ANDROGYNY SEMINAR
DIARY 11490
12/16/76
Intro at 7:46 with a general outline: Friday will be the basics of Androgyny; Saturday AM a personal androgyny test; afternoon the Eastern ideas of Androgyny and a cosmic overview (2 in 1 everyplace) (bodily experience), and then evening everyone will participate in a theater event. Sunday she'll talk of the Kabala [which I just study EB for now, and it appears to be connected with just about everything: the Talmud, Rosicrucians, Essenes, Gnostics, Masonry, Eckhart, Boehm, and Theosophy], Kundalini Yoga, and other ideas. "Don't react intellectually, but from your experience" leads me to think she may have gotten into est, too. ALL psychologies combine the masculine and feminine; all hormones have qualities of the masculine and feminine. Androgyny's history and implications were always there, but HIDDEN. The "New Age" of Aquarius ("Hair," hippies, unisex) with the "Moon in the 7th house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars" broke old sexual stereotypes. "It happened unconsciously---" and she says NOTHING about drugs, so I don't think she's really "into" what's been happening or WHY they may have happened. Leary, LSD, and Gibran had far more to do with it than ACCIDENT did. For her, Androgyny is NOT hermaphroditism (physiological anomaly), NOT a lack of sexual identification, NOT bisexuality (sexual BEHAVIOR) but it IS an inner progress. NOT homosexuality (though homosexuals are not excluded from being androgynes), and NOT heterosexuality, NOT transsexualism (surgical change), but it IS a state of being of CONSTANT AWARENESS of masculinity and femininity in one's self. She asked for a list of masculine qualities and got (with gender of the suggester in parens): hard/ aggressive/ strong/ powerful/ determined/ rational (F) / irrational (F) / thinking (M) / abstraction (F) / coldness (F) / hunter (M) / leadership (M) / heroism/ conquest/ genius/ war/ hot/ sexually aggressive/ money/ builder (M) / destroyer (F) / unsubtle (F) / gross (F) / proud (M) for 24. For feminine qualities she got mother/ slinky/ emotional/ passive/ dumb/ helpless/ soft/ materialistic/ vain/ tender/ long-suffering/ negative/ compassionate/ nurturing/ catty (F) / receptive (M) / birth and death (M) / beautiful (M) / sexy (F) / creative (F) / stifled (F) / hysteric (M) / bigoted//feeling passionate. BUT ALMOST EVERYONE RAISES HAND SAYING THEY HAVE BOTH. We not only HAVE both sets, we're CONSCIOUS of both. She SUGGESTS: Think of M/F qualities in terms of ENERGIES: M: explosive/ dynamic (outward-moving, disseminating energy); F: gathering/ conserving/ holding energy. Androgyny is more natural than stereotyped male or femaleness. "In society, we tend to take up sexist roles, or we work hard out of CONTRA-SEXUAL qualities: we are socially conscious. Alchemy has sol/luna, salt-sulfur dichotomies. Astrology: opposites evident. Gnosticism: Christ is neither/both male/female. Kabalistic: interesting androgynous ideas there. Tantric yoga: merging of M/F into ONE is prominent (which I don't think IS androgyny then). Taoism: great circle, yin-yang, opposites joined. Australian Bushmen have primitive rituals in which the penis is subincised. Meso-Americans have androgynous images. Judeo-Christians have mysterious and occult qualities. Contemporary flower children of "Hair" are "in psychedelic haze, too far out, too raggle-taggle, too idealistic, too stoned to understand what they stumbled into." Women's movement, the pill, contraception helped independence, but she said nothing about the GAY movement, which I think helped: women looked and said that if GAYS could have the courage to come out for themselves, WOMEN should, too! Pill: NOW the WOMAN can decide when to have children, this opened way to freer sexuality, now no obligation to marry. In the older generation, if you had an unwanted pregnancy, you could settle for suicide. "Many inequalities have been remedied" and there was a flurry of negative comment behind me: 50% of the senators, equal salaries, equal positions yet. Hardly, says I! "Equality and power FREED women from the MOVEMENT." "Women's dark and driven aspects of their own masculinity." "These radical feminists DIDN'T love men." Sexuality split from marriage/ love/ commitment/ spiritual concept of divine creative power. Sexuality became obsessive and aimed at ego-satisfaction. Orgasm-quest became GOAL, leaving out BRAIN, the root of attitudes of the Androgyne. Androgyny's aim is to conjoin Masculine and Feminine aspects in the world. Jung (1926): "Women in Europe: "Eros (F) must unite what Logos (M) has sundered, union of opposites." Shakti and Shiva in eternal embrace. Emphasizes feminine values in order to balance former force and emphasis on masculine values. Now cooperation versus competition, intuition versus intellect, sexuality versus power/violence, group-work versus leadership. [Interesting the parallels this shows with MY LIFE AT THIS TIME!] Androgyny came from Jung's ideas of Anima-Animus. Jung's "Thank god I'm Jung and not a Jungian!" Jungian's frozen; Jung can CHANGE. Animus/anima could CHANGE: not be as unconscious as it was. Astrological epochs: Gemini: writing/cuneiform from 6000 BC - 4000 BC. Taurus from 4000-2000 BC money, wealth; bull as female dominance/ matriarchies/ gynocracies. Aries from 2000 BC to 0 BC, metal, iron, MALE. Pisces from 0 AD to 2000 AD, fish, but not stated DIRECTLY to be male (see later: POLARITY). Aquarius from 2000 - 4000 AD, though someone else said that the repetition was in terms of 2100 years. Taurus myth: Greek: Eurynome rose out of Chaos, she separated earth from sky, wind (Boreas) circled around her and became a serpent (Ophion) who conceived, became a dove and laid the Universal Egg [From Boreas conceiving, mares turn their rumps to the wind and conceive, so myth says], which Ophion coiled about till EVERYTHING hatched. Ophion first symbol of MANY kinds of M/F linkages. Crete: Europa and Zeus/bull founded Minoan empires. Earlier, she rides HIM across the sea and gives birth to Pasiphae, who fucks a bull and gets Minotaur. Aries epoch: hunters and herders migrated, sheep herders valued RAMS. Dorians brought Zeus, who won over Demeter and Aphrodite. Hebrews: Abraham's son saved by RAM from patriarchal god. Hunters conquered farmers and Baal-worshipers. Genesis codified during Babylonian captivity. Babylonian myth: Tiamat (salt water) and Apsu (sweet water), the sea versus the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Pisces epoch: Tehom separated (abyss) to "waters above" and "waters below." Pisces epoch: Christ born as LAMB, the last ram of Aries, and died as FISH, the first fish of Pisces. Break from 9 to 9:20. Pisces sign is one of polarity: faithful/infidel; good/evil; rational/intuitive; powers of light/darkness; M/F. She's hoping that the Age of Aquarius will be the age of ANDROGYNY, anti-Piscean. Genesis chapter 2 starts the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity. Canaanites: ritual prostitution of both sexes, homosexuals formed guilds; Asshur-Ra, goddess, naked prostitute. Gen 1:26: Let US make man to OUR image and likeness. In the Kabalistic Zohar: ELOHIM is ELOH (F) with IM (M) as the plural, a F plural translated as a M singular. Zohar: the world was formless and void UNTIL ELOH+IM: M+F = Creator/Androgyny. Contemporary literature: Carolyn Heilbrun "Toward a Recognition of Androgyny." "Challenge for Age of Androgyny: being aware of all the androgyny in EACH of us." Woman MAY be strong, men MAY be weak.
"Androgyny is a dance in which the dancer and the dance are one."
9:40, now let's have some sharing of our feelings. Active sperm goes into the waiting ovum. She ACCEPTS that women must REAR the children they BEAR. Male and female is biologically fixed; masculinity and femininity are cultural concepts. She said (for me) that the anima is the female component of the male, and that the ego-personality could be called the male component of the male, but that the anima could never be CONSCIOUS enough to anima+ego=androgyny. Physics property of complimentarity invoked. Androgyny in Buddhism, Zen Koans, and in the diminishing of religious POWER allowing AMBIGUITIES. Tantric yoga's formula: SAMSARA IS NIRVANA (the illusion IS the paradise). "A man's androgyny MUST be different from a woman's androgyny." "Woman will ALWAYS be a mystery to man's experience; man will always be a mystery to woman's EXPERIENCE." Question: "WHY did woman ACCEPT her role as "a mystery, death, birth, life, etc?" Fabulous! GOOD starting point: everyone has to accept the idea of his own death. It has to CEASE to be a mystery. End at 10:20.
DECEMBER 11: 10:20 am with 33 in the class (about 60 last night, but MANY came in late today). Old Jewish legends "That could have gotten into the Bible and didn't." Queen of Sheba (East or Africa), a wise sorceress, in the City of Kiddar, watered by water that flows from the Garden of Eden, had NO bow and arrow (so much for EGYPT and V!), ruled by the Queen of Sheba. Queen worshiped SUN. Letter from Solomon: "Peace to all; if you don't salute me, I'll send my legions to kill you." She ASSEMBLED SHIPS AT SEA. Took seven years to GET there, but she hurried and it only took three years. She had hairy FEET. "Seven are the days of women's defilement." God of Hebrews wanted to cause all the miracles, so he hated ASTROLOGERS, who knew lots more than the commoners. She WAS dark, the Dark Woman in the Song of Songs. 10:45, back to M/F. Sandra Bem tested it by listing stereotypes. "Statistically valid sampling of associations." Test to describe yourself on gender stereotypes of our time. Fun test, and I came out only MARGINALLY higher in M than F, got more than 100 in each to be in the last group to raise hands both times, with about five others. John Money says gender identity fixed at age 3: I agreed, asked Singer to ask class, but she didn't. Break 11:45-12. Bem: "Masculine males wouldn't let me tug on their heartstrings." Sex typing acts to restrict behavior. She questions traditional concepts of mental health---GOOD. Stereotyped traditional: sexual preference in partners. Self-gender identity was GOOD. The measure of June Singer; HER fantasy of double beds in a hotel room is that the couple can sleep apart or together. Other said: One for the couple, one for their animus/anima; me: 4 people! What you're ATTRACTED BY/REPELLED BY is by qualities YOU HAVEN'T LIVED OUT. Do I resent people coming up to ME because I don't go up to people I want to? Jung: at his time, actual man met MANY women and had ONE anima; ACTUAL women met FEW men and had MANY animus-figures. ZEN: "He carried the water until he got enlightened and then he carried the water." Lunch from 12:40-2:30. People talked of artistic accomplishment after breaking up with someone, and talk of "artistic-guilt" and "separation-agony," and I said that I had TWO relationships in which we HELPED each other write: John and me in writing, Dennis in indexing and me in indexing. Everyone went into sex and interruption and after break ONE woman came up and said "I know what you mean, but I'm now a widow and can't talk about it to ANYONE." I work during lunch break (much too much noshing to have lunch) for 1.5 hours and STILL find no one interesting except a guy who comes in NOW (only about 50 left). 2:30: Tao (undifferentiated unity that everything is IN) and the I Ching (a MANTIC [dictionary only says that mantic is PROPHETIC and ROmantic may be VISIONARY, but otherwise they won't seem to be related] device, looking at future) are discussed. She reads from her book for the 5th or 6th time. She draws HUGE yin-section when she draws the symbol. - - is yin-line, the feminine principle, ____ is the yang-line, the masculine principle of HEAT, this is the side of the mountain in the SUN, as opposed to the side of the mountain in SHADE, and both sides CHANGE through the day.
___ _ _ _ _ ___
_ _ _ _ ___ ___
are, in order, the small yin, fall; the great yin, winter; the small yang, spring; great yang, summer. Then to 8 trigrams:
___ _ _ _ _ _ _
___ creative; _ _ receptive; _ _ arousing; ___ abysmal;
___ _ _ ___ _ _
___ ___ ___ _ _
_ _ keeping still; ___ gentle; _ _ changing; ___ joyous
_ _ _ _ ___ ___
Digrams represent heaven and earth; trigrams represent heaven and earth and MAN. Blacke: If the Doors of Perception were cleansed, we'd see everything as it is (infinite). To 3:15. She played (and asked us to THINK and move/dance) yin (Mozart) and yang (jazz) music. I thought of Debussy and Rite of SPRING, myself. Then she said to select a partner (I went over to Loretta) and LOOK into eyes while music played. Loretta gets into energy-channeling and we talk. Then group shares to 3:50, a break. Feel the sense of apartness MOST acutely during this break. Everyone should have had 2 partners (I observed that in yin we FOLLOWED the instructions and in yang we DIDN'T, so that even though we may not have AGREED or acted in a DIRECTED manner, it still said something about the EXPERIENCE (that Singer reinforced by saying you HAVE to do it, not just TALK about it), and Loretta AGREED, she said, and then told Singer that we could get INTO the yin and NOT into the yang, which was not my point at ALL, though it obviously said something, too) and are all busily chattering away over coffee or tea. I stand closer to the groups, little old lady comes up to talk, then I cut and come back to chair to write, TALKING with the guy and his female acquaintance about I Ching and Tarot, so I CAN talk when I want to. At 4:10 she passes out papers and boxes of crayons and we draw "what we feel like right now." I get a mental image of [five arrows pointing inward to a center point] and DO it. THEN she says leave them and go to one that HITS you. I look at butterfly-woman and pass it by, but good artistic ones are being taken and I take a rather phallic [stalks] in many colors. THEN she says "make them androgynous." Hm. Mine's SO phallic I can only put in curved clouds above, furrier and furrier, until I look at it UPSIDE DOWN and it's a pond in a forest. Good. See fellow making mine to have arrows COMING OUT as well as going in, and he LEAVES. Then she says to bring yours up, say how you saw it and what you did, and some NICE stuff happens then, and when the original artists claim them. I take mine up and the brusque blond rather curtly says it's a bad time in her life and there's nothing she can do about it. This goes until 5:20 and we're dismissed for dinner till 7:30. I work from 5:25 to 6:25 in the COLD lobby, then leave index and go to Manorah Thai and pay $6.10 for a $4.95 chicken Thai style that I eat totally: chicken, rice, sauce, and lettuce underneath. Back to crap and wash face and glasses and up at 7:30 to find it not started yet, of course, and I sit and catch up with this and get simpery smiles from some of the younger girls (throwing away my drawing) and do this to 7:45 and it starts. "Dynamics of Androgyny" and ongoing PROCESS (Cyclic)
[JV: table too complex to reproduce]
Books to get: Moody: "Life after Life"; Becker "Denial of Death" paperback
But WHERE fits God/Love/Enlightenment/Nirvana/Beauty/Truth/Soul? Singer likes dawn and dusk "They look the same but they're going in two different directions." "Whatever you're doing, you're only at A place at A time in A process." (And I make a GREAT contribution of white hole, an "archetype alive in physicists" according to a kindly old doctor in the house. To 8:40. Into 6 groups and present vignettes in 2 scenes: old-fashioned/new-type morality. GOOD STUFF, and I "sort of direct" the couple who are the protagonists in our play, play an UNCOUTH man WITH REAL CONVICTION ON MY PART, not listening to others, butting in, making an asshole of myself. And in the second sink into the background and agree with everything. To 10:30, talk to old therapist until 10:40 and home at 11, tiring of this but delighted that lots of people are talking about my knowledge of physics.
SUNDAY MORNING 10:35. Great pre-session chat with the two guys on the bus and the "repertory group" at the Open Eye. About 31 "on time" 35 minutes late.
Mysterium tremendum En Sof Brahma
Elohim
Christianity Yahweh Monism
Adam Kadmon Islam Hinduism
Judaism Polytheism
Tradition
Folklore
Custom
Jung's idea of our
1) springing from definite religious roots
2) growing away from them in maturity and experience, and
3) returning, in age, in SOME way, to the roots again.
Singer was traditionally Jewish, married for a long while to a rabbi, then going off on her own. "The ultimate is something that no one can quite describe." "The further, the more precise; the closer, the more indefinite." UNKNOWABILITY is discussed by Houston Smith in his religious works. EN SOF is the ultimate mystery of Judaism as Brahma is in Hinduism, Tao is in Taoism, and Mysterium tremendum is in Christianity. Zen: "When I was young, a tree was a tree, a waterfall a waterfall, a mountain a mountain. Then in the monastery a tree was not a tree, a waterfall was not a waterfall, a mountain not a mountain. Then when I was old, I found in wisdom that a tree is a tree, a waterfall is a waterfall, and a mountain is a mountain. "Opposites within a central unity seems to be a very core idea." To Kabala at 10:55. Contemporary: "We are an outgrowth of the metabolism of the galaxy." Zohar: "A dark flame issued from the mystery, the An Sof, of no COLOR whatsoever. Only after it assumed size and dimension did it manifest COLOR." "I descended into a garden of nuts." Gershon Sholem writing about early Jewish mysticism and translates the Merkabah mysteries from the throne through seven heavens to God (as in the Divine Comedy, through seven heavens). 600-300 BC mystics passed speculations from master to disciple---to absorb highly charged energies. "This morning I present the garment, not the thing within that is clothed." Assay Barishi has a book of creation of 1600 words, as Lao-Tsu wrote 500-1000 words very quickly on his way to heaven. From Abraham, the astrologer from the Chaldees. [GOT TO WRITE A BOOK: "THE BEGINNINGS."] The Zohar relates a visionary experience: the 10 sephiroth, or numbers, or "kinds of light" or letters of Hebrew alphabet. [EB: Since they had no CIPHERS for numbers, words WERE recognized as meaningful vocabulary OR as totals!] "To transform US into an awareness of what's IN us." Firmament solidifies as the vault of heaven AND as the 22 Jewish letters and as the mystical Torah, all knowledge, the WORD. "Ten beams of light from EYES of Adam Kadmon. "Man shall not see me and live." "You shall see my BACK": God as buggered! To ENTER God, FUCK him from the back! Kabala: the An Sof (all) contracted and left BEHIND space (wasness?) then emanation in the dark flame in the FORM of the archetypal Adam Kadmon: which filled the entire universe at first.
[JV: table too complex to reproduce]
"Androgyny involves getting in touch with parts of ourselves that have been hidden." Find ways in your own life in which this can be expanded and experienced. To 11:45, rest is sharing. Insight: to act a MAN, I ACTED; to act ANDROGYNOUSLY, I was ME. Break 11:50 to 12:15. F Comment: Genital level of honor and victory." Reactions and thoughts---troubles, talk about. Great comment that "Scene One" got out all the HOSTILITY and negative emotions to get to the positive emotion and peace of "Scene Two." As I write "he who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know" I REALIZE that I do NOT talk (by rule in FACT and by "far out" by CHOICE) about Actualism. Chardin: "Unless we have our centers, we use OTHERS for our survival." God made Heaven and Earth, Man and Woman. If men and women UNITE in ANDROGYNY, will Heaven unite with Earth? Suggestion: everyone write a poem. Heidegger: All we can do is write poetry in the direction of "that." When the guy in Plato's cave saw the SUN and told the people about it, they didn't BELIEVE it until they saw it THEMSELVES. If you are a Prisoner, you and ONLY you have the KEY. Sioux Indians born WITHOUT sex, so goes the myth, WITH an Animal Medicine, having SPECIFIC limitations: born in the South (mouse) look at day-to-day events; born in the North (eagle) look at LARGE view; born in the West, look inside; born in the East, born in illumination. They are ATTRACTED to other medicines. They carry shields and NAMES that proclaim what they are. Object of life is to incorporate ALL the animal medicines into EVERY individual. "Jumping Mouse" myth, he's thrown up by an eagle and opens his eyes and finds he IS an eagle. "Learning about androgyny puts us AHEAD, in awareness, of other people who'll come to it later. Some people are so IMPRESSED with the INTENSITY of this group experience that I feel SORRY for them. Singer: "I feel that, without pain, nothing would really happen." I asked her if she'd ask the class to contribute to my list of pithy sayings (see DIARY 11500), wrote them down, but she ignored them, and I left at 12:55, avoiding everyone, happy to be free of the seminar that promised so much and gave so little, but WAS interesting.
DIARY 11500
Also 12/16/76
ANDROGYNY SEMINAR - PITHY SAYINGS
KNOW THYSELF
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
I AM WHO AM
TAT TWAN ASI (THOU ART THAT)
HE WHO KNOWS DOES NOT SPEAK, HE WHO SPEAKS DOES NOT KNOW
THAT THAT IS IS THAT THAT IS NOT IS NOT IS NOT THAT IT IT IS
SO IT GOES
I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE
BROTHERHOOD OF MEN
EST (WHAT IS) (ISNESS)
OURUBOROS
AN SOF (LIMITLESS AND BOUNDLESS)
NETI NETI (NOT THAT NOT THAT)
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD (and that's the last word)