Saturday 17 September 2011

Dark Light and Daemon Born

Whenever I become aware of a new sync trail I'm always curious about where it might lead. As the unfolding pattern gradually takes shape (over days, weeks or sometimes months) I'm never quite sure how it's all going to pan out and for me that's a part of the process that keeps me coming back time and time again. There's always surprise nuggets of treasure waiting to be discovered, unexpected detours which were never mapped out on the original path, and I find this is all part of the fun when following the flow. Where will it go...nobody knows.

Now this post started to gather momentum simply following a shadow. Not my own shadow mind you. I'm talking about Matt Damon's.



While browsing through Damon's movie posters I noticed that the shadowy figure, or Dark Man, repeatedly shows up in his work.


In The Good Shepherd poster we find a subtle reference to angel wings, whereas this next example is a little more blatant.

Damon's Shadow lead to the Dark Man lead to the Dark Angel lead to the Man In Black.


In this Ocean's 12 poster we find numerous MIB and once again Matt Damon is in close contact with the Shadow.


While wondering where all this was leading I decided to see what others had to say on the subject.

I came across this oil painting by artist Steven Kenny entitled The Shadow...

...which ties in nicely with the beastly concepts explored in this Man In The Mirror video by fellow sync-head Will Morgan.



I also checked out the work of Carl Jung who wrote much about the shadow and the integration of our unconscious 'Dark Side'.

I even found references on cave walls reminding me that mankinds interest in the MIB is really nothing new.

I believe that if you want to explore something in any great detail then you've got to be prepared to come at it from different angels as there are always two sides of the coin to consider. Dark naturally leads to Light.

Shadows cannot exist without a light source so I turned to an ancient Sun God named Elagabalus (depicted above) for some answers.

Elagabalus

The first sun god consistently termed invictus was the provincial Syrian god Elagabalus. According to the Historia Augusta, the teenaged Severan heir adopted the name of his deity and brought his cult image from Emesa to Rome. Once installed as emperor, he neglected Rome's traditional State deities and promoted his own as Rome's most powerful deity. This ended with his murder in 222.

The Historia Augusta refers to the deity Elagabalus as "also called Jupiter and Sol" (fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis).


From Wikipedia I learned that Elagabalus, also known as Jupiter and Sol, was the very first sun god to be consistently called Invictus.

In the Invictus poster we find Matt Damon inside the Dark Man.

We also know that Invictus was the provincial name for the SYRIAN sun god Elagabalus.

Having joined these loose dots together I reached the conclusion that the Dark Man and the God of Light are really one and the same.

Regardless of which way you flip it, there is only one coin.

While writing this post I've been reading a novel called A Clash of Kings by author George R.R. Martin, the sequel to A Game of Thrones. If you haven't read these books or watched the TV show then do yourself a big favour and check them out.

As synchronicity would have it the Shadow has started to play a pivotal role in A Clash of Kings and I recently read that:

"There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Matt Damon's Shadow lead me to Elagabalus (a god i'd never heard of before) who in turn lead me to the name Jupiter (a god whose always circulating the syncrosphere).

Actor Liam Neeson bridges the gap between Elagabalus/Jupiter and the Shadow Man as he happens to have played both these roles.

the brightest flame casts the darkest shadows

Jupiter was commonly associated with the Golden Eagle so I wasn't surprised to find Matt Damon making contact with this giant statue in The Informant.

You can even find Jupiters totem imprinted on his Temple.

The Jupiter connection grows stronger if we consider that Damon also starred in the movie Spirit. Notice how the Golden Eagle and Sun/Sol/Invictus combine.

Also notice how the Sun crowns two Horses.

In this trailer for Matt Damon's new movie the words 'sunlight' and 'joy' are both mentioned round about the 42 second mark. I also like how Damon owns a pair of Zebra.



Rather than focusing on the dualities of the Dark/Light Man (and chase my own tail in the process) I decided to head off on a new tangent by looking at Matt Damon's surname.

Oftentimes the simplest syncs can be the most rewarding.

The name DAMON resonates DAEMON as they're both pronounced the same.

From here on out this is going to be something of a Dummies Guide to Daemons so don't worry if you're not familiar with the concept as you'll see how this plugs into everything already discussed. Shouldn't be too difficult considering it's all connected.

It's probably a good idea to familiarise ourselves with what the Daemon is, while also clarifying what it is not, so let's see what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

The words daemon and daimon are Latinized spellings of the Greek δαίμων (daimôn), a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hellenistic religion and philosophy.

Daemons are good or benevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes", and differ from the Judeo-Christian usage of demon, a malignant spirit that can seduce, afflict, or possess humans. To distinguish the classical Greek concept from its later Christian interpretation, it is usually anglicized as either daemon or daimon rather than demon.

Hesiod's Theogony relates how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into daimones by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals, whom they might serve by their benevolence. In similar ways, the daimon of a venerated hero or a founder figure, located in one place by the construction of a shrine rather than left unburied to wander, would confer good fortune and protection on those who stopped to offer respect. Daemones were not considered evil.

So let's remove any fear from the Daemon by making it clear that it's not to be mistaken for the Demons you might find in horror movies. It's not going to take over your body and make your head spin and spew pea soup. It's not going to descend from the dark rafters and tear your head off before pissing on your twitching corpse. There's really no thing to fear when it comes to the Daemon.

The Daemon = No Demon

The original neutral Greek word "daimon" does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of the Koine (Hellenistic and New Testament Greek) δαιμόνιον (daimonion), and was originally intended to denote a spirit or spiritual being.

Ancient Greek δαίμων daimōn is a word for "spirit" or "divine power", much like the Latin genius.

This all syncs nicely considering Damon starred in this movie.

In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a god, but rather a "great daemon". She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal", and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..."

Plato in Cratylus gives the etymology of δαίμονες (daimones) from δαήμονες (daēmones) (= knowing or wise), though in fact the root of the word is more probably daiō (to distribute destinies).

In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a "divine something") that frequently warned him - in the form of a "voice" - against mistakes but never told him what to do. However, the Platonic Socrates never refers to the daimonion as a daimōn; it was always an impersonal "something" or "sign".

After the time of Plato, in the Hellenistic ruler-cult that began with Alexander himself, it was not the ruler but his guiding daemon that was venerated, for in Hellenistic times, the daimon was external to the man whom it inspired and guided, who was "possessed" by this motivating spirit.

The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: Eudaemons and Kakodaemons, respectively. Eudaemons resembled the Abrahamic idea of the guardian angel or Higher Self in psychology; they watched over mortals to help keep them out of trouble.

We all have a shadow which follows us wherever we go so it kinda makes sense to me that the Daemon was considered a guide or guardian who shadows our every movement.

To put it bluntly the Daemon = Shadow Man or Shadaemon.

Wiki: The Greek term for Daemon, εὐδαιμονία, literally "GOOD-spiritedness", is a term for "happiness".

Matt Damon wrote the script for Good Will Hunting while also playing lead role as the young mathematical Genius.

Wiki tells us that the Daemon and Genius represent the same thing:

Ancient Greek δαίμων daimōn is a word for "spirit" or "divine power", much like the Latin genius.

Wiki also says that: The word
genie in English is derived from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at their birth.

In Good Will Hunting Matt Damon (a maths Genius) stars alongside Robin Williams, an actor who gave his voice to Aladdin's big blue Genie.

Daemon = Genius = Genie

Your wish is my cOMAND

the Daimōn in the rough


The word TIGER is encoded in the movie title TRUE GRIT which got me thinking about the link between Genies/Genes and this trail of blood.

DAEMON

EMO DNA

MOM DNA

WOW DNA!

These syncs seem to suggest that our bond with the Daemon goes skin/sink/sync deep.

What does it all mean?

I dunno. You're the bloody Genius. You figure it out!

Let's wander off on a different tangent by looking at the Shadaemon's relationship with the color Blue.



In The Departed actor Matt Damon is a cop, or 'Boy in Blue', who plays on the side of the blue rugby team.



When you put it all together you could say that the Daemon is a Boy in Blue whose Stuck on You.



In The Smurfs the little blue angels/daemons dimension hop and find themselves alienated in (Dr.) Manhattan.


Smurfette makes contact with these Zebra...

...which syncs with the pair of Zorses Damon owns in We Bought a Zoo:

The Zebra is of course a STRIPED/SPIRITED Horse.

In The Smurfs movie Katy Perry did the voice of Smurfette aka Smurf E.T.

Here's her love song to her Daemon:



When I came across the link between Daemon and E.T. I combined this with the blue theme and figured that the Avatar might help point me in a new direction.

In this Avatar: The Last Airbender poster we find the conjoined twins similar to the ones in Stuck on You.

The Avatar is a NOMAD...

...which when reversed becomes DAMON.

In this scene from Stuck on You the conjoined twins, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, play the piano while shadowed by a big blue Avatar (which has more than a passing resemblance to the goddess Kali). I like how Damon is striped/spirited in this scene.



In @syncwinnipeg and @seallion's new Moonkey video they daemonstrate how the Avatar and Monkey entrain. If you haven't watched it yet then I'd highly recommend doing so.

Moonkey by the StArmy from Syncwinnipeg on Vimeo.


After watching the video I realised that with a little rearranging:

dae mon = ape mon = ape moon = moonkey

This fits nicely considering Matt Damon played a role in the movie Che 2: Gorilla.

Now if we each have this theoretical Shadaemon/Genius/E.T./Avatar/Angel whose constantly watching over us, shadowing our every movement, kinda like a monkey on your back, then why are we not aware of it? Why are we so blind to it's existence?

To try and make sense of this I took a look at the word Jinn, an alternative name for Genie.

Wiki says that:

Jinn
is a word of the collective number in Arabic, derived from the Arabic root ǧ-n-n meaning 'to hide' or 'be hidden'. Other words derived from this root are maǧnūn 'mad' (literally, 'one whose intellect is hidden'), ǧunūn 'madness', and ǧanīn 'embryo, fetus' ('hidden inside the womb').

The Arabic root ǧ-n-n means 'to hide, conceal'. A word for garden or Paradise, جنّة ǧannah, is a cognate of the Hebrew word גן gan 'garden', derived from the same Semitic root. In arid climates, gardens have to be protected against desertification by walls; this is the same concept as in the word "paradise" from pairi-daêza, an Avestan word for garden that literally means 'having walls built around'. Thus the protection of a garden behind walls implies its being hidden from the outside. Arabic lexicons such as Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon define ǧinn not only as spirits, but also anything concealed through time, status, and even physical darkness.

You could say that it's the Daemon's/Genies/Jinn's very nature to be remain hidden or concealed from view, which is probably why I've found it so bloody hard writing this post. It's not meant to be defined or scrutinized as it's been cleverly designed/programmed to work silently below the radar.

Wiki: In Unix and other computer multitasking operating systems, a daemon (pronounced /ˈdeɪmən/ or /ˈdiːmən/) is a computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user; they are usually initiated as background processes.


I've come to think of the Daemon in terms of a program which was installed at birth onto all our genetic hard drives. Passing down from generation to generation it keeps us plugged into the Source and acts as a failsafe to prevent yet another 'fall' from grace.

Like a computer virus or trojan horse our Spirit/Sol/Soul can always gain access regardless of how well fortified our defences might be.

The Ego might have grown strong after a lifetime of accumulated beliefs, however there's always a vulnerable opening in your firewall through which Spirit can slip through.

When the Eggo cracks it can be quite a shock to the system.

In The Good Shephard we see Matt Damon's face hidden behind a white mask.

The white mask emphasises the concealed/hidden nature of the Daemon, but it also links in nicely with the trojan horse which is a computer programme designed to spread like a virus.

White masks and white gloves are worn to prevent contamination and I like how this same viral theme was also explored in Jim and Jakes new Moonkey video.

Matt Damon's recent movie release certainly fits the pattern.

In Contagion Matt Damon's wife is played by Gwyneth Paltrow...

...which leads back to the Shadow.

Viruses are designed to spread as far afield as possible so it was interesting to learn that:

The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the etymology of the Greek word Daemon as from the verb daiesthai "to divide, distribute."

Again, what does it all mean?

I really don't know, and ask that you take everything in this post with a healthy pinch of salt, however I think the answers are probably simpler than you might expect. I often get caught up in the details, caught up in joining all the dots together, and forget to zoom out and look at the bigger picture.

In this scene from Stuck on You the conjoined twins, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, manage to fluke a role in a hit new TV show called 'Honey and the Beaze'. The producers do not want Matt Damon to appear in the show (despite him being physically attached to his borther) so they dress him a blue suit to make him invisible to the video cameras.

While the twins monkey about with this clever technology we see that Greg Kinnear is supported by Damon. On the TV screen it looks like he's floating but we know that this is just an illusion. It's simply the Daemon at work.

And I think this is the key to the whole post.

The Shadow Man, or MIB, or Guardian Angel, or Genie, or Spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is here to support us throughout life. It's an invisible support system which means it's not tangible, you can't physically touch it, but it is there nonetheless. By paying close attention to the ebb and flow of your own life you'll feel it at work rather than see it. When contact is eventually made you'll find it very hard to unmake it. Once it's slipped in past your defences...well...there's no turning back.

That's my take on it anyhoo. Ask me next week what I think about all this and I'll give you a completely different answer, but hopefully you get the jist of what I'm saying here. I've rambled on long enough but before I go there's one more thing I'd like to mention before calling it a day.

There's a thread that I've deliberately left dangling while writing this post so I'm going to leave it with you and let you make of it what you will.

I noticed that Matt Damon's leg is highlighted by a cross-hair in two of his posters. In one his foot is targeted and in the other his kneecap:

I also noticed that Damon has a 2nd Shadow emerging from his achilles heel.

While watching the movie Green Zone there's a scene in which he chases down an Iraqi informant named Freddy. As Damon and his team catch up with Freddy (whose trying to scale a wall to escape) his artificial limb is pulled off.


Damon picks up his leg and hands it back to him. This proves to be the start of their friendship and later in the movie Freddy becomes Damon's loyal side-kick (pun intended).


Things got curioser when I checked out The Departed.

In this scene the lyrics to the background music read:

"I'm a sailor of pain, AND I LOST MY LEG, climbing up the top sails, I LOST MY LEG"



What does a Sailor have to do with Matt Damon's decapitated leg theme?

I dunno.

Maybe it's got something to do with the black boat hiding in the negative space between these two lovers:

Maybe it's time to take a cruz. To go with flow.

Happy sailing!

RA