Prophecy in Dreamland and Other Spells of Creative Literacy

Portrait of Rasputin by Ana Theodora Krarup

"Unconscious actions, mass unconscious actions have certain momentums, something that Tolstoy tried to explain more philosophically in the narrative of War and Peace, how the individuals with their own lives could be carried off by history's great forced floods this way or that. He was trying to describe often what I encounter in my study of prophecy, that there is a wave of mass human stupidity that is carrying even intelligent people into its current, that is converging on a collision in the Middle East...what I get wrong also is a helpful study of how the human mind misinterprets a sign with its own expectations and hopes and I think it helped me be a better interpreter as well as a predictor of the future..." John Hogue on Whitley Strieber's Dreamland: Journeys to the Extreme Edge

I first read Whitley Strieber's Communion, which stretched my understanding of non-fiction as a young reader, surveying a gamut of fiction, history, philosophy, mythology in my family library. 

Another genre-bender, who influenced my appreciation for literature in a more grounded way, was Jack Kerouac, who together with Allen Ginsberg, prophesied a shift in American social norms through their collective literary breakthroughs. They had noted that in the second half of the 20th century, Americans would shift from their hardline Christian upbringing to a more Buddhistic sensitivity. 

Reading both of their writings thoroughly, I soon interpreted within their work an interesting relationship to what we now call prophecy. More than to pin prophecy within the highly skeptical sensationalism of conspiracy theory, prophecy, in a more mythological sense, is simply the attuning of the intellect to certain eloquence in creatively utilizing timeless wisdom and ageless archetypes, reattributing them as signs. 

More often than not, prophecy in mystic circles is not an outward momentum, toward predicting profane outcomes, but simply one of the many old ways toward self-realization. One is inevitably of the infinite. Popular prophets are heady mixes of conspiracy theory or what Terence McKenna called, "epistemological cartoons". In Hebrew mysticism, my understanding is that prophecy is a numerological science, beheld within the Hebrew language of the Torah, encompassing a unitive vision of interpretive science as it meets with spiritual practice. 

Recently, I viewed the film, Rasputin, which was another prophetic figure portrayed on the literature on my shelf as a young man impressed by the literati. Rasputin certainly opened the popular discourse of prophecy on the world stage, especially as regards political intrigue, out into broad daylight. His eyes still transfix. 

________

With a mug to mirror the inescapable frame of Kerouac’s joual-toughened jaw, bespoken with the silent glimmer of streetside grief, walking alone and alone for the infinite mileage of American wanderings, a cyclical tongue of ruthless freedom, to free the passions from the word-order of choice and splay will on the open pain of roadside heat with a thumb and a meek treasury of manly poverty 

Pauper by Petr Brandl

that drunken cry that rang throughout the humbling scope of spectral telephone wires following with the unheard voice of millions distanced by the wiry nerves of a social neurosis towards mobility, and with the rootless leisure of a need to travel as a way of being, that holy rope burned the traveler’s hands as the writing cooled mind’s belonging on a land of no-land opening

_________

“American body,

May you be cooled,

May the dog days of the final moon in your Roman clock tick no more,

May your fires be dampened in the Fall,

May your body always be replenished,”

“This is a prayer from your navel,

Your own son”

excerpt from "American; Columbian Men and Women at the Edge of Civilization and Meaning"

Reflection on "The Force of Character" by James Hillman

James Hillman, an archetypal depth psychologist, whose post-Jungian conception of the human experience is essentially imaginative, and whose amoral fluctuation between endurance and immaturity lies nascent in the temporal grains of salt which gather and line the throat with ever increasing grab as aging commences upon the personality. Written at an old age, the author speaks clearly against any kind of aging therapy, and humanizes the current malaise which treats aging as a virus.

The author unwraps biological naturalism with the psychological bloom of a mind fermented with insightful, though not inundated, research on the literary and aesthetic character of human aging as a welcoming asset to life, in flagrant contrast to the ceremonial traditionalism of preparing for death, a non-issue in the continuous envelopment of life throughout the growing and falling of seasonal lasting. Dreams are referred to for their imagistic plentitude in bringing the holistic human experience towards fruition in the entire round of consciousness.

In short, Hillman's psychology is life-affirming unto the limits of modern knowledge-bearing with regard to the biological strength of humankind to age well and vigorously, as an essential presence in social reflection, as a memory of characterful belonging in the psyche of an unconscious gathering of the old triumphant spirit of age in all its mythic fortitude and human vulnerability.

Read Scott London's brilliant interview with the late author: On Soul, Character and Calling : A Conversation with James Hillman

__________

Strutting down main street, Northampton, the little city atmosphere in a smaller town, brevity of metrosexual burning. Eyehole of gouged recollection, that there is a grayer hiss over the obscure horizon edge. A paranoiac whereabouts, a drinkability churning in the ingrate stomach as cold rice turns to frothy fluid within mellowed bowels. The attuned ear swings in frantic respite as the free march to movie theatre skies nickels and dimes my racy birth rite beginnings in the stingy hollow of American noonday education.

Northampton (Massachusetts) by William Henry Bartlett

Deeper along the edge of the township, towards rougher pasture, the greener grass gives to a brown floor of the barn stead. Outside, a reenactment of the medieval lance posture, only instead of a game between knights, the Anglo matador speaks in a murderous war with the human horse. I try my hand. With two lances upraised, I pierce the flesh of a gorgeous brown horse, mirroring the hue of the dirt circle fenced by a weak wooden ring and an audience steeped in American farmhouse poverty. As other horses, unsaddled and with fierce eyes, carouse into the ring, I jet from the gathering into a blacker city.

The Present by Thomas Cole

The jurist is deliberate, patient and silent. Instead of an easy interpretation by the passive jury of bored, directionless public witnessing, a guitarist lights the court with unfailing melodies, an original spirit of human will, to impose the individual struggle with death outside of foreign deliberation in the mind of an other. Because truly, in listening, the other melds seamlessly with the brain of a decidedly active witness, pardoning all in the sonic flight of metaphysical charm.

_________

Gazing at my Love's face, I see through the apparent reality to a frameless art. A sacred geometry in the flesh. A timeless elision, going beyond spent energy.

To consume a day; imagining with laughter in the midst of family. 

- excerpt from "Gazing at Love's Face"
 

Lafcadio Hearn's Akinosuke and the Fleeting Entomology of Youth

Illustration from the original edition

"Akinosuke must have been dreaming," one of them exclaimed, with a laugh. "What did you see, Akinosuke, that was strange?"

Then Akinosuke told his dream,--that dream of three-and-twenty years' sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in the island of Raishu;--and they were astonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes."

- excerpt from The Dream of Akinosuke, as compiled in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

In the Japanese dream narrative recorded and analyzed by Lafcadio Hearn, based in the folklore of Japan, the symbology of insects, which reflect the ephemeral substance of dream as the unconscious imagination, are here abundantly espoused as creative interpretations of archetypal imagery (Butterflies, Mosquitos, and Ants).

Wonder, the life of an insect, so short, from a human mind. Yet with the indiscernible speed of buzzing flight, an eternal instant, witnessed of countless eyes.

(Currently listening to Somei Satoh)

_______

Backstage, a slight sepia-tone monochrome corridor splits into a labyrinth of doorways. An old acquaintance meets me behind a curtain, in the shadowy nook. “Oh! How are you?” Proudly delighted to have us meet onstage, he announces his part, “This is the play of Arthur.” With equal candor to his showy façade of shiny outlook, I greet him kindly, “That is great!” I walk past, returning to my disoriented grumbling, a burdened mug, stupefied with untenable sorrow. In an underground room, coldly lit with dusty spotlights, a group of Japanese youth greet me with strong affirmation, welcoming and comfortable in their sturdy countenance, an open sound of impromptu community breeds equal recognition for all present, dicing cards and stringing their hats to the unblinking mold of unspoken friendship. One, slightly overweight, fiddles with an obsolete USB converter. Blowing through it, he creates tones of a flute. Placing a wooden object with holes and a plate full of water, he begins to shape harmonies and effervescent rhythms with a strong windpipe coloration. His instrumental play continues to the delight of us all as he sits under a strong light, entertaining with jazz intonation amid the subdued betting ruckus of bargained camaraderie. One man at the cards table looks me straight in the eye with clear intention, a warm regard filters through the depth of his unwavering eyes as he hands me a cloudy glass of thin white water. “Would you like some rice water?” He asks quietly. “I’ve heard of rice milk!” I respond, accepting with spry respect.   

_______

Rice

"Rice is good to see in dreams, as it foretells success and warm friendships...To eat it signifies happiness and domestic content. To see it mixed with dirt or otherwise impure, denotes sickness and separation from friends...Dreaming about rice means good luck and happy times are coming." (iDream)

Insects

"Insects in a dream always represent obstacles that you must overcome to reach your goals...Insects also represent excessive worry over certain things, meditate to find out what they might mean to you by using all the symbols in your dream for reference." (iDream) 

_______

oh dreamer in disguise!
who wakes with a call vocalized
from towers disappearing and weary
in the first morning light,

who shocked entranced gazers
pouring pupils over their single-haired tips, fragmented,
reflecting a statue's burned relics, encased in antiquity

surviving the past with trickery in the momentary revelation
from an onlooking sage,
her brown-eyed ghost close above her shoulders,
sunken and twisting with every step
into the shrinking abyss alleyway.

a life written as graffiti
from talented, distended arms
working magic into the obsolete concrete,
courageous youth, who wars
over books and trivia for a mathematical applause
within their minds,
the build up,
cornering her feline sense

in a mundane yet sacrificial wail to another day,
a day after dead thoughts reinvigorate the mind
with careless hauntings that cry and stutter a storm,
made in blood and worn as a headdress
to the laughing and cruel butterfly Asian trust,
in a token object,
insignia drawn with fingernail accuracy

as a tattoo beneath the skin,
warning in wordless heed
to beware for the introspective desire,
most inner and yet most awake,
as host to the world's untamed fire,
a prehistoric urge,
to look above,
walking away from the estranged bellowing
hidden deep inside,
a union with touch,
spirit's shudder
listening to the walled moods that hallow

- excerpt from "misbegotten souls"

Spiritual Murder of the Mythopoetic Role

Fuxi and Nuwa by Anonymous

"Mythopoeisis is the act of shaping a myth into a new form, of making it anew; now I believe each of us does this poetic act daily, only we are not conscious of it, but myths, if alive, are always being renegotiated; we cosign them once more each day we wake up and go about our lives; but the action is unconscious. Poetry makes these processes conscious."

"...the individual psyche cannot, much as often it would like to, to be separated from the collective. Understanding the archetypal nature of our waking life and of our dream life would go a long way to revealing this truth."

- Dennis P. Slattery, from an Interview with Archetype in Action

________

“I have never traveled through West Africa! I have only seen East Africa.” I shout to the unconcerned on a bus through mud flats on the outskirts of town in Ghana. “It’s more industrialized here.” Suburban homes, colorful and well-roofed lie interspersed atop the unstable ground. Nothing grows here.

The plains shake off their sanded winds out onto a horizon as flat and majestic as any under a dim gorge of sky above. We approach an underprivileged village. The beams of their homes show with skeletal fright, a ghost of a shelter buries the inhabitants under a schema of incongruous monetary divisiveness. I am let out here with a group of excitable travelers. After a few bitter hours gazing into the masked poverty, the rest saunter off, straight into the shale-thin horizon, across the plain desert, leaving me behind to my shameful enjoyment.

The first unusual occurrence I notice is an old man, an elder, conducting witchcraft rites from a burlap, animal hid covered hut, half-emerging from a height of wires in the modern town center. He presses his hand up against a carved, convex piece of bone and wood overhead, pressed into the ceiling of his dusty keep. With that, the town comes alive. Animate devotion is surpassed unto grandiose might through communal dance, a powerful music enticing all to couple and find happiness in group intercommunication through a thankful greeting of sprites.

Then, chaos breaks loose from the fire. I disentangle the group of its emotional stability. I use a dull knife, a metal shard from their central structure. Cutting off hands and brazenly ambushing in an intoxicated insanity, bloodthirsty, I drive the community from their healthy nest. Only a few bodies remain, hanging onto life with the remaining ligaments and tendons still connecting their pulse, vibrating with accepted fate, a spiritual murder.

I flee. Following what I had learned in the village, I begin to collect seeds in the wilderness, these are jujus of flight. I need a new identity. I received wind of another African meeting, in the next town. Before I can get there, the Red Cross identifies me, soon to be incarcerated, deadened with madness I swallow the seeds. My flesh speaks of me, it says, “I am guilty.”

________

Murder

"If you commit murder, it signifies that you are engaging in some dishonourable adventure, which will leave a stigma upon your name...If you have a dream of murdering another, this is a warning that you must keep in control of your temper and emotions at all times and not get enraged to the point of murderous intent...You may also have some repressed anger at yourself or at others." (iDream)

________

clockwork porridge

clockwork porridge
spread over an island tongue
marauding, blasphemous
across seven oceans

timely
with education's pandemic drug:
the book

compromising home speech
on the First People's sand-quipped names
harboring love in their own unique hearts
with a history untold,
forgotten and enslaved to foreign grammar
to safekeep continued histories
of colonial struggle
in the vault of young minds
playing sound asleep
in the therapeutic mud
of their own beautiful creation.

March 7, 2011

Chinatown Calgary

Liberation in the Unconscious Embodiment of the Archetype

“The last dream of that series, I can not tell you all the dreams, was that I was out in nature, I stood in a field of wheat. An enormous field of wheat, that was ripe for harvest. I was a child and I held her in my arm like a baby. The wind was blowing over that field of wheat, now you know when the wind is blowing over a wheat field those waves over the wheat field, and with these waves I swayed like that, putting her as if were to sleep. She felt as being in the arms of a god, of the Godhead. I thought, now, the harvest is ripe. I must tell her. I told her, you see, what you want and what you project into me because you are not conscious of it, you have the idea of a deity you don’t possess, therefore you see it in me. That clicked…It was a hedonist god, it was a god of nature, of vegetation, he was the wheat himself, the spirit of the wheat, the spirit of the wind. She was in the arms of that numen. That is the living experience of an archetype…instantly it clicked…it is as the dream says, she is in the arms of that archetypal idea. Now that is a numinous experience and that is the thing that people are looking for, an archetypal experience that gives them an incorruptible value. They depend on other conditions, their desires, their ambitions, they depend on other people because they have no value in themselves, they are only rational, they are not in possession of a treasure that would make them independent…that is a sort of liberation.”   

- C.G. Jung, from "Matter of Heart" 

________

"What primitive African stirring is this? What crowd of blundering hippos gawking and feeling for life in this mildew maw parade!" 

"No, this is a wisdom gathering, a hapless ruse, to stun the oceans in a violent gaze of electric natural law. This is a spectral breeding ground for the insane and loose, those wilderness souls born of less indication about human truth than one would suspect from a life lived in the rut. Theirs is a tribal howl, a martyr’s plea, scintillating rasps into the smoked down calling of witchcraft and group camaraderie through spirit, through visceral tongues." 

I am drowned in a haze of strident intensity, pulsating with every leap from the vibrating mud. The trickster’s love emanates with personified blood from the livid sky teething for human thought and supernal desire in this mundane autochthona of self-engendered lust, detoxified in a laughing rite with the living dream of mystery, hatching from this circle of African might. Their clothes, wooly, with animal fear still stretched in the discolored hair. Their homes, perfect and ingenious with seamless appropriation from this their exploited grounds, invoked to newborn life again in their visible joy, communal through and through.

I escape along the brush torn paths, bitten with stings of lightning and the swatting touch of snakeskin and the feline tail, scattering an infinitesimal infinitude of insects grouping. The countryside folds past over the close horizon, a dense lush grows as by sight. A beast moves, unknown. Feathers, white and tall scatter in the noiseless round. I can sense auspicial animation as the forest glows and rumbles ever slightly. The bird is infamous for its glaring foresight, its strength and unearthly demeanor is its hallmark to fruition in surviving this drunken dreaming landscape of danger without forewarning. I follow the animal beyond the gates of our natural boundary, or has it followed me? Can we both be following? There is no end. 

______

Africa

"To dream that you are in Africa surrounded by Cannibals, foretells that you will be oppressed by enemies and quarrelsome persons." (iDream)

______

Branded with the seal of history.
Final and rushed.

“Oh, this is dramaturgy for the sentimental boorish audience of the mob,
who critique and pander with total, serious divorce from the actuality of the place
an energy, which creates law from reason and implements cost
with soul in the spiritual night of the living ghosts.

Do we haunt you?”

“You are my foreboding reminder
behind the veil that shivers with end of day
returning only for the antipodal colour
resembling rust,
yet focused in bottom-up vines that reach to an endogenous planet.

It is leaving earth. We are going with it.”

- excerpt from "Brimming with Dissatisfaction"