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s e v e n

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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

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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.

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