The Swamped Heart of Modernity

“‘Swamped by the knowledge of external objects, the subject of all knowledge has been temporarily eclipsed to the point of seeming nonexistence.’

C.G. Jung 1946”

“He means that what happens psychically is the real reality and this other moon, this stony desert, that’s illusion, that’s only pseudo-reality.”

“He said, ‘You know, I’m only an old African who finds he’s God in his dreams.’”

- from PART 1 of "Matter of Heart" documentary about C.G. Jung

__________

In a huge reception hall, with round tables, I sit at a table with my wife at a family reunion for my Dad and his side of the family. My dad quickly rushes over to us, simply to let my wife know that she is loved and cared for. I walk across the room to see my grandmother. She is very happy to greet me and asks if the musician at the front end on the stage can play a popular blues song. I go over to the front stage. Light pours in from the warehouse doors. Curiously, the light is a dim predawn glow. The musician is a good friend of mine, the younger brother of one of my best friends. He is bringing in his piano. I am delighted to receive him in the hall for my family, and he appears ready to entertain. 

After the reunion events have finished, night begins to fall. I find my friend and we begin to go biking across a high ridge along some hills in the prairie groves. We bike all night, as we enjoy the frosty air precipitate with the coming of dawn. As we bike along a final ridge along the hills before breaking off the forest path into the urbanized valley below, we see a great huge sign, saying “be saved!” and people rush madly like vermin past a monstrous department store sign into the unnatural intensity of the warehouse lighting stretching out into the dark street like shards of glass. “To save or be saved?” we ask frustratingly, passing beyond into the immediate darkness of a fresher air.   

_________

Family

"To dream of one's family as harmonious and happy, is significant of health and easy circumstances..."

"Some believe that this dream usually has nothing to do with your actual family members, but rather the male and female sides of your own personality or self." (Carl Jung refers to the animus and anima)

"If you dream of a large family this means that your fortunes in life are looking up..."

Bicycle

"To dream of riding a bicycle up hill, signifies bright prospects."

"To dream that you are riding a bicycle signifies the need to balance work and pleasure in your life." 

(iDream)

_________

"only bludgeoning the scalp of a painted sky 

choking graves with free dreaming

orchards poor with the rakish wife of the storm-brought blues

on America’s southern news 

...

there is a dry golden torch 

repeating shadows of histories 

on the shaking lips of the mindless

reading" 

- excerpts from "Dry Maze/Maiz"