s e v e n
t o c o u r t t h e v i s i o n a r y
debra goldman, 2021
"The gulf that separates the first from the second part of Faust marks the difference
between the psychological and the visionary modes of artistic creation. Here
everything is reversed. The experience that furnishes the material for artistic expression
is no longer familiar. It is something strange that derives its existence from the
hinterland of man's mind, as if it had emerged from the abyss of prehuman ages,
or from a superhuman world of contrasting light and darkness. It is a primordial
experience with surpasses man's understanding and to which in his weakness he
may easily succumb. The very enormity of the experience gives it its value and
its shattering impact. Sublime, pregnant with meaning, yet chilling the blood
with its strangeness, it arises from timeless depths; glamorous, daemonic, and
grotesque, it bursts asunder our human standards of value and aesthetic form,
a terrifying tangle of eternal chaos."
C.G. Jung, Psychology and Literature
Of all
the insoluble
problems,
the one
that matters most is
the arid mind
that turns things
crisp and brittle.
This hard
little nut
that will not take
in water,
will not grow into
itself.
But the world
has no intentions
of ending:
here is an earthquake
to create fissures
in the fortress of
stolid rationality.
Ah! The water rushes
in, hydrates
what had desiccated,
enlivens what
had fallen into
a deathly slumber.
The renewal cut
may save the tree;
the dream may
save the people
(if they can receive it).
Water bearers!
Are you close
at hand?
So, raise the antennae,
and place pad and pen
upon the nightstand.
Beat the drum
until it takes you
from this painted corner
into a rounded place,
a circling of
the section.
Adjust this tower, slipped
from its foundation,
before the green
cambium severs.
The marriage of
heaven and earth
is sustained
through the
xylem and phloem.
Summon. Challenge.
Feast, and entertain:
the four faces
of invitation.
Bring this dark
guest into your home.
Befriend her, if you can.
And if you cannot,
maintain a correspondence.
In dark days and
dark moments,
her dark words
may be all that is audible,
leading you
out of the arid
desert and
back to water.
insoluble problems: Insoluble means both "incapable of being solved" and "incapable of being dissolved", i.e. resistant to the hydrating influence of water.
arid mind: "Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number - Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Dionysus, every now and then." (Ursula K. Leguin, The Left Hand of Darkness)
here is an earthquake: In my own experience, synchronicity has served to shake up my own unexamined notions of a logical and causal universe. C.G. Jung described a famous incident of synchronicity that helped dislodge an analysand's psychological rigidity in this regard. “This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance." (C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle)
The water rushes in: "Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the “subconscious,” usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness. Water is the “valley spirit,” the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water- a yang in the yin, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious. (C.G. Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious) t
The renewal cut: "Rejuvenation pruning, also called renewal pruning, involves cutting some types of shrubs almost down to the ground, leaving only 6 to 24 inches. Done every three to five years, this extreme method of pruning can indeed rejuvenate an overgrown or misshapen shrub, just as the name implies. But, to be successful, it should be done at the right time, in the right way, and to the right shrubs." (Bill Grundmann, 2019, Organic Plant Care LLC)
Water bearers: Aquarius, the water-bearer, the constellation of the mythological Greek youth Ganymede. Beloved of Zeus, Ganymede was a son of the king of Troy whisked away to be the water-bearer of the gods.
C.G. Jung, an insightful student of astrology, believed that humanity was entering the astrological age of Aquarius, a fraught but ultimately hopeful evolutionary stage in which the opposites within the human psyche could be reconciled.
a circling of the section: The squaring of the circle is an ancient geometrical and philosophical problem. The circling of the section refers to the "rounding" of the square of our dominant, rational, "angular" paradigm: the influence of eros upon logos. The section also refers to the 640 acre (one square mile) partitions of land called sections that were surveyed and allocated to settlers by the United States government during the era of westward expansion. Lemuel Morse, my great-great-grandfather, purchased a section of land three miles southwest of the small farming town of Odell, Illinois in 1861.
adjust this tower: "The necessary breaking down of existing forms to make way for new life and new ways. Rigid or imprisoning structures that need to be torn down and replaced." Regarding the symbolic essence of The Tower, the 16th card of the Tarot. (Juliet Sherman-Burke, The Complete Book of the Tarot, 1996)
xylem and phloem: In vascular plants, water is and other soluble nutrients are transported from the root system to the leaves stems via xylem and sugars and proteins are moved from the leaves to the rest of the plant via phloem. Xylem and phloem connect the above and below, thus lending themselves metaphorically as an image Edward Edinger's ego-Self axis.