This is what I have discovered recently. True love, real love, requires a level of nakedness (emotional) and vulnerability that is fucking scary. For me perhaps more than some because of my background, I don't know. But I suspect it's scary for everyone to some degree or another.
Whenever there is even a perceived threat of abandonment, even if it is not anyone's fault because oh say there's a big distance between me and my beloved and a lot of logistical challenges to see one another plus - as recently - a sense memory of a great loss unrelated to the present moment - I can spiral into a kind of fear that is truly terrifying. A very good friend of mine has pointed out that this is the fear from my childhood abandonments that only now can I actually feel.
Fun stuff.
The good news is I am with someone who can remain present when this happens so I am able to walk through this terror.
No wonder I've never been able to form intimate relationships before now. There was this Wall of Fear.
The irony is I thought - of course - that I was able to do this and others were afraid of intimacy. (Pause here for laughter.)
Um no.
If my beloved had walked into my life a day earlier, I may very well have bolted. This shit is scary. To be seen and see another human being in all our vulnerabilities - to allow each other to truly affect the other - to always be ready to acknowledge when either of us is projecting a shadow figure onto the other (and at 49 & 53 believe me there are an accumulation of such shadow figures) - and to be willing to open our hearts even more - every day. That is what is necessary and - miraculously - that is what is happening.
For me, sometimes the terror brings me right back to some ancient terrors - most of which I could not feel at the time. But I am walking through it now and - crucially - with another human being who loves me more than anything, which is how I love him. So there is healing. Finally.
It's not a matter of the same old scab being ripped off over and over again only to grow back and be ripped off again in some insane repetition compulsion masquerading as healing or whatever. But because there is compassion and love rather than just a self-will machine attempting to Fix It For Good or Because it's Unacceptable, there is room for something so much more actually healing.
Healing is of course a deceptive word, something I think I've written about on this blog before - because healing sounds all soothing but is in fact painful. Think of any physical injury you have sustained and the healing process and you'll know what I mean. Love is painful. It's also the greatest joy ever. By an infinite amount. Because there is alchemy here - mysterious, gorgeous, where time shifts and past wounds can heal in the present and there can be a sense of wholeness I never thought possible. I thought I was 'too damaged.' I was wrong.
But this healing love does not come for free or cheap. It requires an ability to accept whatever comes from oneself and one's beloved, however and in whatever way that emerges...There is a Rumi poem that addresses this in a certain way and I will quote it here:
Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy True Human
Beings know:
the moment you accept what troubles
you've been given, the door opens.
Welcome difficulty as a familiar
comrade. Joke with torment
brought by the Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.
That undressing,
and the beautiful
naked body
underneath,
is the sweetness
that comes
after grief.
***
A friend sent me this poem after 9/11 and at the time that is what this referred to for me, but now it also refers to more personal matters. The 'undressing' is what is happening now with my beloved...'the sweetness that comes after grief' - but also, because of so many past traumas - the welcoming of difficulty is also required from time to time. In these moments, I also feel terror. But because I am with someone who loves me, in the end the terror is held and soothed.
There is an opening now - more layers of my past revealed - the most dangerous - the most terrifying - the least 'worded.' The miraculous thing is I now feel safe enough to allow this to happen...
This painful, joyful healing process is what will allow me to finish my grandmothers book. This I realized today when meditating. The block I feel when working on it - the quicksand feeling of doom - it relates to all this. The love I share with my beloved is beginning to melt down the last walls...and this much I know: this final bit has to happen with someone else. I can't do it alone.
Lucky guy, right?
Well, he says he's on board for the ride. Time to buckle up and hold on tight...
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
The New Garde, the Old Garde and the Ancient Garde
Pt. 1: The New Garde [sic: somehow 'Avant' doesn't do it for this...but 'new' does...]
I had the privilege last night of attending Summer Shapiro's Kinds of Light at The Tank as a reviewer. This is part of The Tank's Flint & Tinder series. I love the fact that I can review stuff I think I will love for this blog and thank all makers of work who allow me to do so. This was one of those nights that I live for in the theater - when you go to see someone you don't know at all, just based on a hunch and get treated to a breath of truly fresh air.
At first I was skeptical, the overenthusiastic front of house speech, the strings above the set reminiscent of Richard Foreman (see 'Old Garde' review of Old Fashioned Prostitutes below), etc., etc. But then there was the simple movement that showed us that Shapiro had been on the stage all along (I am not going to describe this moment because I loved all her physical surprises and don't want to give them away - I want instead to intrigue you into going to see the show). She is basically a clown, but in a new way - she seamlessly embodies elegance and clumsiness, a desire to control everything with the comic-tragedy-joy-silliness-awkwardness of being human. I have seen old-school clowning and new-school clowning, but I've never seen anyone take these elements and create such a wholly human-scale performance.
Shapiro creates her tour-de-force in a small space using the elements of: paper, water, a chair and table with wheels, string, an old-school radio, a watering can, a bucket, an umbrella, a simple chandelier, her astonishing physical abilities that are used with skill and simplicity, a preternatural humility and the fact that she survived cancer at a very young age. I don't know for a fact how much her cancer fight was a motor behind the development of this piece, which she started beforehand, but it seems to inform it.
I say 'seems' because like all good clowns, she uses very few words. She conveys to us her self, frustrations, joys, confusions, sorrows, fears, anger and simple happiness through her movements and interactions with the set, designed beautifully by Mary Olin Geiger. She also integrates her work with the sound and music of Sean Brennam and lights of Simon Harding. I mention the designers because there is something of the visual arts in her performance as much as theater. She becomes in many ways a moving installation, while - crucially - always maintaining her human - all too human - connection to herself and the audience.
My only quibble with this piece is that it seemed in some ways a little too tentative in places and I think it can be longer. The ending seemed a bit abrupt and there were some astonishingly beautiful moments upon which I feel she could have expanded. For all of her boldness in her presence, there seems to be a little hesitancy in taking up her full space and owning her full power. I know some of this is on purpose, and the tentativeness of some of her movements and images are meant to convey this awkwardness we face attempting to communicate with one another and ourselves.
I do hope, however, Shapiro continues to develop this piece even further, because I believe it can grow from a beautiful sketch into something a little bit more assured, without losing the charm of her presence as "just one of us." While she is one of us, she is also extraordinarily talented and I look forward to watching her work develop over time.
Pt. 2: The Old Garde [sic - see above]
Richard Foreman's Old Fashioned Prostitutes (a true romance) is the return of the Old Master to His True Form at The Public Theater. I love Foreman's work. Foreman like The Who (for you young'uns out there - The Who was a band that kept saying they were doing their last tour Ever year after year but then kept returning - to wildly enthusiastic fans: see in re: Tommy etc.) keeps threatening to abandon us all for writing or film or whatever but then comes back to do another show - eventually. I am glad he does.
Foreman has created over the course of 45 years (count 'em kids: 45!) a language in and for the theater that has predated and lay the ground for so many of us since who have experimented with language, gesture, design in any way that is not linear narrative. I cannot talk about Foreman without referring to my own work, because his has been so influential. I cannot pretend to be an 'objective critic' (whatever that is and for the record I don't think one exists). Instead, I can only say that I truly appreciate his willingness to bare his soul without embellishment, for the benefit of the rest of us.
This may seem like an odd way to describe his work to those new to it who, like me when I first saw one of his pieces, may have the thoughtful response: What the fuck is That? But, when you surrender your expectations for a coherent narrative and allow yourself to follow the logic of each movement and moment responding, resonating off of one another, you will hear the music that is specific to a Foreman piece. It's easier these days. The world has caught up to him. Our way of seeing and experiencing the world, thanks to the internet, 'smart' phones, Twitter, etc. is so fragmented that in many ways, a Foreman play seems downright peaceful and coherent by contrast.
Old Fashioned Prostitutes (the name itself is wistful and kind of knowing about his place in the 'garde') feels like a Bach concerto more than - say - Ornette Coleman. It's less fragmented than his earlier work, more elegiac and - as I have argued before about all his work - quite emotional. The knock on Foreman is that it's all intellectual, and I think that's wrong. He's a smart dude, there's tons of philosophy knocking around, but there is also usually a love story in the mix - however oddly framed and philosophically loaded - sometimes between a man and a woman, sometimes between two men and in this case between two men and two women with the intervention of a lovely clown-like Michelin-man seeming figure. Because the main characters are named Samuel and Suzie I could not help but think of Samuel Beckett and his wife (Suzanne). Also there are references to the philosopher Berkeley, whose name is pronounced like Barclay, which is Beckett's middle name...but I could be wrong...the beauty of Foreman's work is you can do all the guessing you want and you know in the end that is all you are doing: guessing.
And, it's funny. It's OK if you laugh, people! The anxiety that audiences seem to have when watching Foreman's work keeps them from enjoying the obvious vaudevillian humor from moment to moment. Like Summer Shapiro, Foreman is deeply aware of the tragicomedy of being human. He is older so there is a sense of mortality, some regret, some longing, the dread of desire and fear/hope of death in his work. Perhaps because Shapiro had her own brush with mortality, I see the connection - that and the string... Foreman's work is fully matured, he is a master, in the best sense of the word. My advice to any young theater folk out there: go see both now. See where it starts, see where it goes. Admire a vision that has been honed and one that is in the process of being born. We live in NYC. We are lucky. Take advantage of it!
Pt. 3: The Ancient Garde
Before all of this was Cambodian classical dance or Robam Borann. I was able to catch some examples of this at BAM, The Legend of Apsara Mera choreographed by Princess Devi, the daughter of King Sihanouk (the dude that was deposed by the Khmer Rouge - see in re: The Killing Fields for history on that). This form of dance is based on Hindu mythology and bears some resemblance to South Indian classical dance, but has its own specific feel.
Watching the slowness and precision of these mythological tales being embodied by the dancers made me think of when Artaud first saw Balinese dancers and how impactful that was on his vision of what theater could be - something outside of small naturalism, living rooms and suchlike. There is a much larger horizon here, a vision of more cosmic rather than human life cycles. There is also an implicit argument embedded in these forms for monarchs and human forms of godlike power, so you can see how any good revolutionary might have a problem with it.
However, all politics aside, the dancing was beautiful and there were moments of sheer transcendence. It made me think that in our postmodern haste to throw out all the grand narratives, etc., we may have lost something. That while I have no interest in having a Monarch or bringing back The Great Man of History, etc., we somehow need to allow for awe, for movements that remind us of our connection to the universe and larger spiritual principles.
Richard Foreman's work has done that for me in the past - throwing off material concerns for the more interesting ways in which one's mind can piece together the world outside of obvious causal constraints. Shapiro's work - in moments - begins to hit this mark - one moment swirling in her chair and table and another with a sheet and an umbrella (you need to go see her to know what I mean by this).
So here is where we are: the oldest form/s of dance-theater - with a shrine on the stage - an homage to pre-existing gods, Vishnu being courted overly. The secular-sacred shrines of Richard Foreman - his sets, with Kabbala-inspired signs and imagery - talking to an invisible Witness that he believes exists. The body of Summer Shapiro as witness to where we are now - tentative, anxious, lonely, alive, joyous, afraid - wanting to live.
Not bad for 8 days of theater-dance in NYC. Not bad at all.
I had the privilege last night of attending Summer Shapiro's Kinds of Light at The Tank as a reviewer. This is part of The Tank's Flint & Tinder series. I love the fact that I can review stuff I think I will love for this blog and thank all makers of work who allow me to do so. This was one of those nights that I live for in the theater - when you go to see someone you don't know at all, just based on a hunch and get treated to a breath of truly fresh air.
At first I was skeptical, the overenthusiastic front of house speech, the strings above the set reminiscent of Richard Foreman (see 'Old Garde' review of Old Fashioned Prostitutes below), etc., etc. But then there was the simple movement that showed us that Shapiro had been on the stage all along (I am not going to describe this moment because I loved all her physical surprises and don't want to give them away - I want instead to intrigue you into going to see the show). She is basically a clown, but in a new way - she seamlessly embodies elegance and clumsiness, a desire to control everything with the comic-tragedy-joy-silliness-awkwardness of being human. I have seen old-school clowning and new-school clowning, but I've never seen anyone take these elements and create such a wholly human-scale performance.
Shapiro creates her tour-de-force in a small space using the elements of: paper, water, a chair and table with wheels, string, an old-school radio, a watering can, a bucket, an umbrella, a simple chandelier, her astonishing physical abilities that are used with skill and simplicity, a preternatural humility and the fact that she survived cancer at a very young age. I don't know for a fact how much her cancer fight was a motor behind the development of this piece, which she started beforehand, but it seems to inform it.
I say 'seems' because like all good clowns, she uses very few words. She conveys to us her self, frustrations, joys, confusions, sorrows, fears, anger and simple happiness through her movements and interactions with the set, designed beautifully by Mary Olin Geiger. She also integrates her work with the sound and music of Sean Brennam and lights of Simon Harding. I mention the designers because there is something of the visual arts in her performance as much as theater. She becomes in many ways a moving installation, while - crucially - always maintaining her human - all too human - connection to herself and the audience.
My only quibble with this piece is that it seemed in some ways a little too tentative in places and I think it can be longer. The ending seemed a bit abrupt and there were some astonishingly beautiful moments upon which I feel she could have expanded. For all of her boldness in her presence, there seems to be a little hesitancy in taking up her full space and owning her full power. I know some of this is on purpose, and the tentativeness of some of her movements and images are meant to convey this awkwardness we face attempting to communicate with one another and ourselves.
I do hope, however, Shapiro continues to develop this piece even further, because I believe it can grow from a beautiful sketch into something a little bit more assured, without losing the charm of her presence as "just one of us." While she is one of us, she is also extraordinarily talented and I look forward to watching her work develop over time.
Pt. 2: The Old Garde [sic - see above]
Richard Foreman's Old Fashioned Prostitutes (a true romance) is the return of the Old Master to His True Form at The Public Theater. I love Foreman's work. Foreman like The Who (for you young'uns out there - The Who was a band that kept saying they were doing their last tour Ever year after year but then kept returning - to wildly enthusiastic fans: see in re: Tommy etc.) keeps threatening to abandon us all for writing or film or whatever but then comes back to do another show - eventually. I am glad he does.
Foreman has created over the course of 45 years (count 'em kids: 45!) a language in and for the theater that has predated and lay the ground for so many of us since who have experimented with language, gesture, design in any way that is not linear narrative. I cannot talk about Foreman without referring to my own work, because his has been so influential. I cannot pretend to be an 'objective critic' (whatever that is and for the record I don't think one exists). Instead, I can only say that I truly appreciate his willingness to bare his soul without embellishment, for the benefit of the rest of us.
This may seem like an odd way to describe his work to those new to it who, like me when I first saw one of his pieces, may have the thoughtful response: What the fuck is That? But, when you surrender your expectations for a coherent narrative and allow yourself to follow the logic of each movement and moment responding, resonating off of one another, you will hear the music that is specific to a Foreman piece. It's easier these days. The world has caught up to him. Our way of seeing and experiencing the world, thanks to the internet, 'smart' phones, Twitter, etc. is so fragmented that in many ways, a Foreman play seems downright peaceful and coherent by contrast.
Old Fashioned Prostitutes (the name itself is wistful and kind of knowing about his place in the 'garde') feels like a Bach concerto more than - say - Ornette Coleman. It's less fragmented than his earlier work, more elegiac and - as I have argued before about all his work - quite emotional. The knock on Foreman is that it's all intellectual, and I think that's wrong. He's a smart dude, there's tons of philosophy knocking around, but there is also usually a love story in the mix - however oddly framed and philosophically loaded - sometimes between a man and a woman, sometimes between two men and in this case between two men and two women with the intervention of a lovely clown-like Michelin-man seeming figure. Because the main characters are named Samuel and Suzie I could not help but think of Samuel Beckett and his wife (Suzanne). Also there are references to the philosopher Berkeley, whose name is pronounced like Barclay, which is Beckett's middle name...but I could be wrong...the beauty of Foreman's work is you can do all the guessing you want and you know in the end that is all you are doing: guessing.
And, it's funny. It's OK if you laugh, people! The anxiety that audiences seem to have when watching Foreman's work keeps them from enjoying the obvious vaudevillian humor from moment to moment. Like Summer Shapiro, Foreman is deeply aware of the tragicomedy of being human. He is older so there is a sense of mortality, some regret, some longing, the dread of desire and fear/hope of death in his work. Perhaps because Shapiro had her own brush with mortality, I see the connection - that and the string... Foreman's work is fully matured, he is a master, in the best sense of the word. My advice to any young theater folk out there: go see both now. See where it starts, see where it goes. Admire a vision that has been honed and one that is in the process of being born. We live in NYC. We are lucky. Take advantage of it!
Pt. 3: The Ancient Garde
Before all of this was Cambodian classical dance or Robam Borann. I was able to catch some examples of this at BAM, The Legend of Apsara Mera choreographed by Princess Devi, the daughter of King Sihanouk (the dude that was deposed by the Khmer Rouge - see in re: The Killing Fields for history on that). This form of dance is based on Hindu mythology and bears some resemblance to South Indian classical dance, but has its own specific feel.
Watching the slowness and precision of these mythological tales being embodied by the dancers made me think of when Artaud first saw Balinese dancers and how impactful that was on his vision of what theater could be - something outside of small naturalism, living rooms and suchlike. There is a much larger horizon here, a vision of more cosmic rather than human life cycles. There is also an implicit argument embedded in these forms for monarchs and human forms of godlike power, so you can see how any good revolutionary might have a problem with it.
However, all politics aside, the dancing was beautiful and there were moments of sheer transcendence. It made me think that in our postmodern haste to throw out all the grand narratives, etc., we may have lost something. That while I have no interest in having a Monarch or bringing back The Great Man of History, etc., we somehow need to allow for awe, for movements that remind us of our connection to the universe and larger spiritual principles.
Richard Foreman's work has done that for me in the past - throwing off material concerns for the more interesting ways in which one's mind can piece together the world outside of obvious causal constraints. Shapiro's work - in moments - begins to hit this mark - one moment swirling in her chair and table and another with a sheet and an umbrella (you need to go see her to know what I mean by this).
So here is where we are: the oldest form/s of dance-theater - with a shrine on the stage - an homage to pre-existing gods, Vishnu being courted overly. The secular-sacred shrines of Richard Foreman - his sets, with Kabbala-inspired signs and imagery - talking to an invisible Witness that he believes exists. The body of Summer Shapiro as witness to where we are now - tentative, anxious, lonely, alive, joyous, afraid - wanting to live.
Not bad for 8 days of theater-dance in NYC. Not bad at all.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Springtime in Inwood...
Just some photos...it's a lovely time of year up here.
Just this because....
Just this because....
Monday, May 6, 2013
Spring, creativity, Jung and missing my beloved
Spring is here! A number of gorgeous days in NYC, pink blossoms, green leaves beginning to emerge, white flowers and my favorite: lilacs. Tulips of many colors and all kinds of animals mating (seriously, if you walk in the woods, you can't miss it - squirrels, birds, whatever...). I will end this blog post with some photos of the Flowering...After so many summers that came on fast with little spring, many of us are delighting in this far gentler process. Every day without air conditioning is a good day.
I am finally beginning to wrap my mind around this larger theatrical project (...whatever God is), which is exciting because I haven't even been able to conceptualize in this way in a long time. I'm beginning to see how long it's taken me to get my creativity back...for many reasons. But, I'm glad I didn't try to force a solution because gradually it's returning.
Speaking of lilacs, I will happily be going back up to Canada in a couple weeks to go to the Royal Botanical Gardens with John where there are apparently over 700 species of lilacs! This is apparently the largest collection in the world. So, will be with my beloved amongst my favorite flowers. Nice. Being apart from him is grating on me now. I can sometimes manage to focus on my writing enough or taking walks, hanging out with friends, seeing shows, etc. but no matter what the lack of him is ever-present. I suppose this is the flip-side of loving someone so much. But I'll take it. Still astonished we even found each other...and we are getting closer to the time we can spend more time than not together...just have to keep sorting through the many details to make that happen...in the meantime astonished I feel held by him even in his absence.
I've been having dreams lately, many of which have dealt with animals, which is not common for me. In Canada, I actually had a bear dream (!), then back in NYC a dream of very colorful fish that had wings and were very soft to the touch. Another dream included a wolf, perhaps a dire wolf (prehistoric, now extinct) because of its size that was butting its nose against a door inside a house, and I wasn't sure if I should be afraid or not. Recently, a dream about bees, one with big dragonfly wings that stung me, because I didn't think it was a bee. I kept waiting to see if the sting would be poisonous in some way, but it never even swelled. Then there were a couple more bees, including one I tried to let go outside, but kept trying to wrap its legs around my finger.
After the wolf dream, I started reading Jung again... Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a collection of his later thoughts. He speaks of the unconscious as this productive force that we touch in dreams and at times of intuition and premonition. What amazed me is the similarity of this thoughts to William James' insights (which predate his by about 50 years) in regard to how we can be prejudiced against these experiences in the name of rationality. Jung was convinced that by only listening to our conscious minds, we limit ourselves and our understanding, because the conscious mind can only understand a proximate, limited level of reality. He's very clear that there are other dimensions only the unconscious can reach. But, and this is what makes him a genius, he also knows that without the conscious mind to be able to articulate this experience in some way - our finite selves in other words - then this unconscious material ends up as amorphous as The Infinite and The One...which elude us entirely.
I love going back to these people who predate the more over-heated, polysyllabic philosophizing of postmodernism onward, to discover such humility and insight.
This is helping a lot with the new play and affecting it. Jung now making an appearance along with James...bringing in more dream material...not in a hooey oh wow isn't that weird kinda way but instead as these doors into something larger than our material world...but that reflects back.
Another idea Jung has, that I love, inspired by dream material, is that when people die, they look to the living for answers to things. That death does not put you in some all-knowing realm, but if 'you' exist in death, it's somewhere approximate to where you were when you died. He was talking about this near the end of his life and said that perhaps you have to be near the end of your life to feel comfortable talking about the hereafter, that while he could not prove or disprove life after death, that was no reason not to take hints, intuitions, dream material, etc. as a way to conceptualize this. He mourns the lack of fables in the world and our hesitancy to mythologize, which he believes makes us poorer in spirit consequently.
I've known about Jung's basic ideas for many years, but this later writing I find so moving and human scale, moving most likely because so human scale. I respond to people when they speak from the first person, less attempting to argue an entire methodology but instead speaking from experience. Experience informed by knowledge and years of work of course, but nonetheless experience. There is air and space in these thoughts.
Speaking of air and space, below are some images of NYC in spring:
I am finally beginning to wrap my mind around this larger theatrical project (...whatever God is), which is exciting because I haven't even been able to conceptualize in this way in a long time. I'm beginning to see how long it's taken me to get my creativity back...for many reasons. But, I'm glad I didn't try to force a solution because gradually it's returning.
Speaking of lilacs, I will happily be going back up to Canada in a couple weeks to go to the Royal Botanical Gardens with John where there are apparently over 700 species of lilacs! This is apparently the largest collection in the world. So, will be with my beloved amongst my favorite flowers. Nice. Being apart from him is grating on me now. I can sometimes manage to focus on my writing enough or taking walks, hanging out with friends, seeing shows, etc. but no matter what the lack of him is ever-present. I suppose this is the flip-side of loving someone so much. But I'll take it. Still astonished we even found each other...and we are getting closer to the time we can spend more time than not together...just have to keep sorting through the many details to make that happen...in the meantime astonished I feel held by him even in his absence.
I've been having dreams lately, many of which have dealt with animals, which is not common for me. In Canada, I actually had a bear dream (!), then back in NYC a dream of very colorful fish that had wings and were very soft to the touch. Another dream included a wolf, perhaps a dire wolf (prehistoric, now extinct) because of its size that was butting its nose against a door inside a house, and I wasn't sure if I should be afraid or not. Recently, a dream about bees, one with big dragonfly wings that stung me, because I didn't think it was a bee. I kept waiting to see if the sting would be poisonous in some way, but it never even swelled. Then there were a couple more bees, including one I tried to let go outside, but kept trying to wrap its legs around my finger.
After the wolf dream, I started reading Jung again... Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a collection of his later thoughts. He speaks of the unconscious as this productive force that we touch in dreams and at times of intuition and premonition. What amazed me is the similarity of this thoughts to William James' insights (which predate his by about 50 years) in regard to how we can be prejudiced against these experiences in the name of rationality. Jung was convinced that by only listening to our conscious minds, we limit ourselves and our understanding, because the conscious mind can only understand a proximate, limited level of reality. He's very clear that there are other dimensions only the unconscious can reach. But, and this is what makes him a genius, he also knows that without the conscious mind to be able to articulate this experience in some way - our finite selves in other words - then this unconscious material ends up as amorphous as The Infinite and The One...which elude us entirely.
I love going back to these people who predate the more over-heated, polysyllabic philosophizing of postmodernism onward, to discover such humility and insight.
This is helping a lot with the new play and affecting it. Jung now making an appearance along with James...bringing in more dream material...not in a hooey oh wow isn't that weird kinda way but instead as these doors into something larger than our material world...but that reflects back.
Another idea Jung has, that I love, inspired by dream material, is that when people die, they look to the living for answers to things. That death does not put you in some all-knowing realm, but if 'you' exist in death, it's somewhere approximate to where you were when you died. He was talking about this near the end of his life and said that perhaps you have to be near the end of your life to feel comfortable talking about the hereafter, that while he could not prove or disprove life after death, that was no reason not to take hints, intuitions, dream material, etc. as a way to conceptualize this. He mourns the lack of fables in the world and our hesitancy to mythologize, which he believes makes us poorer in spirit consequently.
I've known about Jung's basic ideas for many years, but this later writing I find so moving and human scale, moving most likely because so human scale. I respond to people when they speak from the first person, less attempting to argue an entire methodology but instead speaking from experience. Experience informed by knowledge and years of work of course, but nonetheless experience. There is air and space in these thoughts.
Speaking of air and space, below are some images of NYC in spring:
 |
| the lilacs of 204th Street |
 |
| Inwood street garden |
 |
| cherry blossoms in Central Park |
 |
| Saturday in the Park.... |
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