a time outworn,

Come clear the nets of wrong or right;

Laugh, heart, again, in the grey twilight;

Sigh heart, again, in the dew of the morn.”

Paired with (in Those Images) one of my favorite of all Yeats phrases through the years:

“What if I bade you leave

The cavern of your mind;

There’s better exercise

in the sunlight and wind.”

images are from pixabay.com

It is time for a change to rattle the pebbles on the shore; a time for poets and mystics to descend to their Core and to reemerge in the Light.  

May we all be Torchbearers for one another when that is needed.

May you and I everywhere find ways to exercise our God given, inherent freedom and delight to go forth, again, to play in the Sun!

Two Poems, by Tatyana Ulrich

My Journey to You

I am that woman who thinks about you

Who is very excited to come get you soon

I am that woman who would supply all the love

Who leaves reality just to watch you grow up

I am that woman whose mind only thinks positively

The kind of mind that waits patiently

The emotions I get is way too hard to hide

I am that woman who would never leave your side

One who would travel half way around the world

I am that woman who wanted a girl

I am that woman of which tears I create

Staring at my only keepsake

A precious gem in the palm of my hands

A mother, a daughter whose bond will never end

I am that mother who can’t wait to bring you home

I am that mother who will never be alone

A mother who loved you from the very start

You were the one that gave hope to my heart.

 

Baby

Baby I can’t wait, I want to hold you now

I am speechless, that you have been found

A home for you and a daughter for me

Baby I love you, I hope you can see

Baby I am on my way

Don’t you cry, don’t be afraid

Just wait patiently and we will meet

Baby I love you I hope you can see

From the day I meet you, till the day you die

Don’t you worry, I’ll stand by your side

I’ll be with you from start to end

You are my family, you are my friend

Baby you gave me a reason to love

God gave me you, my daughter from above

I am your mother and don’t you forget

I have loved you since the day we met

———–

The Author:

I’m Tatyana. I was adopted at 18 months from the Jiangxi Province. I live in Centennial, Colorado with a mother whom I l love dearly. When I grow up I want to major in Social Work, specifically working with international adoption. I have created a website for Chinese adoptees at http://familyisforever.wix.com/ctdfca-china#