At this point, Athena is still searching. Well, she'd probably say that she never stopped searching, but she did reach a point at which her life diverged into something she couldn't control. Her relationship with Heron really begins when they spend a day together Holly Golightly-style in London. He is falling in love with her, even though he has a girlfriend and she claims to have a boyfriend.
The biographer speaks with a historian friend of Heron's, who explains that the "new paganism" allows people to experience a spiritual life without institutionalized religion. I agree with this to an extent, but I think the same God who controls the universe is also a part of it, while the historian makes a distinction between the controlling god and the "part of the universe" mother-figure god. Mother Nature is not just an expression of the controlling God, it's a secular name for his essence that lives through it. I guess there's a gray area in there, because I don't believe we should be worshiping plants or anything. Although stating that makes me understand the distinction more.
So Athena conveniently made a ton of cash in her real-estate job, and can devote her time to her spiritual journey. She meets Heron's girlfriend -- and it took me way too long to figure out that Heron and Andrea were together -- and eventually takes her on as a student. One of the first things Athena tells her is, "When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you." That statement makes me want to get up and dance right now, because it's so right, but I never thought of it that way before.
Edda told Athena to learn by teaching, even when she thinks she has nothing to teach. She tells Athena to appreciate the tiniest things in life -- breathing, cooking, having someone open a door for you. That last one got to me, because I have been the girl who is almost insulted by a man opening a door for me. Edda puts it into a different perspective: "According to etiquette, this means, 'She needs me to do this because she's fragile,' but in my soul it is written: 'I'm being treated like a goddess, a queen.'" She also teaches Athena to look upon her anxieties with humor. At some point she also mentions the calligraphy to relate to Athena, reminding her how each pen stroke was a part of her soul. I love this idea, and it reminded me of when I was in high school. I used to write for hours -- poems, song lyrics, my own name, random words -- just to experience the act of writing as an expression of myself.
Athena's venture into teaching was borderline humiliating, but her students learned more than they thought at first. She had Andrea's theater friends lie down and make gestures based on her words. I admit I giggled when she said the word "center," because it reminded me of the porno-password scene from "The Cable Guy." Of course, they successfully connected with Athena and gestured toward their navels, protecting that center of light.
Amid her "female hysteria," Athena seems to have an urgent need for transformation. I'm not sure if this has to do with her near-transformation into the voice of a deity, or the need to understand things from more than one perspective. But constantly throughout the book, things, people, auras are being transmuted into more intense forms. As I glance outside and see that half the evening sky is still sunset blue, I think how the earth is constantly re-energizing its capabilities. And that's what changes in life do to people.
Andrea is beginning to feel threatened by Athena, because she knows her boyfriend is infatuated with her. She takes herself into Athena's soul, play-acting her role in a theatrical expression of a village turning away from a supposedly insightful newcomer. She's pleased with the result, and it foreshadows Athena's second rejection by religious society. But Athena does attract followers. The group she led at Andrea's theater expands because Athena seems to be channeling a spirit after dancing off-beat to her drum-heavy foreign music. By breaking the rhythm, Edda says one can more fully experience the talent. She experienced this by forcing herself to knit badly. I don't knit, but I can relate to this through writing. As a journalist, I learned to write using a formula. I got out of touch with my creative side. But I've found that writing differently -- not badly, but spontaneously and nonsensically -- can ultimately spawn more beautiful prose.
Athena and Andrea are not friends, but they respect each other as student and teacher. Their first one-on-one lesson consists of them stripping down, literally (but not sexually), to gain a unique trust and vulnerability. They have to be on the same level to experience the right confrontation.
The group lessons are what get out of hand for Athena. She likely should have simply continued with individual lessons with Andrea and possibly a few others, but she let her divine spark become a sideshow gypsy act. I'm not sure it was vanity that led to her losing control, but perhaps it was more of a facade of naivety and a lack of consideration of consequences. She didn't care what people thought of her, and she thought she could almost live above the law because she was so in touch with what she saw as a "natural law." Heron says he witnessed "the transformation of a woman into an icon" (229). Also on that page, he quotes one of her sermons, and I think one thing she says is enlightening in its succinctness: "What is sin? It is a sin to prevent Love from showing itself."
Amidst the uproar against her supposedly satanic rituals, Athena almost loses custody of her son and escapes under the elaborate guise of a brutal murder. Yes, Athena is alive and well, And the book's second "big twist I should've already figured out" is revealed: the "biographer" is her actually-not-invisible boyfriend, and he really does work for Scotland Yard. So her excuses for rebuffing Heron were not just excuses. I guess she needed a male to understand her spirit world, since her boyfriend admits to not partaking. But it's beautiful because she respects him for it.
However, I'm realizing now that despite these twists, it's almost disappointing that there wasn't really a brutal murder. I'm glad Athena is alive and all, but they had me built up for some dramatic exit from the world. Maybe that's why I put off blogging the rest of this book for as long as I did. There just wasn't enough "wow" factor to compel me to share. Although I really think I learned some things from this book, and I would like to read it again in the semi-near future.
- Dolmen = tomb resembling a portal
- Mandala = symbol representing effort to reunify the self
- Immemorial = extending back beyond memory, record or knowledge
- Calumny = slanderous lie
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