Figure skater Alysa Liu: A symbol for the Aquarian age

The Meme-stream

The meme below caught my attention since “Gigachad” on the left is canon to depicting the strong man, or sigma male, since not only is he in peak physique, he does not ascribe to status quo positions and is independent in thought or action. However, seeing a woman next to him who obviously looked like a joyous athlete whom I knew nothing about struck me as important, since the topic of Nietzsche’s Übermensch or ‘Overman’ came up in my recent film analysis. I naturally sought out the performance that inspired someone enough to make this comedic reference.

Aionic presence

I soon discovered Alysa Liu’s impact on the world goes further than her accomplishment as an Olympic gold medalist; despite a hiatus in the sport, she achieved a level that has not been seen for 20 years in her field and for Team USA. My first impression of this pivotal and charged story is that she embodies something profound in the collective: That she is what the Aquarian age would look like if it were a person. She depicts the divine child at play, forging her own meta meticulously within a rigid structure. It goes a little beyond just being depicted as Overman, but it is absolutely part of the discussion, with more on that later.

Thoughts on the symbolism of her performance and appearance

Act 1: Trial through the Moon

Alysa wears a white dress with light grey ombre, like an emergent swan by moonlight in the first act. She is a woman who has undergone a trial of self-discovery and wears bandages across her torso in recognition of the wounds endured by her younger self. A time when she was tightly controlled in lifestyle, training and competition, without freedom of choice or artistic expression.

The transformative nature of lunar consciousness allows one to work through emotional hardship, enough to gain insight from the painful lessons. What is clear here is that Liu, in reflection, respect and acknowledgement of all that came before, and now closer to her unique spirit, can confidently re-enter the world on her own terms — and gracefully moves with the same cohesion in her performance. Which is perfectly reflected by her beautiful, soulful, elegant stage entrance that immediately calls all to attention to this renewed state of being.

Act 2: Solar freedom

The showstopper act, Alysa in her golden luminary presence — shines and emanates exuberance. Victoriously captures hearts even before the tallying of scores by skate's end. The audience, commentators and every person who watches thereafter can feel, see, and respond to a meaningful and groundbreaking moment with the same heightened and gripped emotion reserved for a religious experience. Liu’s performance was heart-centred, authentic in creative essence, and embodied the revelation of a new becoming.

Symbolic style

Finally, her hairstyle, namely the brown/blonde striped hair, which she has dubbed ‘halos’, is indicative of an appointed crown along with an unusual frenulum piercing, which further encapsulates her image of punk royalty. An unapologetic mix of opposites and deservedly apt symbols for the time — of differentiating one's identity out from societal expectations, also inclusive of her masterful performance.

Transgression and serious play

What is striking about Alysa Liu's performance is how many moulds she breaks at once. Whereas most other athletes are focused on "playing the meta," Alysa decided that the best way to participate was to change the rules instead of trying to fit in.

When watching her ice-skating, there is an unspoken agreement between the audience and her that we are dealing with something new. Through her contagious cheerfulness, she forces us to evaluate her performance on its own basis, as it does not pretend to be anything else than what it is. She offers herself not as acrobatics to be rated on a scale, but as an act of self-expression that happens to be best enjoyed in public.

It's clear to everyone watching that Alysa plays a totally different game and obeys a different value system than every other competing athlete. And her main skill is to do so while bringing the audience with her. This is an act of transgression, and probably the most graceful one I know of.

Such a paradigm shift is even more significant as it takes place within a certain astrological context, namely the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. As a water-bearer, Aquarius is a unified human being, which contrasts with the two dual fishes of the Age of Pisces. This means that the change of Age brings what was opposed into a unified whole.

Thus Aquarius will be an age of novel ideas and strange hybrid mixtures, often blending things that were never thought to fit together, as an epochal process of reconciling opposites is taking place.

This also means that Aquarius is an Age where fixed paradigms will be brushed aside with shocking ease. It is not clear how many values that we currently take for granted will survive this transition. This is the prophetic "transvaluation of all values" brought by the Übermensch, whose reverberations that have been felt and discussed online after Alysa's performance.

In a similar manner, Crowley defined the coming times as "the Aeon of Horus" or "the Aeon of the Child". Crowley wrote,

"The child is not merely a symbol of growth, but of complete moral independence and innocence. We may then expect the New Aeon to release mankind from its pretence of altruism, its obsession of fear and its consciousness of sin. It will possess no consciousness of the purpose of its own existence. It will not be possible to persuade it that it should submit to incomprehensible standards; it will suffer from spasms of transitory passion; it will be absurdly sensitive to pain and suffer from meaningless terror; it will be utterly conscienceless, cruel, helpless, affectionate and ambitious, without knowing why; it will be incapable of reason, yet at the same time intuitively aware of truth." (Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, Chapter 49)

The coming Aquarian Aeon will then be under the sign of a Child at play¹, an age of playful and creative experimentation.

As an instinct, play is not outcome-based. It does not focus on winning or even achieving something. Play is first and foremost expressive². And self-expression is also exacting, as even the smallest details are paid attention to.

This is the paradox of creative work: creativity is best done with a mixture of play and seriousness. One is both engaged in the task and yet detached from it. For instance, experimentations that could lead nowhere are not registered as time-wasters to someone who plays. Rather they are part of the wonder of attempting combinations never seen before. Play works with unseen potentials and uncreated futures. And when a surprising arrangement works, its author is the first to enjoy its own creation. In this regard, play is its own reward, its own nourishment.

Finally, when done correctly, the play instinct already encompasses love. Love is present in the deep care that the artist is infusing in each small component of his/her art. No one is more concerned about the final results than the artist who is compelled to bring into expression the formless void s/he is pregnant with.

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves." (Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition, par 234)

Transgression and passing the torch

And yet, just like not all new ideas are good, not all transgressions are successful. To understand this distinction, we can compare Alysa's ice-skating to Rachael Gunn's breakdance, as both were done in an Olympic setting.

A question appears immediately: why did Raygun fail where Alysa succeeded? In both renditions of self-expression, why did they achieve such polar opposite results? To answer this question, we can go through a few elements that both athletes approached differently.

First, Alysa does not seem to have an agenda in mind. Her goal is self-expression, which happens to take place in a competitive setting. On her end, Raygun appears to be motivated by an academic premise, something along the lines of trying to change breakdancing from within, as her thesis "Deterritorializing gender in Sydney's breakdancing scene" renders explicit³. It is as if breakdancing was secondary to this other concealed purpose.

Second, Alysa fundamentally pays respect to the spirit of the Olympics, which is around struggle, performance, and bringing the best one has to offer to the public. She thus fulfils the audience's and the judges' expectations despite playing a different game. By contrast, Raygun operates in a different spirit, which is antithetical to the Olympics. The set of values by which she executed her breakdancing is, at best, paying lip service to the millennial tradition of the Olympics, and at worst, completely disregarding it.

Finally, Alysa operates in continuity with what is expected of the world's best athletes. Doing so, she brought new life to her Olympic discipline and, dare I say it, led by example what can be expected of the Age of Aquarius. On her side, Raygun operated in a deconstructive manner, an almost tantric attempt at breaking rigid conditioning. If she demonstrated undeniable creativity and originality, her creative fire has been deemed unworthy of being preserved or continued. Or so it has been collectively decided by mankind, in our eternal task of passing the torch forwards.

P.S: An unlikely parallel with Overman as Alysa and The Substance’s MonstroElisaSue

Let's return to the topic of the 'Overman'. In my analysis of the film The Substance, I break down a key moment in the protagonist’s final transformation into her abominable amalgamation following a series of escalating tensions and crises.

I go a step further in my interpretation by zooming out and reading this as a powerful dream, as though from the director herself (Coralie Fargeat). A meta view of what it means to present to the world an idea and expression of self for all to see and mark judgement upon it. As directly with the scene in question: the protagonist is on stage amongst the messenger angels, revealing her new unique form (MonstroElisaSue) to the audience and quite literally birthing her artistic content right before them.

Without delving too deeply, as the scene analysis can be read directly here. In its finality, this was an affront to the audience, a ghastly display that felt monstrous and alien, half-baked even.

What we can witness and surmise in both cases is a similar symbolic portrayal, with the major caveat being that Alysa Liu’s presentation of the new self was a positive, inspired, and unbounded exposition, as Aquarian. Yet it still managed to find complete, unadulterated, unique expression within the eye of the needle. An exceptionally precise task hints at the potential ability and essence of the divine child, to not only re-conceptualise old systems and revivify through novelty, but to bring together and not divide or alienate.

Alysa Liu presents herself purely as self-defined and uncategorised. Just as we find Fargeat’s creation as MonstroElisaSue. However, we as an audience are not horrified by its intensity or forced into a blood rite to accept the offering. Both are religious in nature, yet what we experience positively in Liu’s performance and its symbolism is in fact a beautiful vision of future possibilities, for each person's own authentic process in becoming.