Great & Grating Mandalas - Of Destined Encounters With Spurious "Divinity" aka Adventures In The Gator Trade & Rambles In Rumored-To-Be "Spiritual" Jungles

Shake >>>> & <<<< Bake

"Awakener to Myself is my name." - C. G. Jung Vol.14, p.90

Spring 1971, second semester as a freshman. Hair had grown out nicely since I had arrived greatly shorn in Fall 1970, my dad's last enforcement (he was the crew cut king, OR ELSE).

Was breaking out and free(R) from "back home" = discovered that I loved philsosophy studies so changed my major from English to philosophy, both were money makers vocationally lol.

This song my freshman year, to my surprise the vinyl album was in the college library, greatly moved me as it easily evoked my feelings toward "the Major" now that I was out of his house:

Peter, Paul and Mary's anti-war anthem/lament "sang me" into now safer-to-feel sorrows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C12SwHLtAAg

And/But I was finally free(R) from uber-control by The Major (my dad had been a major in WW2) and wanted to free my mind from fundamentalist shackles that then and still saturate the air down South. I was ironically at a conservative Calvinist-theology oriented college. No matter. At lest "Calvinistas" as I later came to call them (after The CLASH album, SANDINISTAS) were intellectually oriented so philosophy was serious study so I did that, studied hard, while I also had my own stack of books from the library that had NOT been assigned, especially, secretly, books by liberal theologians who were not at all in good favor with Evangelicals. But when studying with conservatives I learned to make sure to keep the lid of their tight boxes WIDE OPEN, and read whom they did not at all give the Imprimatur to cuz I knew the libs had to be onto something! my psyche was more with them than the rather anal jot and tiddlers (never "titt-lers") so I throve under my own hungry tutelage while also enjoying some excellent profs who were greatly "taken" with their disciplines and were skillful, some even inspiring, teachers.

I had also discovered Thomas Merton in 1968 when a book of his, The New Man, flew off a shopping mall bookstore shelf! I shite ye not!
At my feet it lay so - wha'? picked it up, thumbed some pages. Ne're heard of him but purchased it. Read the book and bought more (hard to find in a bookstore there but the town library fortunately had a smallish stash.

So. Yeah. Had my Merton books tucked away in the dorm. I was/am a kind of Catho-holic since then, greatly drawn to the mystics even as a kid when a Catholic cajun cousin spent a summer with the family and he suggested I pray a rosary with him so we could go to the mountains (he was a swamp kid and had never seen mountains - "Do they look like a levee?" he asked on the drive from Donaldsonville (on the Mississippi) to Greenville SC.

NOOOOoooooo!

So. Yeah. I went to college on a mountain top, and not just any top but one where MLK, Jr. proclaimed to "Let freedom ring" from and go out all across the land. I certainly was free(R) than ever but not yet free from pathological religion but evolved through the years (others would, of course, argue with me with chapters and verses. Little do or would they know that I made piece with my younger child self who found great comfort and surcease in Christianity when it darkened the door of the livingroom as two Presby parsons showed up to invite my family to the new "mission church". That visit changed a lot of things. But more on that at another time if at all. The terrible world view of those parsons certainly described the world I was living in at home and at school (bullied relentlessly, even by some teachers and a few (asshole) coaches.

So. Yeah. Young me found an eye of the storm that assisted in getting through, in under going (which is the etymology of the word "suffer" aka to go under, under go, also refers to an undercarriage as in a coach or car, etc.) what I was poorly dog-paddling in.

So, with a good Jungian analyst - I wanted a Jungian who would NOT dismiss the Christian years, be reductive re: them, so found her and then some years later, him - and now sing hymns when little Warren wants to, make prayers (he does) and so life goes on in all kinds of weather. I realized the more I trained for being a counselor/therapist that we are all made of of part-selves and these can live comfortably enough together even though some parts are the exact opposite to other parts. BUT/AND it is I who holds counsel at the large round table these visible parts are sitting around. And, yeah, there are other parts beneath the table, very much alive though unseen, "chewing aways," as I say, "at my crotch and ankles." OY. Best to get another chair at the tabled, invite the f*cker to show itself and arm. wrestle with the others.

Exhausting at times. But, hey, it works good enoughly. Fantasies of transcendence from my/our human hairy jiggly meatiness, the "Dreaded Gom-Boo" as weird coo coo guru Da Free John wrote about in his book titled The Dreaded Gom Boo described humans desperate search to escape the "animal" we are at war with the ego (conscious self) that we, too, are. 

NYC wall mural, Michelango Sistine Chapel replication

And this in a gallery window nearby

Here's an extended transcription follows from an email some years back sent to someone who wanted me to track my own "bunny hop" (a popular early '60's chain dance of two hops forward, three hops back) "spiritual" venturings (I prefer the word "psychological" to "spiritual" which is, the word, now a grab bag of "plethoras in the mass religious Agora, a disparate capitalist pantheon of religious market place consumerism of meanings, leanings, hard core to nuance, from "breatharians" to "muscular Christianity (PUL-LEEZ! get a shrink!). When I refer to "psychological" I mean it the way Carl Jung means it and that hopefully will be clearer from what now follows:

"I used to read these two paragraphs by Free John (he of many names) quoted further below (last two of this post) to my students in a spiritually "free range" counseling training program with more than a nod to New Age gobble gobble...upon the reading of Da much laughter was had, but it was/is seriously serious stuff as, YES, VIRGINIA, religion IS psychology as it, they, all arrive from psyche - thus Duh Bubba Free John.

Now very Free John was very free with his "junk" (genitals, no surprise) Da-funct Da Abi Doot, Da Da Da sisk boom ba, as he never did any personal shadow work evidenced by his scamming, manipulations of others' consciousnesses in his harems of followers, de DA was utterly mugged by the Shadow, the archetype of Power, what Carl Jung calls "the Power Devil" - the same one (perhaps a flavored Eastern-ly, that tempted Jesus in the desert as his ministry was just beginning; Jesus resisted all the magical passes and impressive miracles the "Devil" tempted him with in order to gain political power over the world where all would worship and follow him as the Supreme Leader. Does this sound familiar, folks? Most certainly. Tis the same old deal for millennia).

Free John is a glaring example, one of very, very many, entranced by those powers of archetypal psyche (very very tempting they are) so, as usual, too often in (especially in) "spiritual" groups one or more followers (a "faction") carry the shadow of the religion or spiditual group where "sacred" techniques offered. NOTE: the SHADOW WILL OUT especially with groups that identify as "spiritual". How could it, Shadow, not?

It does but is almost always under the radar, in the underground but IT does and will surface and then, horror of horrors, psychology, consciously, has to happen to deal with the "self-righteous scapegoating and slaughter that follows - welcome to the history of religions, folks, which, too, is the history of human social groups and massive power grabs and vicious games (see my FB post from yesterday of passages from Ernest Becker's still salient book, Escape from Evil re: what drives (a good Freudian, biological, word) the power games of homo scrape-pens aka fear of death, and massive shame of being animal, Nature).

Forewarned re: groups (all kinds) and shadow is four armed so one might want to turn the volume down on naiveté and (the abject fantasy of "innocence" post-infancy else one will learn all too often the hard way (NOTE: Jung did point out, "God is a trauma." I add, "and spiritual/religious groups are, too, or can be, most often are...my take away from being all too absorbed in religious groups and cadres is:

"Live and burn. Live and learn = Blues School" now get along little dogies, on you huskies, gird yer brains and yer loins (ah! there's the rub, or NOT rub, damn ye, Loins). Hey, humor helps. What did Dylan sing, "It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry."

So.Yeah. Back to my email:

9/11 searchlight from the site September 2004

Unlike American uber popular spirituality LITE aka New Age, New Thought, Scions of Mind, et. al (so entertaining), "Individuation" is Carl Jung's term for addressing all dimensions of the psyche, especially the personal and collective unconscious as he lays out in his vast corpus of writing on what he calls depth or archetypal psychology. Variations of his work are NOT for the faint of heart, though Jung has been adulterated, watered down, pablumized, popularized ("we are all gods and goddesses - GAG)

and, importantly, Jungian psychology is NOT an elaborate "spiritual" entertainment though it can easily turn into such when one accesses archetypal energies and mistakenly thinks that one has "arrived" due to "magical powers and developed psychic abilities, et. al. OY. NO. Again, not only read Jung on this but read Ernest Becker re: this - start with Escape from Evil and then happily/hungrily move on to his opus masterpiece (for which he won a Pulitzer in 1970 but, alas, just after he died young of cancer). I escaped the Calvinistas, left the college, the community in Tennessee and soon after discovered Ernest Becker who had, still has, a massive impact on me then and now. For one, yay, his writing is an absolute pleasure to read.

So here's an extended quote by Jung which is called for here before reading the entertaining Free John quote which enables us, invites us each and every, one and all, to have a good healthy shadowy laugh of recognition that Da Free (with his)Junk John enables us to acknowledge that, yes, we do, we all got the Dreaded Gom-Boo, the Imaginary Illness that Religion Seeks to Cure (brilliant that Fra Yonks uses humor to impact us and hip us to Da Dee Gee Boo...

and I personally do not think that the "disease" IS imaginary (as in unreal) as it is, precisely, from the psyche, it is ImaginaAL a la Jung and the archetypal energies mediated by the Imaginal-Imagination IS psyche. We think and live and speak and act in images, Virginia. But welcome to philosophy (epistemology) and psyche/ology, the ways of psyche (which means "soul" - see we are back in a religious frame)

but here's Carl Jung, a chosen sampler (extensively):

“I am not a man, neither am I a god, a goblin, a Brahmin, a warrior, a merchant, a shudra, nor disciple of a Brahmin, nor householder, nor hermit of the forest, nor yet mendicant pilgrim:

Awakener to Myself is my name.”(Jung, Vol.14, p.90) - for the New Agers, the neo-gringo shamans, high priest and priestesses, the millions of channelers (OY - nothing new under the lid-fluttering sun):

" . . . One cannot be too cautious in these matters, for what with the imitative urge and a positively morbid avidity to possess themselves of outlandish feathers and deck themselves out in this exotic plumage, far too many people are misled into snatching at such “magical” ideas and applying them externally, like an ointment.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls [ψυχή, psychi, anima, animus, seele, saiwala, saiwalo, aiolos, sila, anemos, pneuma, anan, anhelare, rih, ruh, psychein, psychos, psychros, physa; Jung, Vol.8, pars. 663-664].

They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world

all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that

anything useful could ever come out of their own souls.

Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come.

Therefore let us fetch it from the four corners of the earth—the more far-fetched and bizarre it is the better! "

Jung continues:

"I have no wish to disturb such people at their pet pursuits, but when anybody who expects to be taken seriously is deluded enough to think that I use yoga methods and yoga doctrines or that I get my patients, whenever possible, to draw mandalas for the purpose of bringing them to the “right point"

then I really must protest

and tax these people with having read my writings with the most horrible inattention.
The doctrine that all evil thoughts come from the heart and that the human soul is a sink of iniquity must lie deep in the marrow of their bones.

Were that so, then God had made a sorry job of creation, and it were high time for us to go over to Marcion the Gnostic and depose the incompetent demiurge.

Ethically, of course, it is infinitely more convenient to leave God the sole responsibility for such a Home for Idiot Children, where no one is capable of putting a spoon into his own mouth. [BWAH HA HA HA! don't mess with Jung!! or maladapt him and his psychology]

But it is worth man’s while to take pains with himself, and he has something in his soul that can grow.

It is rewarding to watch patiently the silent happenings in the soul, and the most and the best happens when it is not regulated from outside and from above.

[This latter bears repeating: "the best happens when it is not regulated from outside and from above."]

I readily admit that I have such a great respect for what happens in the human soul that I would be afraid of disturbing and distorting the silent operation of nature by clumsy interference. (Jung, Vol.12, par.126)"

End of Jung quote

Goes without saying that all the above views expressed are my own, for what they're worth, and they shape shift, drift, contradict (the fantasy of escaping the opposites is more delusion than fantasy) from my direct experience in various flavors of "spiritual groups" (I'm done with all that now, please gods and little fishes), was traumatized in and from those groups.

The wreckage in such groups is part of a very old old ancient story that plays out daily in groups all kinds, secular and spiritual, with ugliness and trauma ensuing while the self-identified minister or guru or other, the leaders (a faction, as well, but they don't think so - so Danger Will Robinson, whereof the named self appointed psychopomp of a group remains, so they think (if they fall for their own act which, actually, IS what they do) without any fault or shadow or culpa whatsoever.

I, too, am culpa. Culpable cuz am human, am nature, and the animal is insistent, persistent and will not be transcended (that fantasy).

I had a dream that there had been a flood from a hurricane in southern climes. My little house was flooded with at last 2 feet of water. The storm had passes and the flood waters still flowed. My front door was open, swollen from the waters so could not shut. I stood in my kitchen looking out the open door and saw an alligator about 5 feet long swimming along with the currents and, I knew it!, it leisurely headed straight for and through my front door!

Oh HELL NO! thought I, and so, as dreams often do, there was conveniently a garden hoe leaning against my kitchen table, and I had sharpened the hoe to thin razor capacity. The gator eyed me and headed straight for me. I grabbed the hoe and hacked that sucker to bits. In fact, I put it on my table and cut it into pieces knowing I would keep some for myself to eat (eating imagery in dreams, fairy tales, religious rituals is integration imagery, heralds taking in an integrating some aspect that needs to be psychologically integrate), and then I would take the rest of the gator meat to sell in the marketplace. End of Dream.

I woke up knowing that this was a vocational dream. That my work as a counselor/therapist, dream worker, would be with folks gators, their animal alimentary canal reptilian selves, to confront and "eat" "come to terms with" (better, more practical than "integration" which is a bit to nip and tuck....it is, must and will be, a sloppy mess of a braid, knots, frays, stray bolls, threads, a glom but such does still effectively serve. And, yes, Virginia, what I do is "religious" in the etymological sense of the word which is re-link, re-connect,

re- meaning "again" "back"

ligio- meaning connect, link, bond (thus our noun "ligament" which attaches).

So, gator work is conscious re-linking work, one cannot unlink our connection to, our being gator, or animal, or instinctual. The fantasy of formal religion (which we as a species come by honestly) is that we will transcend the animal, the instincts, death....rather,

FAT CHANCE.

But/and one can come to terms with, embrace (messily but consent/assent to do so, to live with, as I do at my table round with the beasties and such beneath the table who are invited to set in a chair at the ever expanding table. The galactic barroom scene in the first Star Wars movie is what I have in mind as the function of my round table, all these disparate creatures and energies in one place out there in outer space (which is an image of the Collective Unconscious) are in a tenuous but functional hold, a dangerous closeness and all the volatility thereof. That bar, yes, strikes me now, is my "church" or "congregation' (with my own monk cell for solitude and such). I tend the bar, I guess. And also partake after hours.

Wallace Stevens - 

from The Man With The Blue Guitar

Now,

if one feels compelled to partake of what is offered by guru, teacher, shaman, et. al, then best to "take the money and run" from such,

critical thinking active and ON
critical thinking active and ON
critical thinking active and ON
x's mega-million times mega mega etc

knowing that there may be some gold to gain (teaching, etc.) while one should also assume that "spiritual" folks have vast amounts of "shite" too.

Another dream with yet another gator, in brief:

It is the darkest of nights and I have abandoned a massive city, civilization which is a very faint glow behind me. I am, can feel/smell, that I'm in a swamp/coastal area, can hear water close by lapping. I am on a shell road, barefoot, making my way in almost pitch darkness carefully.

I notice to very distant lights way ahead of me so, relieved, I aim to make my way toward them, the only lights I can see in the blackness.

The shell road ends. I have to enter the shallow water to proceed toward the lights which I am getting closer to. Time passes, I continue to wade through the muck, afraid but focused on the lights which are closer. As I approach them I see that the lights are not on light poles but are at the edge of dark water edging a dark forest. I stop. What th' ? I stare at the lights and suddenly realize that those are eyes, large eyes of a gigantic, massive alligator.

I freeze in terror.

At some point I begin to back away slowly, keeping my eyes on the gator eyes which have me clearly in sight.

I begin to wake up out of the dream, very much in terror of what is eyeing me....and as I begin to emerge from the swamp I "hear" a deep gruff voice, the voice of "the god of Gators" tell me

"to walk less lightly upon the world."

Got it. A destined encounter. A religious encounter, indeed.

I got my marching orders straight from Dream Central.

from The Lives of the Saints

by Charles Wright

So the dreams, the autobiography of trying to escape from "evil" (the animal, the instincts, the shadow, et al.

All, back to Da Free John, it's all part of the Dreaded Gom-Boo, Incorporated in multifarious facets. And it is deeply sacredly personal.

It is not a formula. what Jung means when he write (as quoted above):

"It is rewarding to watch patiently the silent happenings in the soul, and the most and the best happens when it is not regulated from outside and from above."

*

SO, at last, here are the two hilariously orienting paragraphs of the Bo Diddly Da Da Dobby Abi Doot Da Doot Da Doodle Do Doot (Lou Reed chorus chittering on in "Take a Walk on the Wild Side doot da-doot doot doot da-doot doot) for mostly Western (inheritors of Western religions and multi-various and -farious vermin-tations/fermentations/permutations) "spiritual" seekers:

Master Da: If you want to "get religious" in our time you must first decide that you have the Dreaded Gom-Boo. Then you go to Doctor Pope, Doctor Church, Doctor Jesus, Doctor Mahatma, Doctor Mahatmaboo, Doctor Gombooananda, Doctor Gomananda-Booharaj. As soon as you get the feeling that you have the disease, you start to look for religious answers. Ask most of the people around you how they got involved with this Way of Life, and they will describe some symptom or other of the Dreaded Gom-Boo. The Dreaded Gom-Boo led you all here because you were looking to be cured of the heebie-jeebies, the hopefull Three-Day-Thumb-and-Finger Problem, the terrible jiggly meatedness! (Laughter)

Are you telling me that you think God and Truth are supposed to be interested in curing you of the Dreaded Gom-Boo? Is that it? It is about time you realized there there is no cure for the Dreaded Gom-Boo! The Gom is terrible! The Boo is terminal! And this is what you've got, right? I thought so! I could see symptoms as soon as you came in here. Have you got the Boo? The Dreaded? The terrible Gom? Have you? That's what I thought! Tell me true -

have you got the Gom-Boo?"

*

Indeed and in deed I do (da-doot doot da-doot doot into finitude da dude da dude du du dude duuu

Ceramic figurine - 

Museo Antropologia

de Mexico

**

What's below is tribute to my hitch-hiking days while in college and in between breaks and summers, I post Patti Smith's pertinent anthem, Amerigo, re: youthful travels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeugllqZlxQ

The soundtrack to this pic at the top in my frosh year was The Byrds "Ballad of Easy Rider" album, and this one song in particular always made me want to just hitch-hike down the mountain to the interstate or smaller highways and ride my thumb to wherever I aimed. Such jaunts would occur on fall and spring breaks...or in summers in between semesters, I was usually heading OUT of the South for North to Philly or NYC.

So the song, Gunga Din, is road music, for sure....hence, one fall break I hitched to Birmingham, AL to hang with a few friends I'd met at a conference held at the college....about an hour into thumbing my way southwest, a beat up VW Bug puttered past me, my thumb out, Bug stopped, a door flew open with shafts of smoke rushing out into the fields around.

VW graphic design by Juan Esteban Calderon

OK! here goes! Immediately noted that the Bug was way way low to the ground and the tires looked like they needed pounds of air but, the road gods are good (NOT a Calvinist idea, for sure) so I ran to the open door to an already jammed packed cab....5 young people of the Tuscarora tribe greeted me with cheers, and beers (empties under feet), hauled me into the backseat, I resisted but to no avail as they laughed and cheered me as they crammed me in the middle of the backseat with the 3 other occupants.

And they were massively stoned, and beatific....much! There was no need to partake (cuz I didn't do that) but when in a Bug full of weed smoke there was "go with the flow" so within minutes I sang Lynard Skynard loudly along with them -

"In Muscle Shoals they luv the gubnah....(NOT ME! no love for George Wallace!)

SWEET HOME ALABAMA!!"

And, by gods and little fishes, they eventually drop me off in Muscle Shoals!! a road side diner sobered me up with copious coffee and full breakfast, eggs, grits, hash browns, bacon AND sausages (paddies AND links)....toast, too, homemade blackberry jam....munchies, what? I was in Hogfat heaven. Paid about a dollar with a doggie bag for later.

A grand adventure, indeed.

Made it to Birmingham where I was, nest day, in a car accident that slammed the side of my head against the passenger side side window (no seat belts) whereupon I saw stars for days and my ears, already ringing from the Tuscaroa music blaring for miles, had overtones added by the car crash. No serious injury but enough to ponder how quickly a trauma can arrive mid-drive in balmy Birmingham.

Sobered by the head bang, I took a bus back to Chat-town and hitched back up to school, told no one, not even room mates about the event and the after effects still activated.

Addled, much. But it, evidently, was part of the thumb improvs.

Another week of sleep in between classes, meals, studies and such and clarity returned. Ears? had a hum for a while, a low white noise, a kind of grind, but eventually that abated.

Now my ears roar from too much caffeine and years, too many, of loud music concerts NYC and nearby, even jazz made a din, yes, but NOT the Gunga", so here's the Byrds song, Gunga Din, still good for the road...perhaps there may be one last hitch-hike but will see what cards are dealt...a short jaunt, say, to High Point, NJ, highest point of the Appalachia Trail in Jersey, not really very hight but an easy drive so an easy hitch, I imagine. And a Trailways bus station not too many thumbs away from the spot I used to camp out at near the highest point (an outhouse nearby):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPNJKhjpXk4&list=OLAK5uy_lBCfTAs_i8LP9ldxPXh_a_yfMmBnvPcxA&index=9

**

CODA

Now in my mid-70's - so much for Easy Rider....but my street's in the East Village NYC...St. Marks Church down the block, place where American poets and activists, the Beats, artists of note (or once were noted). The city is more and more shopping mall visually, less NYC but for what old neighborhoods can hold out against mega-realtors wanting Pizza Huts and McDonalds on every corner. GRRRRRrrrrrrrrr.

Alphabet Streets - Beginning & Ending With Lines From Zukofsky

for Z

"O framar of
the starry circle'"
O what is the name, 
lost perhaps, of
he who once sharpened 
all our knives, 
the old Jew? 

THIS OUR LIFE
SOME FEW RETURN
TO HEAR/SEE
EVIDENCE OF
THE NATURE OF 
A CITY TO 
CONTINUALLY
ERASE ITSELF

*

O Shapener of
the duller blade
turning hammers
sickles for Workers 
everywhere, bricks, 
straw, verse

The breast naturally 
of Woman is bread 
before was bread, 
the child loaf-swell 
in Her arms to farm 
and from such 
frame a world.

Thus Labor. 
Bread, History.

Child's toil unspoiled 
forms a culture beast, 
crawls forth, makes 
bread of soil native 
& other, a Mother culture 
all & still, everywhere.

*

History before was brunch 
ever in the world. Sunday. 
Avenue C. Door opens to sun 
and saunter/the wanderers 
now' arm in arm they goes' 

just past every corner where
is found Rosenbergs still
bound, abandoned, run over, 
bleeding ink into avenue
black scroll, trial, 
knee/kneel, rather, 

evoke schtetl horse-drawn 
vender runner-about cart 
heaving vegetable grief 
returned to synagogue 
alley dead end where 

what is left out of grief 
carves into brick with knives 
the daylong silver Jew-beard 
fills with sparks 
and children awe 

trace metals trail 
splintered steel falls 
pushes he of the leaden 
cart spokes-handmade 
wheels-wooden old tongues' 
leather an old seeing 
shaping art or 'new it 
up' outwith 
forth- for hind- 
or other-sight 
heat lightning 
render new sight 

some sundering strike
each individual eye/ear 
torn/turn toward whatever 
century's year may yield
make: 


"O framar of
the starry circle" 
O what is the name, 
lost perhaps, of
he who once sharpened 
all our knives, 
the old Jew? 

THIS OUR LIFE
SOME FEW RETURN
TO HEAR/SEE

EVIDENCE OF
THE NATURE OF 
A CITY IS TO 
CONTINUALLY
ERASE ITSELF

"...What wer, what be, what
shall bifall..how found knowe
Suche forme..wiche knowes not
shape? As oft the running
stile In sea paper leue, 
Some printed lettars..marke haue
none at all..But a
passion..sturs The myndz forse
while body liues, What light
the yees..bit, Or sound
in ear...strike" - Louis Zukofsky

* 

Trans. of the just above:

"...What were, what be, what
shall befall..how found know
Such form..which knows not
shape? As oft the running
still In sea paper leave, 
Some printed letters..mark have
none at all..But a 
passion..stirs The mind's force
while body lives, What light
the eyes..bite, Or sound
in ear...strike." 

- Zuke's rendering

No journeying anywhere E. 10th St drifts

O Mama, can this really be the end,

to be stuck inside of Manhattan with

the Memphis blues again - Bob Dylan

Tenement rooftops f"common' thru th' bathroom window

Shaking Dusty Throw Rugs On The Roof - Sunrise East Village NYC - 6/21/2009

sun's not much


just enough


& one cloud

just some-

where 

beyond

between

buildings


morning glory's 


already


opened


closed

an

accident

of

placement

its

indigo

"...What is this quintessence of dust?" On Dis-spell-ing, or Trying To, the Fixed Trance of USA as a Christian Nation, OR, "What God Wants God Gets, God Help Us All"

A Facebook post, not mine, 5/18/26

"And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?" - from Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

THERE. IT. IS. And always has been. 

So long ago some hominids dropped some hair, grew a new brain (prefrontal cortex) and thusly "woke" a bit out of the much much much older (and hard set in its ways) reptilian brain (which still rules the day),which is PRIME still though human will (aka ego) claims superiority over it, meaning - over NATURE...or, actually, KOSMOS.

Wherefore and whenever "Christianity" or one of its still persistent angular/strangular ancestors, is (errantly and exhaustingly)) proclaimed to be THE religion of a nation, or region, or territory, and that this peculiar and particular "favor" of Cosmic Creator (CC) bestows.said people to be manifestly destined to have CC's "favor" of divine rights uber allies (German used on purpose with a gash of mustache under the schnoz), then, as it is often adjudged (at least by humble ol' me),

"there is hell to pay."

Not only do people pay but, alas, so do all creatures here below, and the planet itself, subjected to the human apocalypse resulting from aeons of massive delusions of grandeur. driven by ID and the ambiguous yet ambidextrous miracle of the "thumbs- and-forefingers put to pragmatic purposes (the real deity is Pragmatism in its 3 manifestations, Convenience, Efficiency, and EASE

and AHHHH-MENNNNN!

In psychology such "grandeur/grandiosity" is termed to be what it is, INFLATION of ego into what Carl Jung calls archetype or, better, when he lets his hair down, "GOD ALMIGHTINESS". Not only are individuals prone to inflation but groups of people are the more easily and readily prone to believe that they alone are set apart and thusly curry special favor from CC because their "flavor" is the preferred savor of CC. Inflation devours the inflated ones, their rendering of CC swallows them and they become instruments of destructive control and, worse, subjection, slavery and violence of all kinds, sanctified, of course, by said CC,

one of the worst of violences (there are so many) being psychological aka "mind fuckery" most odious and crippling.

And, alas, pathologically effective.

At least 3 or 4 times a year for over a decade now (since Facebook arrived and I arrived on the dreaded beast) I post a link to Ernest Becker's still profound book,

The Denial of Death. (the reading of which, while and after, changed me utterly - WOKE - SADLY - RELIEVEDLY - made the wiser from the reality of the tragic/noble/ignoble "project" of our (human) species/feces

(aka "Civilization and Its Discontents (FREUD)" as well as the needed elevation of Jung's vision of "Civilization and Its Mys- (as in mystic/mysteries) and Myth- Contents (myth renders meaning)...

Becker is highly readable, accessible re: grocking what he's unfolding page by page, coherently so, troublingly so, as he renders the tragedy of homo sapiens (I prefer homo scrape-pens to be surgically accurate) in the dilemma of their/our standing apart from nature while said fore-brained hominids yet ARE nature indeed and in deed; that humans with "newish" brain are verily god-like in inventiveness in skills, arts , medicine, etc:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals!

[And then the unending question that breaks the spell]

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? - from Hamlet

Becker is not Shakespeare BUT his writing is spectacular. And he agrees with Hamlet that we humans are "gods" (godlike) in our cleverness, even in our sublimity, and yet, and yet, a fact that we hairless marvels cannot escape -

WE ARE GODS WHO SHIT!

Human, all too human. Animal, all too animal. Nay! DUST we are and to DUST we return.

And there's the rub, the burn, GOSH DERN.

The never-ending archetypal inflation of humans to be God(s) or at least to be in God's chosen unmerited (an intractable rumor) favor continues, a yet to be exhausted run-on sentence of one specie's delusion that it is favored/flavored most of all over all other manifestations of creation (apparently of the cosmos but cosmos is, if nothing else, and it is more than nothing,

TRICKSTER. So all bets, or better, all PELTS are off (you somewhat hairy, jiggly-meat-ed suffering from the thumb and forefinger disease. Is that a nuke in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

All this to say, to underscore all the more, that "Divine Favor"

is a deadly, a murderous delusion. Despite distractions of art and culture, all our cleverness. It is cleverness that is and will do us all in, or, OUT. So

shake it up, baby, twist and shout...abra ca dab bra....
et-sweet-cetera so

ceterieeeee ceteraaaaahhh,
cetera ha-ha ha-ha ha-ha
HA-HAAAAAAA!

AHEM (I plead CAFFEINE, here, a god of sorts too - caffeine, not me).

Here is Becker, the book, read it free at this link. I'd love to read this with a few others on a monthly or weekly basis in person or via computer devices (aka deities). Hit me up here if interested. Even on other reader would work for me. And/but a hard copy of the book is best of all (I know. I know. I am old school, gimme a scroll any day:

https://humanposthuman.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ernest_becker_the_denial_of_deathbookfi-org.pdf

In my end is my beginning so here's Hamlet to put the pinto, the period to the end of this unreasonable prance about:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? - from Hamlet

And the question is, too, now, a fairly hairless beggar
though many err in the belief/delusion that "Christianity
(of the many many mutant strains

[NOTE} all gods are local and they really don't travel well from one ecosystem/climate to another, which guarantees at least 2 certain things, the gods are cranky cuz tired and hungry, disoriented so need to be medicated (they are NEVER satiated) by BLOOD all kinds....

Syphilization and its Malcontents.

CUCKOO!

To sum, I'll end with human wisdom (and humor - thank the gods we can laugh at them, with them and at our selves and our creaturely condition....this masterpiece by Kobayashi Issa, his death haiku::

a bath when you're born,
a bath when you die
how stupid.

**

Soundtrack to the above and below - Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - "America Drinks and Goes Home" aka
It's all about the cocktail.

And it is cocktail hour always somewhere sometime on the planet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JR-d9N4GNk

And then, Saint (Roger)Waters, has the final say at to Western Deity:

"What God wants, God gets. God help us all!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtcY8iY6jO4

Western religion is, frankly, it's own ultimate end - Nihilism aka Apocalypse.

ENUFF.

SELAH. 

**

About Warren Falcon

"A river is a process through time, and

 the river stages are its momentary parts."

—Willard Van Orman Quine

I rewrite Quine's quote here by changing one word which, I believe, says what dreams do for the dreamer who pays attention to them, they identify and reorient one in and through moment to momentary parts lived, they reveal and readjust the momentum of lived lives and can indicate direction one is heading toward — take heed.

"A dream is a process through time, and

the dream stages are its momentary parts."

Warren Falcon is a Jungian oriented counselor in NYC who also teach workshops & ongoing classes. He is one of the founders & faculty of the Learning For Life Group in NYC, a teaching & training organization dedicated to building competent, conversant, theoretical, practical, technical & Imaginal bridges between healing traditions, old & new.>With compassion, curiosity, crazy humor, constancy & courage healing work unfolds hidden dimensions of self seeking integration into conscious personality taking "places at table" & contributing to the ongoing works in progress that we are. Not about perfectionism the work is, rather, about Wholeness, that Inclusivity which does not shut out any part of ourselves inviting even rejected parts to be present, compassionately, curiously worked with & understood as vital sources needed for creative living.> Dream work, as old as when humans first began sharing them with others, is a wellspring available to all, re-Sourcing us as we move toward vibrant, authentic maturity. Jungian & other approaches, insights & techniques are utilized when working dreams with others. Private dream work & bi-monthly dream groups are available.

**

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33cZmr2uiQ

A podcast done in the past year....going into the shadow of the United States (all nations have shadows just as all, each and every human has a shadow).  The blurb posed on the YouTube podcast hosted by Jennifer Sicilliano - give her a like! please:

"In the episode, "On Trump, His Shadow Archetypes; the Symbolic Pulse of the Nation with Jungian Dream Analyst, Warren Falcon (S6 E10)"; dream expert, Warren Falcon, illuminates the many shadow archetypes of Donald Trump as America currently deals with its cultural complex of a lost dream. The conversation opens up with reference to a podcast interviewing Thomas Lavin, the now deceased Jungian analyst, who served as the chief clinical psychologist for the US army from 1977-1981. Lavin speaks about the dictators of the last century, those of Europe in both World Wars, and presents Jung's takes on Trump and Hitler. (link below) Warren further speaks on America’s cultural complexes and our loss of the symbolic life. He highlights the active archetypal expressions of Trump-- from the trickster, to the god of war, to the king. Warren tackles the symbolic chaos we are currently wading through and reminds us about the American dream that is linked to the overriding complex we have as a nation, as we both run away from and embrace the king archetype collectively. Warren also speaks about Pete Hegseth’s rant to the military generals, the event during which Trump chimed in with his declaration of "the enemy within", which is namely his own shadow projected outward onto anyone but himself. In the midst of Trump’s last-ditch effort to be the voice to prevent the Great Replacement in America—the idea that black &amp; brown people will replace the white race—will Americans finally wake up to the demise of our multi-cultural American immigrant story? Warren encourages the listener to do their own study and research regarding the topics approached, especially the work of C. G. Jung, which are "loosely" sketched in this "free range"; conversation. Folks can email Warren if they want to quibble or offer differing views at: falconwarren@gmail.com. In subject line put: “Jen’s podcast- dreamwork”"

Spring (Mid-May) Into Summer Dream Group Now Forming 

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach. 

—C.G. Jung

After a much needed haitus I have decided to "dream up" a Monday evening dream group to begin in mid-May (or as soon as we can once enough folks are on board) which can continue through the summer till August. Then come September, if folks desire, we can proceed into autumn and winter meetings. We only need about 4 or 5 folks (but welcome more!) to dream tend and see what insights, guidance and transformations may creatively resolve/arrive.

If you have an interest dreams and what and how one you more creatively work with them then please read further below a brief description I've shared with other dream groups, workshops, presentations in the past to give context, or contexts, from which I understand working with psyche and the dreams that come to us (including daydreams, fantasies, active imagination, symptoms-as-body-dreams). 

If you are interested in joining the group then contact me via email or give me a call at the phone number below. Leave a message on my answering machine with your contact info and convenient times to call you back and I will do so. Please speak clearly and slowly! and feel free to pass this notice along to others who may be interested. If you don't know what a dream group is (at least my proven to be dreamy version of dream group) then, again, feel free to contact me via Facebook message and we can chat there or, better, on the telephone. And, again, you can read a more formal announcement below this text for more detail and info about dreams and the group. Still, I'm happy to talk with you and anyone about dream work and how to use a dream group, etc. so give a call if you wish. Again, just private message me here on Facebook and we can chat further.

Meanwhile get yourself a notebook and start recording your dreams, dreams from childhood, recurring dreams, recent dreams. Dreams from the past are always current since dreams aren't like lettuce in the fridge which can go back quickly. Dreams "keep". They are not like veggies in the fridge that have a shelf life. Dreams from childhood, etc, keep on messaging us. 

I invite you to explore your dreams with dedicated others in a dream group which begins again mid-May, meeting every other Monday night from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. I ask for a commitment to regular attendance for 5 months since dream work is intimate and the group becomes an extension of that “intimate sanctum of the soul” which Jung describes in the quote above. The fee per session is $80. If one pays in advance at the beginning of each month of the bimonthly meetings then the fee for both is $160. The fee reserves your space in the group and is not refundable if one misses a meeting. If you must miss a session then I provide a private dream consult for you either by phone or in my office so that the work continues. Also, if one wants a private consultation about a dream then that can be arranged for in-house or phone session.

In each group session we will discus at least 3 dreams of 3 participants with ample room for discussion, associations, interpretations and teaching regarding dreams and the unconscious. The only requirements for participation are commitment, curiosity, humor, and compassion. A healthy sense of humor and irreverence is also encouraged! 

Oh, did I say practical? Not yet, yet foremost is how to apply our dreams, what they convey to us, in the immediacy of our lives, in practical ways in waking life.  Goes without saying that dreams will come in response to paying attention to them that further guide as one proceeds in waking life.  

SO - see what you dream tonight after reading this and be sure to write it down (some folks record their dreams into their Iphones or other recording devices).

The group will meet in the East Village area of Manhattan, subway nearby, in the early evening (not too late) for 2 hours. Bring your supper or a snack or, sometimes, and some folks will head out for a meal together post-dream group.  

Looking forward,

Warren Falcon 
falconwarren@gmail.com

A bit about dreams and dream tending

A dream that is not understood remains a mere occurrence; understood it becomes a living experience. — C.G. Jung

Each dreamer has a profound connection to Psyche-As-Source in this “most intimate sanctum of the soul”. Since the dawn of human consciousness dream work and awareness has been and remains to be an essential "spiritual practice" where on cultivates aspects of self which remain hidden to conscious ego. C.G. Jung confirmed that dreams are a direct connection to this Sanctum - a sacred or holy place and Source which is the Collective Unconsciouswhich can be related to in helpful ways affecting both inner and outer life in transformative, creative ways. 

Jung also found dreams to be progressive, meaning that they appear to be goal oriented toward further development of ongoing consciousness, that consciousness itself is not static, fixed, but ever changing, evolving greater meaning out of the personal and collective past presenting in the present and on into the future. Dream work enables the dreamer to more skillfully discover and cultivate their own greater connection to themselves, others and the Psyche. Jung felt that if enough people do their own inner work and develop their own relationship to the Unconscious via dreams (and creative ways of working with them) this will have a salutary affect not only upon ourselves but also upon the culture at large. The work is not easy, is certainly disruptive to routine and habitual selves, lives, groups and customs, thus it requires tenacity, patience, humor, compassion as well as a willingness to show up to what is being presented from "dream central" which requires response, interaction and action both internally and externally. Psyche insists itself within, upon and around us “by any means necessary” thus the creative need to turn toward this vibrant, alive, electric force and source ever present in our lives and dream the dream onward.

In this group I will guide from a mainly Jungian perspective while bringing other approaches to bear (from Gestalt to shamanism, psychoanalytical, archetypal and others) which can enhance relationship to that which dreams us, dreaming in and through us. Each group member will offer their queries and insights to the dreamer sharing a dream. I will suggest and encourage readings (not required) which may advance your understanding of dreams, how they relate to our lives spiritually and practically as we dream the dream on into waking consciousness leading to personal growth, creative expression and the humble empowerment of daily life. 

In advance of the group beginning mid-May feel free to email  me at my email address above. Please write "May Dream Group" in the subject line. You may also call me at 212-677-6712. I am also available to lead other dream groups in the day and some nights. I am willing to travel in and around the NYC area for such groups. If there are at least 4 people who are interested in a dream group on another day or evening then let's talk about it. I am also available for individual private sessions on dreams.

Also, if we are friends on Facebook you may private message me there…please write May Dream Group. at the top of the message and then give me your contact information.

About Warren Falcon

"A river is a process through time, and

 the river stages are its momentary parts."

—Willard Van Orman Quine

I rewrite Quine's quote here by changing one word which, I believe, says what dreams do for the dreamer who pays attention to them, they identify and reorient one in and through moment to momentary parts lived, they reveal and readjust the momentum of lived lives and can indicate direction one is heading toward — take heed.

"A dream is a process through time, and

the dream stages are its momentary parts."

Warren Falcon is a Jungian oriented counselor in NYC who also teach workshops & ongoing classes. He is one of the founders & faculty of the Learning For Life Group in NYC, a teaching & training organization dedicated to building competent, conversant, theoretical, practical, technical & Imaginal bridges between healing traditions, old & new.>With compassion, curiosity, crazy humor, constancy & courage healing work unfolds hidden dimensions of self seeking integration into conscious personality taking "places at table" & contributing to the ongoing works in progress that we are. Not about perfectionism the work is, rather, about Wholeness, that Inclusivity which does not shut out any part of ourselves inviting even rejected parts to be present, compassionately, curiously worked with & understood as vital sources needed for creative living.> Dream work, as old as when humans first began sharing them with others, is a wellspring available to all, re-Sourcing us as we move toward vibrant, authentic maturity. Jungian & other approaches, insights & techniques are utilized when working dreams with others. Private dream work & bi-monthly dream groups are available.

Here is a radio show where I was invited by Slow Medicine Doctor Michael Finkelstein on the topic of "Dreams of Your Health," It may be a good introduction to who I am, what I do, how I work (generally) with dreams in various contexts of healing. Gratitude to Dr. Finkelstein, a great dreamer, for this opportunity to talk about dreams and working with them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFG7_R5Gq_E&t=2125s

**

Note: All photos are by me, Warren Falcon.  Copyrights are mine alone.  Ask me for permission to use a photo, thanks.

A personal altar from times past: