Trash, Jung, and a Pansy for Anima

Part One

It was 1994, maybe. 1995? It hardly matters. I was on an elliptical orbit heading out of the world of organised Buddhism at the time, the world which had been my homebase for many years. I was teaching English part-time on Fulham Road in west London, living with a friend on a council estate in Waterloo ( Morrissey, dream on), and getting to know the lady who would eventually become my wife. The days of teaching mindfulness meditation to newcomers, the Buddha's Eightfold Path and the rest were over. Nevertheless, once a fortnight I would make the trek up to Westbourne Grove, not far from Bayswater and the famed Portobello Market, to attend a business meeting at the Buddhist centre there.

Most of the topics on the agenda were of peripheral interest to me, and I really had little constructive to offer. I sometimes wondered whether my presence was more as the token wise old man of the centre - in which case it was a grave misjudgement. From my perspective, my purpose for attending was quite different, and quite specific - even if nobody else realised it.

A major aspect of those meetings was the ritual tearing to pieces of the centre chairman by various other members of the council, as it was called. He would present progress reports, make business proposals, which would be duly pulled apart by some of the others. Then his personal life, actions, and the rest would come up for ripping to shreds. The somewhat hedonic nature of some of his attitudes and weekend activities rendered him easy meat for a quasi-spiritual savaging. It was reminiscent of the myth of Actaeon, torn into bits by his dogs, who should have been faithful to their owner, but who pull him to pieces as a result of his cupidity, having spied the goddess Artemis naked.

My main function was to try and put the unfortunate guy back together again. I was in a unique postion for the self-appointed task: though arguably less vicious, ten years previous I had been in a similar situation to his. So, typically, following the conclusion of the sports, the chairman -who also happened to be a good friend of mine - and I would adjourn to a nearby cafe where, bloodied and bruised, he would replay the events of the morning, and I would try to chip in helpfully.

On several occasions, sitting at a table adjacent to ours could be seen Brett Anderson, singer in the famous indie group 'Suede'. His features are as distinctive as features can get; though, curiously, my chairman friend didn't know who I was talking about, despite being far more in tune with the 'youth culture' of the time than I was.

I quite like Suede. Or at least some of the music of Suede. Or at least some of their music that I've actually listened to. 'Coming Up' is their best-known album, full of memorable songs and well-crafted melodies, some really fine pieces of indie pop-rock (a genre that I've just created).      

So let's imagine a certain randomly-chosen male (he is not a caricature of me, by the way, despite sharing a few similarities). He is educated, informed, and generally well-intentioned. A man of principle, high principle; a man of thought, adept in the art of abstract thinking in particular, quietly proud of his ideas and his logic. Reason is the way forward, his badge of identity and the key to civilisation. He spends a good deal of time with his Kindle, where he has a collection of works by not-too-difficult-to-read slightly modern philosophers and political commentators. 'Understanding', 'meaning' are two more words that are important to him.

Then one day, for reasons completely beyond our limited comprehension, Anima enters the scene. Amongst other possible labels which she may or may not have attached to her elusive being, Anima comes as Soul-Image, the contrasexual Other. She stands at the threshold to the collective unconscious, if we follow Jung. All those things which go to fascinate and identify our randomly-chosen male mean absolutely nothing to her. Abstract thought: no way. Meaning: what's that? Linear rationality: entirely irrelevant to the purpose of Anima - in the garbage bin. And her voice is heard loud and clear on 'Coming Up' by Suede.....

So what's so anima-like about these particular songs for our randomly-chosen male? Listen to 'Coming Up' and there is a shine, a gloss, a sparkle, which appears to simply jump off many of the songs. It is part of the attraction. To our champion of abstract thought, surface matters are just that: surface, superficial, and the subject of self-justified disdain. Sheen, shine, surface texture: he is above and beyond all that - although it may cause him a slight involuntary discomfort. In general, however, it is just wrapping paper, with no meaning. And this is the horror of horrors. Anima announces herself without 'understanding', without 'meaning', at least in the way our hero of reason interprets these words. It's not her style, not her interest. She revels in appearance, just as it is and just as she is. Should she have a 'meaning', this is it.

Then there are the words, the lyrics. Little stories of banal lives, devoid of philosophical thought or speculation. Songs about totally mediocre people, according to our random male. Take 'Trash' for instance:

"Maybe maybe it's the clothes we wear/ The tasteless bracelets and the dye in our hair/ Maybe it's our kookiness......... We're trash you and me/We're the litter on the breeze/We're the lovers on the streets....Maybe it's our cheapness.... our sweetness.... the crazes and the fads...."

Thus, into the world of our principled, high-minded, academically-inclined random male, enters Anima. To her, trash is magnificent - and her feeling comes devoid of value judgement. Cheapness, ordinariness, surface sparkle and charm: how, to him, it's anathema; and how she loves it.

Part Two

Alongside Christianity, which I wrote about on April 30th in 'Pansies of Numinosity',  Anima is my other 'topic of contention' with Jung. On closer inspection, the two probably prove to be the same: how could someone still harbouring hopes of redemption through Christianism have a distortion-free view of Anima?: two thousand years of repression of the divine feminine at the hands of this religion cannot sit comfortably with a healthy experience of Anima, preoccupied as she is with the conjoining of masculine - feminine polarities, and boasting as she does a direct line to an eternal and sacred feminine?

Jung is not, in my view, exactly 'wrong' on Anima. It is more that he is inconsistent, sometimes unsure of himself, a bit muddled. This may be in part a reflection of the nature of Anima herself, who is anything but clear-cut, and notoriously reluctant to be caged by logical definitions gleaned from linear, rational thought. I also concede that Jung's own view of Anima morphed with time: in particular, he came to see her less suspiciously. All the same.....

This confusion and unsatisfactoriness is evidenced by the considerable quantity of literature to come out of the Jungian world on Anima since the death of Carl Gustav. It is also evidenced by the majority of 'information' to be found in more popular writings on Anima. This is, to me, overwhelmingly superficial, derivative, formulaic, if not downright incorrect. It seems the work of people who have copied out of textbooks rather than bathed and battled in personal experience of Anima.

An example. Some of the many sources (do a quick websearch on 'Anima') state that a prominent attribute of Anima is 'relatedness'. The insinuation is that, should you have a problem in your marriage or relationship, then Anima will provide the solution. In particular, that tricky husband will, under the influence of 'his anima', turn into that caring, sympathetic, infinitely understanding fellow who always does the dishes that you have always dreamed of. This is total bullshit. Anima is a catalyst for 'relatedness', but it is not 'relationship' in this sense. She is no patron saint of nice, warm, snugly, adjustment-to-life relatedness at all. Her relatedness is, to continue in Jungian vein, between consciousness and unconsciousness. Her 'relatedness' will bring all matter of unexpected hell-to-play into life, rather than a passport to happy-ever-after.

Fortunately, Anima has been saved by a number of more serious Jungian types; I include links to two long but worthwhile (if you are into this kind of thing) articles by Karen Hodges and Paul Watsky below. Above all, in my view, Anima has undergone redemption in the hands of James Hillman: in his book 'Anima' primarily (no surprise there), and in 'The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World'. To paraphrase serously, his overarching point is that, while all manner of idea may accrete to Anima as a result of historical and cultural circumstances, which change through time, her archetypal essence remains, by definition, constant. The task is to distinguish the two. Thus, some of the attributes accredited to Anima by Jung are more a reflection of his own times with their particular attitudes, his own moment in history, than anything inherently Anima.

Hillman takes to task the co-mingling and confusion of Eros and Anima: much that is erotic in nature has nothing to do with Anima. Similarly with 'feeling': Anima's coupling with feeling is not necessarily and always true. Most importantly, Hillman contends Jung's association of Anima as Soul-Image of men, and Animus as the equivalent for women. Anima is unique in her own right, says Hillman, with her own special role. Women and men both require the soul-making quality of Anima. In this way we avoid the way that Jung gets his contrasexual knickers in a twist with the never-ending ping-pong of opposites and compensations that plagues some of Jung's work on this issue.

Anima, if we can say anything, is 'Soul' in the Jungian sense. She mediates between conscious and unconscious. She is gatekeeper of the Unknown: beware.

Anima is for the experiencing rather than the theorizing. All the same, a little mental clarity can help us avoid disappearing up too many fruitless cul-de-sacs.

Some Quotes:

"I have noticed that people usually have not much difficulty in picturing to themselves just what is meant by the shadow.... But it costs them enormous difficulties to understand what the anima is. They accept her easily enough when she appears in novels or as a film star, but she is not understood at all when it comes to seeing the role she plays in their own lives, because she sums up everything that a man can never get the better of and never finishes coping with....... The degree of unconsciousness one meets with in this connection is, to put it mildly, astounding." (Carl Jung, Collected Works 9. Just so, Carl, just so).

"Recognizing the Shadow is what I call the apprentice-piece, but making out with the anima is the master-piece which not many can bring off" (Jung, letter to Traugott Egloff, 1959. Jung was 83 at the time....)

Some more Quotes:

"When I asked my anima how to sum her up, she replied irritably 'Don't patronize me!" (Paul Watsky)

"Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us, it is a gift." (Dante, channelling the voice of Anima, maybe)

"I would speak of anima and animus as archetypal images and archetypal experiences only when numinous female or male figures appear, for example in dreams; they are emotionally highly charged and they produce an intense feeling that makes possible a sense of transcending everyday life. That would correspond with the archetypal experience as Jung describes it." (Verena Kast, as clarifying and concise as it gets)

Links:

jungatlanta.com/articles/Anima.pdf

Reflections on Women, Depression, and the Soul Image: Karen Hodges (use a search engine)

For all those eager to hear Suede doing 'Trash', go to Youtube. It's easy....

Images: Not pansies, but bluebells. A fifteen-minute walk from home.







      

Anyone for Tennis?

It used to be a joke that the most likely thing to precipitate a divorce between my wife and I would be, from my side. not a sordid affair, but my watching too much sport. It was a joke, but was also probably true. Not that I have ever spent much time watching sport since my wife-to-be and I first set eyes upon each other 23 years ago. It's as much the fact that she experiences a strong aversion to anything sport-like. I, on the other hand, am the kind of person who can be sat in front of pretty much any sport, and within ten minutes I have already decided who I want to win and who is the biggest load of rubbish to ever walk the face of the Earth. It is a spectacular enactment of the archetypal battle twixt light and dark, conjured up with ease by the mere sight of a bat or a ball.

My own tolerance for sport has been low for many years, though, and continues to get lower. More than about ten minutes' exposure, and I am confronted by the King of Wands, who proceeds to undertake a thorough examination of my purpose during this short and precious lifetime.

I used to prefer 'team sports'. The spirit of co-operation, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Nowadays, however, the games which involve the individual in his or her solitude are the ones which are most likely to hold me in their thrall - for that special ten minutes or so, at any rate. Tennis it is which I find most fascinating in its professional form. A good match can really seem like two titans slugging it out to the death. They are laid bare, naked before the world, with nobody or nothing to help aside from their own skill, strength, guile, endurance, and self-belief (although some tennis players have the disconcerting habit of continually looking to their 'box' filled with coach, family, and miscellaneous other supporters for moral support. Some male figures like Murray and Federer are especially prone: what a bunch of wimps).

An event which has recently erupted into the tennis arena has been the return to competitive matches of Maria Sharapova, following her ban for 'doping', the consumption of meldonium. My impression is that Sharapova has been given a tough time since her return to the tennis circuit. By all accounts a bit of an Ice Queen, not to mention a mega-rich superstar, she was unpopular with many of the other tennis pros even before the meldonium affair. The extent to which anyone believes her insistence that it was an oversight that led to her taking meldonium after it went onto the list of not-to-be-used substances, and not an attempt to wilfully by-pass regulations, seems to depend entirely on personal prejudice rather than real information. Several other players have been vocal in protesting about the 'special treatment' handed out to her for entering tournaments; "She's a cheater (sic) and should be banned for life" whined one prominent racket-wielder. How many of these people have made the effort to personally find out the truth, I wonder. Invited Maria out for a heart-to-heart over dinner, maybe? Not many, I suspect. Grapes that don't taste too sweet come to mind; but maybe that's my problem.

Then we had the refusal to grant Sharapova a wildcard ('special treatment') into the forthcoming French Open tournament. "There can be a wildcard for the return from injuries - there can be no wildcard for the return from doping" declared French Tennis Fed chief Bernard Ferrandini. To its credit, the Women's Tennis Association criticised the French bunch on this: "She has already complied with the sanction" was the comment.

The functionnaires from France displayed a remarkable kind of self-righteous high-mindedness, the type which is normally the preserve of protestant nations. It always comes with a nasty smell. But then France is in a funny position, wedged uncomfortably between the fully-fledged catholic Mediterraneans to the south and the puritan cultures further north.

Amidst this shabby treatment Sharapova has remained a model of decorum, diplomacy, and restraint, in public at least. I have been surprised to find a sliver of sympathy emanate from my own being towards Maria, my own heart melt ever-so slightly in the direction of the Ice Queen. I have never been a Sharapova enthusiast. In fact, during more recent times I've found her impossible to watch, due to the loud, grating, shrieking noises which accompany every time she whacks the ball. But, dear friends in the Vortex, these are the questions I put to you:

Would Maria Sharapova have been treated the same (especially at the hands of the French tennis authorities) A) if she wasn't Russian?  B) if she wasn't white?

C'mon, you know the answer.......



      

The Tribe

Part One

There are times when I feel at one with, identified with, the rest of the human species. Here we are, all together. A certain empathy, an at-oneness, inevitably spills out from this feeling.

And there are other times, when I feel that the parabolas of my life and that of the majority of other folk on this planet are quite different. I look at people, in the street or on a screen, and sense that what I am doing with my life is really a bit different, to the extent that we could almost be different types of being. It is in moments like these that I remember my tribe.

My tribe comprises a motley bunch. Some don't even know of the existence of some of the others. They would certainly not all get on very well together if I convened a gathering of the tribe. My tribe consists of consciousness people, Buddhist people, former Buddhist people, psychedelic people, blog people, exploration-of-life people, various other shades of people; some of the tribe I have contact with on a regular basis, some infrequently. Some of my tribe I have never met, never shall, and some don't even know of my existence. Some are alive, some are dead. But what I have in common with all the other members of my self-created tribe is a kind of mutual recognition, a certain sense of being kindred spirits, even if in a sometimes vague, diffuse, undefined and indefinable way. We have a mutual respect, an intuitive understanding, ready to offer support should it be needed. In some ways my tribe is far from ideal: it's a reflection of the modern world, in that much of it functions without being face-to-face. It is a by-product of the computer age and of the global village. However, my main purpose here is not to analyse my own life......

There are, you see, other tribes. I am especially concerned here with the tribe which is formed by 'Them'. 'They', in case it's not clear, have turned up over the years on Pale Green Vortex under a variety of names, or subsumed under a number of different ideas. Control System, Global Elite, an aspect of 'the Construct'; Empire, Establishment, among others. As with my tribe, not all will necessarily see eye-to-eye. But they will recognise one another instinctively, as those with a similar version of reality. They will bear allegiance to one another despite surface differences, and appear to have a collective solidarity which transcends class, race, gender, and everything else.

One distinctive feature of this particular tribe is its organisation. As we might expect if we examine the nature of mind of those tribe members, the group is extremely and rigidly hierarchical. Power and domination are its hallmarks. On the lower rungs of its ladder we find the most visible manifestations of its existence: characters like politicians, very public, the fall guys and girls, the foot soldiers. As we ascend the hierarchy, it becomes more vapid, mysterious, and outrageous, to the ordinary mind.

Neil Kramer's version of the different layers of the Control System is enumerated in his book 'The Unfoldment' from 2012. I present it as illustration. It goes as follows, from bottom up: a) Enforcement (military, police etc): b) Government ('Superficial policy administration'); c) Realpolitik (practical power-based politics); d) Think Tanks, formulated by globalist institutions; e) Esoteric groups, based on sequestered sacred knowledge; f) Ultra-terrestrials.

I am not presently concerned with examining the details of Neil's map of control, but with getting across the overall principle. The further up you go, the weirder it may seem to many folk. Nevertheless, I think the general notion is clear and, with a little honest study, its overall existence is difficult to deny.

A necessary feature of this extended, telescoped tribe, is how it runs like a criminal organisation (hardly surprising, that). It is strictly hierarchical, and has a safety mechanism of limited vertical knowledge built in to protect its overall integrity. When I read about the Operation Julie LSD alchemists and distributors of the 1970s, I was struck by how they organised themselves. Forced by repressive government legislation into acting clandestinely, they were organised so that any one person in the hierarchy of production and distribution knew only one or two folk from the level above, and a few folk from the level below. For example, if you were a local dealer, you knew your customers and you knew the person who sold on the acid to you; but that was it. Who was actually producing the microdots was as much a mystery to you as it was to your granddad.

So the Control System functions similarly. Politicians will have no idea of the more esoteric aspects of the system which they are entrusted to administer. People giving the impression of being important chiefs are in effect unwitting puppets, no more. They have no more idea of their real position than does our fabled granddad. And this is one of the vital elements to the entire thing running.

Part Two

Forty-five years ago, you would have found me studying geography at one of the world's most apparently prestigious universities. This was generally a pointless affair, but the subject at least had its precedents. I was fascinated by maps from an early age - and by the globe, which turned up at home one year, possibly courtesy of Father Christmas. I would browse the pages of my atlas, perusing places of the highest exoticism. And at the time, anywhere outside south-east England came dripping in mystery, romance, adventure, so there was plenty of room for the great unknown.

The colours in which these many faraway places were depicted depended largely upon their imperial or colonial affiliations, past or present (this was the time when many European empires were being broken up, and 'independence' granted to the subject nations). French colonies were green, Spanish yellow. This was the colour of most South America, with the exception of Brazil, which was orange for formerly Portuguese territory. Then there was the Dutch (purple? I can't remember), plus little bits of the old Italian endeavours in north Africa. The ones to take most notice of, though, were the areas of the globe coloured in light pink. These were all once part of the British Empire, and covered a considerable portion of the globe: India, Canada, Australia, big places.

There was something about the bits of the globe painted in pink. Nobody actually told you directly, but somehow the truth was communicated - through tone of voice, maybe, the occasional telling gesture, the knowing smile. The pink bits were a bit different, and, well, a bit better. The business of empire was not a pretty one, but the British Empire was the best. Less brutal than the French and the Spanish, more heroic than the Italian. It was about, not simply domination and plunder: it was about inculcating more civilised attitudes. It embodied a culture which, though far from perfect, was an entirely different matter to whatever was exported from the other European nations. It was, in a nutshell, superior. And you grew up imbibing this sense of being just a little better, a little more fair, decent, honest, than the rest of the planet. Your conscious attitude had little say in the matter - this is vital to understand for the discussion. Just as my father, a professed atheist for much of his life, embodied many characteristics that are typically puritan/protestant, so did the anarchist, countercultural young me walk around with an element of this 'a bit better' quality emanating from every pore of my being.

I just assumed that everybody, across the face of the earth, would grow up with this same 'rightness and betterness' about where they came from. It would be naturally embodied in all cultures, all races, all nationalities. It was with surprise and fascination, therefore, that I began to get to know more deeply my wife-to-be and some of her family and friends.

My girlfriend, as she was at the time, hailed from Colombia in South America. Colombians, I discovered, are typically intensely patriotic, with the most macho of Colombian males liable to burst into tears if you say 'Viva Colombia' in front of his face. Yet they seemed to lack entirely that sense of national self-confidence, and the related yet not identical 'we are better than anybody else', attitudes which went with being English. They remained in awe of the west, of the USA, and even their conquerors. If anything, they felt inferior.

It hit home hardest when a football match was on. Spain was playing against.... Italy, I think. Many Colombians were actually supporting the Spanish team. To me, this was incredible. The abused still supporting the abusers, those who came and destroyed their cultures, took their women, burnt their villages, their sacred places. It was as if an Australian supported the English cricket team; or a Glaswegian cheered on the English football team playing against France. It just wouldn't happen. Thus, I realised, not all nations have the same sense of self-confidence, international assertiveness, sense of being right. On the world stage, Colombians remain submissive.

The stories we are told, the mythology, if you like, mould our attitude. The results are not conscious, and it matters not whether the contents of the mythology are literally, factually, true or not. The vital element is the myth, the story, itself. This is all that matters.

Part Three

Let us imagine, then, another group of people on this planet. Another racial and cultural tribe, if you will. In common with the English (not so much, you note, the Scots), they have this sense of being good, being right, being a bit better than the rest. But in this case, not only are they the better people, they are chosen. Not only have they been chosen, but they have been chosen by God, no less. Imagine what it is to be chosen by God. Again, conscious attitudes and beliefs have little to do with it: unless the assumption has been fully and courageously confronted, it will remain unconsciously influencing everything in your life, regardless of political, philosophical, cultural, or religious affiliation.

The mythology of these people is not that simple, however. Despite being God's favourites, they have had a rough time of it. For centuries, millenia even, they have wandered the face of the Earth homeless, rootless. And during the course of this unhappy process they have been treated badly: shoved around, kicked about; used, misused, abused. Only recently have they finally touched base in a place that they can call home. This they guard jealously, adopting whatever strategy they feel necessary to protect their spot on Earth. Though, strangely, many of them, rather than rushing home and settling down quietly, have opted to stay away, doing their business in every part of the globe.

So, to invoke a little amateur developmental psychology (and always be cautious of developmental psychology), let us imagine the effects that such a mythology may have. The sense of being special, unique, in the eyes of God will surely imbue many members of this tribe with a self-belief, a self-confidence, second to none. In addition, the hard times, the victimisation, prominent in their mythology will only make them more determined to succeeed, endow them with a certain 'steel' in their mentality. They will be madly protective of their interests, and not a little paranoid about how anybody not in their tribe behaves towards them.

A cursory glance around the world reveals that, yes indeed, many of these predicted characteristics have come to pass. Despite comprising a teenie-weenie percentage of people on the planet, this tribe has contributed many excellent and outstanding people in the world of culture, for example. Music and film, in particular, are liberally-populated by members of this particular tribe. They excel in many areas of life. At the same time, should we inspect even briefly the make-up and activities of 'Them', our tribe-of-tribes, we find a goodly proportion of these to also be members of, or closely connected with, our tribe of chosen ones. Top figures in finance, for example, wielding enormous influence over world affairs. Senior statesmen, along with the occasional woman, ditto. In the USA, for example, a little delving reveals how many of the people behind the scenes pulling the strings of the puppet political leaders hail from our group of chosen ones. Along with the excellence of their musicians and film directors, they serve up their fair share of participants in nefarious activities. People wielding huge influence in human affairs, and often of a very dodgy kind.

Furthermore, any cognisance of the alternative media inevitably throws up a plethora of news and theories about the part our chosen ones play in the less savoury aspects of human affairs. It is certainly true that there is a remarkable preponderance of chosen tribe members in positions of political, economic, and cultural power across the face of the globe, especially given their small overall population (about 6 million in their homeland, roughly 15 million globally). Some detractors claim that it is all part of a plan to realise their status as the special ones of God. Others point out how international instability (because instability rather than concord appears the hallmark of much of their activity), particularly in the regions surrounding their homeland, is to their tribal advantage: weakening the opposition, a strategy rooted in their insecurity and paranoia.

There are undoubted fishy elements to the situation. One is how some of the tribe's leading academics and politicians seem highly enthusiastic about 'multiculturalism' in Europe, aka the dilution of indigenous European cultures, while maintaining a strict 'thou shalt not enter' policy regarding their own homeland. This comes as an affront to that exaggerated sense of fairness and decency which is the characteristic of western European peoples. There is also the taboo against any questioning of the tribe of chosen ones, its attitudes, mythology, and history. In some European countries it is illegal to even question any details of the history which fuels and identifies these people. It is regarded as a particularly cheap and nasty form of racism, while it is nothing of the sort. It is simply the exercise of freedom of thought and speech. Any criticism will be met by recourse to the chosen ones' mythology of persecution and victimhood, especially that which is dated around 75 years ago. It provides our tribe of chosen ones with an especially potent weapon to defuse any trouble in a rather influential nation in central Europe above all, a place that remains a sucker for manipulation and blackmail because of its own dark role in the chosen ones' mythology.

Conclusion

My own appetite for parapolitical analysis is very small at the moment. I am definitely no expert. I will offer topics and ideas for the reader's consideration and personal research, little more. It seems important to be aware of some of the deeper realities underlying the human world we inhabit: this is one aspect of gnosis, if you like, not having the wool pulled over your eyes, not being blinded by lies and bullshit that are churned out to help keep us separate from our own deeper natures. Recognising the interface of 'inner work' with manifestation in the outer world, if you like, and how the one reflects the other.

I am not, however, interested in trying to point a finger, laying the blame for the woes of the world on a particular person or group of people. It is natural for us to want to find the root cause, and it would be convenient to find a simple object we could wag our accusing finger at. But as I've written before, I don't think it really works like that. On a more metaphysical level, we are all involved in a largely unconscious collusion based around a victim - perpetrator fantasy. I am involved in this nasty nonsense because part of me is congruent with it; such is the unappetising reality. Rather than simply scratch the sore, it behoves us to focus attention on our individual experience, our own consciousness: how it, maybe, continues to fuel the fire of empire. This we can take responsibility for, and is an act which will have a ripple effect on everything. Changing this is the Holy Grail, the real game changer.  

 

                       

Pansies of Numinosity

Some time ago, one of my blog buddies wrote to me, and mentioned his current enthusiasm for 'numinosity'. Numinosity, the numinous: great words, evoking primal magic, imagination, mystery, the Other. Best viewed mythically rather than tied down, chained, and reduced by logical definition. Such is not their purpose, their way.

Mention of the numinous immediately conjures, in my mind at least, the figure of Jung. It was a word that he used, and which I presume he was fond of. As time passes, my admiration for Jung only grows, his stature increases. Not that I am pretending he was a saint, a guru, an exemplar to be blindly followed. Not at all. But he put out so much amazing stuff, lots based on his own experience, and during a period of history when to speak about some of the things he spoke about required a good deal more courage and chops than it does nowadays.

Many modern Jungian analysts and therapists are, I suspect, extremely selective about the Jung that they deliver. Personality types, shadow work, dipping into the archetypes: OK. Creative imagination: writing, drawing, dancing. No problem. But some of Jung's stuff is seriously 'out there'. Alchemy, astrology, UFOs, throwing the I Ching before a consultation. No thank you very much.

Jung has been one of the greatest influences of all upon my own life. He has pointed me to pastures new as well as describing and clarifying a number of experiences that I was at a loss to understand otherwise. Deep within that great cauldron of investigation and exploration that is Jung, however, I spy two subjects on which, to be so bold, I suggest he was wrong.

First up, Christianity. Actually, he said many fine, insightful, and to some people shocking, things about Christianity. He saw with crystal clarity how the Christian ideal, embodied in the figure of Jesus Christ, was lopsided, accepting of one side only of humanity and the universe in general. It is the Light, and has no room for the Dark. Thus, darkness is denied rather than incorporated, and projected out into ultimate bad and evil, onto other beliefs and peoples, and comes to be embodied in the Devil. A religion that is so stuck in duality, identifying exclusively with one side of the divine equation without seeing beyond, cannot help but be a blight on this world.

Jung's deep understanding of this dualism, which remains unresolved, and which is therefore left to run amok throughout western culture in its widest sense, flowed out into his perception of topics way beyond Christianity as such. At the end of the section discussing alchemy in the cartoonish yet pretty spot-on 'Introducing Jung' by Maggie Hyde and Michael McGuinness, there is a picture of the alchemical 'Rebis', the reborn. This is the end of the line in alchemical studies. It is not a figure of obvious beauty, of supernal light, as one might expect, however. It is instead a weird-looking hermaphrodite grasping snakes, standing atop a crescent moon, and with a raven looking on. "Why is the desired goal of alchemy portrayed in this monstrous form?" is the question reasonably posed by a cartoon character in the book.. "Because," the cartoon Jung explains, "alchemy is the 'maternal darkness' that compensates for Christianity's 'paternal light'." I find this insight to be brilliant: it is a statement not purely about the religion in its literal sense, but concerns the entire project of western civilisation over the past 2000 years.

Note: there are variations in the depictions of the Rebis. Sometimes the hermaphrodite stands upon a winged dragon rather than a moon, for example. The overall nature of the illustration will be similar.

Jung had other ideas about the Christian God that would be perplexing, if not shocking and considered blasphemous, by any orthodox believer. He speculated that God remains imperfect and continues in a state of transformation: he is a still-evolving God. These statements would raise the blood-pressure of any self-respecting theologian, for sure.

Yes, despite seeing all the nonsense that is Christianity, Jung couldn't let go. He continued to place hope for the future in changes in the Christian religion. I suppose that this strange course of events was based on his premise that spiritual answers for the west need to be based in our roots, our history, our own traditions rather than importing them from the orient or elsewhere. Fair enough, I would say. But Christianity is not really an indigenous tradition to western Europe. It was, in its time, a foreign import, first introduced through the late Roman Empire in search of a unifying factor for its own crumbling edifice. And, what's more, orthodox Christianity is a system at the service of a false god. I nowadays insist upon this. It is based on the great impostor, the demiurge as perceived by Gnostics, the one who pretends to be the creator of all. He and his cohorts, the archons, whether we take them literally or metaphorically. The Gnostics were right on this. So there can be no healing in the west that is based upon a falsehood, a distortion, an untruth.

So I find it slightly laughable, raher quaint even, when Jung gets excited about the Catholic Church proclaiming the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1950. "The most important religious event since the reformation" he apparently called it, since he considered it as giving a place to the feminine in the spiritual realm, expanding the trinity (God the father etc) into a more complete quaternity. Had he lived a little longer, Jung might have seen how irrelevant Christianity, or any dogma-based monotheism, was for any spiritual hope in the modern world. It is with a touch of irony that we note how much of Jung's work has been instrumental in laying the foundations for much of the mystical/spiritual work of today, which moves far away from anything conventional Christianity is ever going to serve up. 'Spiritual life after Christianity' owes more to Jung than probably any other single figure.

So this is the first thing that I suggest Jung was mistaken about. There is a second: but, in the tradition of the pansy, I shall keep this short and leave it for another time.
                        

Tree of Souls

Part One

Always one to keep up with the latest trends and happenings, I recently revisited the movie 'Avatar'. Well, it was only released in 2009. I enjoyed it so much this time round that I watched it again.

OK, it's mainstream blockbuster. Parts of it are a bit naff, others cheesey. Even some of the deep ecology stuff is presented a bit clumsily, tending towards cliche and being hackneyed. All the same, all the same......

On release, 'Avatar' broke all box office records. Then slipped away into oblivion. I find this interesting: no mass Avatar fan clubs, no Neytiri party costumes. As pointed out ad nauseam on Pale Green Vortex, things don't just happen. So this is no coincidence, either. Despite the surface cheesiness, the underlying world-view of the Na'vi, the Blue People inhabiting Pandora in the film, is not easily disneyfied (though apparently they are trying). Taken seriously, it is downright dangerous. The deep shamanism of the Na'vi is shown as what deep shamanism properly is: not just an idea about ecology or the environment; not just scientific analysis of life, the world, and similar bullshit; not jumping onto pseudo-ecological political bandwagons. No. Real, direct, visceral experience. Becoming a different kind of being, with different kind of experience, really. And you can't have a whole generation of kids going around spouting about the interconnectedness of everything, and how the trees in this part of the forest know what the trees in the other part are up to, and how Eywa (Gaia-Sophia in the film) raises up in support if only you know how to call her. It's not going to help the cause of Empire one little bit. Best leave it alone to slip away quietly.

A fascinating spin-off from Avatar was the incidence of 'Avatar depression' -  thoughts of 'Avatar suicide' even - that was reported. People who had watched the film and absorbed the luminous beauty of Pandora, the world of the Na'vi, found leaving the cinema and returning to grey, boring, often nasty everyday world extremely difficult. These are people, I submit, who sadly rather missed the point. They cannot have not done their deep shamanic work and practice, otherwise they would realise differently....

Another fascinating snippet is the deleted scene 'the Dreamhunt'. Search this out and the whole film hangs together far better. Watch this, too, and you'll see why it wasn't included in the final 'product'. It involves our hero Jake Sully's initiation: when he becomes a man and truly one of 'the People'. It is explicitly psychedelic/entheogenic. In the context of ritual, he swallows a worm and is bitten by a scorpion, and goes off onto a lone journey, during which he sees various elements that will appear in his future. That funny 'little bits missing' feeling while watching the film disappears once you have found Dreamhunt. And, again, it's something else which is not going to be blasted across big screens the world over.  

Part Two

I haven't written for a while about windfarms. That doesn't mean they've gone away. Far from it, in fact. While in England, that green and pleasant land apparently, onshore windfarm construction has been terminated by government, here in Scotland it proceeds apace. Incredibly. Some parts of Scotland have been changed beyond recognition over no more than a decade. It's awful. I recently took the train from Carlisle, through the Southern Uplands and across some of the Central Belt, to Edinburgh. What much of this trip now entails beggars belief. It consists largely of a journey through a newly industrialised landscape, an almost continuous parade of windfarms plastered across hills, moors, farmland. A land compromised, degraded, devastated.

Just down the road from where I live, a monster windfarm is now under construction in the Monadhliath Mountains. It is called Stronelairg. We are not talking a few little windmills fluttering in the breeze: it is an enormous project, laying to waste vast areas of moor and peatland. All, of course, given approval by the Scottish authorities, despite challenge, protest, and the rest. Viva democracy.

Part Three

A while ago I was on a walk with a friend. I was extemporising on the subject of windfarms, and how the nature spirits would not be happy with the destruction of their habitat for these giant concrete-and-metal flapping structures. At that moment we were passing the edge of a new-build of bungalows on the fringe of town. "Don't you think these are worse?" my friend asked me. "They cover up everything; destroy the entire ground." I found this an extremely interesting question; I had no answer, except for "I don't know." The question went into my shamanic bag and we walked on. And thus things remained, until I took my recent gander at Avatar.

At one hour twenty minutes into the film, the bulldozers go in. Enormous, surreal, metal machine monsters march forwards, scrunching and trampling everything in their wake. Forest trees snap like twigs; animals flee screaming in all directions; Blue People run for their life. Pandora is under seige. It is truly awesome.

As I watched the bulldozers and their entourage laying waste to all and sundry, my mind flashed back to my friend and her question. "This is it!" an inner voice shrieked out loud and clear. "This is it, precisely." This is the image to capture the windfarm tragedy, more completely, more perfectly, than words can ever hope to do. I have written plenty on windfarms, but sometimes words just fall short. It is in their nature. And no word could compare to this.

On the Scottish hillsides, the bulldozers also continue to go in. The machinery is slightly less grandiose, but only just; and the archetypal configuration, as we may call it, is identical. Mile upon mile of access roads, gouged out of the heather, peat and rock; tons of concrete poured deep into holes sunk into the mountain. Then they arrive, the metal monsters themselves. carried on the backs of enormous lorries, so heavy that the earth quivers to announce their arrival. The spirits, the gods, the goddesses, are angry. I insist this is so.

No prayers of apology, atonement, redemption, are offered up. No conversation with the mountain, its spirits, the birds, the plants, the animals. No asking for a sign, an omen. 'Windfarm plan shelved due to omen': I have yet to read the headline. "We received a message from sister wind," project chief explained. "We're going home." No. As they say in the film, 'It's science.'

Most of the humans in 'Avatar' aren't on that alien world Pandora for the science. They are there for the richest mineral known to them: unobtanium. And the best deposits of all just happen to be found directly beneath a place most sacred to the Na'vi, their dwelling place, known as Hometree. The humans go for the jugular: cue further destruction of the forest and protracted battle scenes between humans and Blue People.

To the Na'vi, all the forest is sacred: their own energies are inextricably linked with those of everything that exists there. At the same time, some places are more sacred than others. Certain locations act as focal points, magnets, for connection, for energy, for healing even. Places such as the Tree of Voices, trashed by the bulldozers; Hometree; and the Tree of Souls, where uplink to the greater community, the community of ancestors, the field of magical healing, and to Eywa herself, takes place.

As it is on Pandora, so is it on Earth today. There is something special about the hill places, the mountain places, the upland places; and of these some are more special, more sacred, than others. This is not personal projection, to be unravelled on a Freudian therapy couch. It is more than that. Our distant ancestors knew this knowledge for sure. As, in my own vague, half-baked, and vaporous civilised way, do I.

The British Isles are tiny. For the most part they are crowded by humans, their spaces intensively utilised by humanity. So be it. But, as a result, its few remaining pockets of relatively untouched land possess value beyond scientific measure. Here - just, and with a struggle - can be accessed that vital connection with the rest of the natural world; the Power of the Land, if you will. It is this which is being sundered by the march of the windfarms.

The Power of the Land: in Britain, it is nearly gone. Its best chance is probably in the Highland areas of Scotland. Or at least it was until very recently. Remove this link and we are as good as dead. It is possible to get conspiratorial about the whole thing. It is not far-fetched to surmise that the severance of this connection by the devastation wrought by the upland windfarms is not an accident, but is deliberate, designed as a matter of disempowerment. While a person maintains a contact with the Power of the Land, they cannot be completely contained, corralled. One part of their soul remains free - which, more esoterically, is the one thing most threatening to the System that would control us all.

In this article, I have written from the heart; blood runs through the words in this piece. Yes, there are windfarms on Pandora.

Appendix      

Down here at Pale Green Vortex, we're not always over the moon over happenings at infowars. Alex Jones jumping up and down on his chair, ranting and raving about something or other, sending our blood pressure through the roof, can sometimes be a bit much. Having said that.......

Below is a link to a very recent programme that infowars produced on windfarms. It is set in the USA, where people tend to be a bit more proactive about things than is often the case in tired, worn-down, resigned-to-our-fate, Europe. It's well worth watching; and everything in Scotland is the same, except that it's worse, since Scotland is such a small place so the effects are that more dramatic.

Infowars, thanks for that. And remember, folks: you heard about it first on Pale Green Vortex.

https://www.infowars.com/exclusive-wind-energy-war-on-the-high-plains/


Images:

Top: At the Tree of Voices
Middle: The Tree of Voices, after the bulldozers
Below: Stronelairg construction. Amazingly, SSE put up this photo as a sign of progress, as a good thing! It is at this point that, should further proof be needed, I recognise that 'humanity' is not a unified species, but a collection of varying offshoots, with actually very little in common.




  

Nettles in the White House

Part One

As well as Pansies, as referred to in my previous post, D.H. Lawrence entitled another collection of his poems after plants: 'Nettles'. Even if, like me, you are pretty rubbish at knowing the names of plants, the difference between a pansy and a nettle is so obvious that I need elaborate no further on the general nature of the nettle poems.

So, yes. It makes you laugh, really. I was in the process of completing my pansy, all about cutting the discursive thought etc, when I found myself in the middle of a whole bed of nettles. Ouch.

Neil Kramer provides an excellent window on the mess out there. From the perspective of Self, he declares, the current state of affairs (cultural, social, political) is a disaster. To Soul it presents a challenge. To the Divine it's all a game. Certain events over recent days have really come forth to test the depth of our immersion in Soul or the Divine; or whether we're solely scrambling around in the ever-changing mire of Self.

I speak of Trump, and of Syria. I was one of the many who felt the Trump was a good thing: not necessarily due to many of his policies, which suck like anybody else's policies - but because his election suggested a sea-change: enough Americans had seen at least a little through and beyond the Elite who had been running the roost over recent decades. Trump was at least different, not one of them. It denoted a change of consciousness on the collective level. A bit, anyhow.

Overnight, with his action over chemical weapons in Syria, Trump has transformed. He has turned into Hilary Clinton. He has become one of them.

As I write, I'd say that this use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government is a suspect proposal. Even many mainstream media reports include words such as 'alleged' and 'suspected' in their reports. It is worth considering why on earth Assad would use such weapons in the first place. By all accounts, he has been doing quite well recently in the conflict in his own back yard. He knows what's coming his way if he resorts to such nasty tricks as chemical warfare. Unless he's on his own suicide mission, which is unlikely, he's gonna steer well clear.

I suggest that it behoves any responsible citizen of Planet Earth to look elsewhere than the crap that spews out of their television screens and oozes off the pages of the mainstream papers if they want to know what is going on. Afterwards you still might not know what's going on - knowing what's going on is a critically-endangered species nowadays, and its pursuit may no longer be an appropriate strategy. But at least BBC's 6 o'clock propaganda show will be put into some kind of perspective.

Part Two

During my years of English language teaching in London - we're talking late '90s here - I developed decent relations with quite a few members of staff. There was one, a female teacher in her late 20s, with whom I was always joking, swapping good stories, etc. Let's call her Rachel. One day, however, I did something, or said something about her, that she didn't much like. I have no idea what it was. Not serious in my book. Anyhow, life continued as normal.

Months later, all the teaching staff was enduring one of our occasional post-teaching-hours staff meetings. These were invariably interminable affairs, the school principal engaging in a series of lengthy monologues on matters with zero interest to anybody apart from him. Anyway, at one point he brought up the subject of the photocopying machine. Once more, it had broken down due to careless handling by teaching staff, creating inconvenience for all concerned. It was unnecessary, and inexcusable that a lone irresponsible teacher should create so much trouble for everybody else. At this moment, Rachel perked up. She looked straight at me, accusation glaring from her eyes, and firmly declared in front of the entire gathering: "Ian, I told you not to do that with the photocopying machine anymore."

All eyes were instantly fixed on me. Was I the guilty party, the bringer of mayhem to class preparations, the prophet of last-minute panic? And we all thought Ian was such a responsible kind of guy. Meanwhile, Rachel found this hilarious.

Creating suspicion, making false allegations - creating fake news, as is the trendy way of putting things - is dead easy. One of the easiest things on the planet. At least Rachel had no machinery at her disposal to rub the accusation into the school's collective mentality. Imagine if the receptionists were telling students every time they went to the desk about my photocopier crimes. If the teachers were informing all the pupils every lesson to watch out for me. The principal's henchmen included a bit about my photocopier misdeeds every time they went round the classrooms publicising trips to Bath and Cambridge. This is what the anti-Assad machine has at its disposal, in the form of the mainstream media. Everywhere you look, there it is: the chemical criminal.

What's going on with Trump I do not know. It would seem that he's been well and truly got. The transformation borders on the surreal. It is like if Pale Green Vortex suddenly gets full of articles entitled 'Nicola Sturgeon's funniest jokes'; 'Why Angela Merkel is my screensaver'; 'More windfarms, please'. Ironically, it was Trump who really brought into the public domain the term 'the deep state'. Now, I propose, that very same deep state has him by the short and curlies.

Part Three

Why I am an anarchist.

Should anybody still be needing further proof that the current system of politics is unworkable as far as accomplishing change for the better, the Trump story is it. Vast numbers of people in the USA voted in the Trump, out of a sense that the Old Order served them not; they wished for something different, maybe something that took them a little more seriously, even. The turnaround, the volte-face, by Trump which led to the attack in Syria, all undertaken with no explanation of policy reversal, was so quick, so total, that it leaves us in no doubt. The System, the Elite, Empire, call it what you will, has simply and effortlessly reset. Nothing has changed. The same old influences - whoever and whatever they may be precisely - are back in charge.

The current mainstream world - financially, economically, socially, culturally, politically -  exists to perpetuate itself and to further its reach. That is all it is there for, nothing else. This is so obvious nowadays that I am tempted to say that anyone doubting or questioning this is just stupid. It is as if the Gods have decided the time is right to give it to us straight: more and more situations in your face, smack bang, the Trump and Syria being the most recent and blatant of all. It requires a considerable effort of purposeful unawareness, a kind of self-disavowal, to maintain the deception. Wilfully turning a blind eye becomes an increasingly schizophrenic act. The Gods are trying to help us: Look, look! Great gifts! We bestow events with our blessings. They are your teachers, if only you will see. All we cannot provide is the awareness to see and to learn. That alone must emanate from you, the individual.

Thus is the configuration within which we live. Only a restructuring along anarchist lines will more properly reflect the individual and their deeper purpose, their self-determination. I do  not subscribe to the classic political view of the 19th century anarchists, however. Their notion was that all we need is to remove the bosses, the chiefs, the big nasties, and people will become free and good. In this they were naive and metaphysically limited. As I've discussed elsewhere, we are all here because it's where we are suited. It reflects our own being, the maturity (or lack thereof) of ourselves on the levels of Self and Soul. The System is not something we just smash to pieces, to enter into Utopia. No. We need to do our unique spadework; to grow, to use that language. Only then will the powers that strangle have no choice but to slink away into oblivion. Precisely how, I cannot pretend to understand. But this much is clear: it cannot work any other way.

P.S. When I was a child, I once fell out of a tree into the middle of a large bed of stinging nettles. I was wearing short trousers, and it was not a good experience.

P.P.S. I did not damage the photocopier.

Images: A bed of stinging nettles
              Bakunin, 19th century political anarchist
            

A Pansy for Spring

The idea of 'Pansies' is not my own. It comes from D.H.Lawrence. It didn't originate with him, either. He took it from 'Pensees', thoughts in prose as written by Pascal or La Bruyere. Though in his case it was a collection of short poems to which he conferred the name. And in typical Lawrence style, he amplified on what he was talking about: "Each little piece is a thought; not a bare idea or an opinion or a didactic statement, but a true thought, which comes as much from the heart and the genitals as from the head" ('Introduction to Pansies' in 'The Complete Poems of D.H.Lawrence'). Elsewhere,
Lawrence describes 'real thought' thus: "Thought is a man in his wholeness wholly attending."

'Pansies' is my mood - at this moment at least. Over the past eight months or so I have done a fair wack of writing, exercised my faculty of discursive thought, following a number of threads which I have felt it necessary to follow.

This has all been good, and I have reaped benefit. But I sense a change. Conceptualising, that certain way of thinking, has its place, but should be allotted no more than its due. This was presaged in the Tarot (at this moment, half my readers raise their eyebrows skyward, shrug their shoulders, and go and make lunch. So be it....). A Full Moon reading in the middle of March spoke strongly and insistently of 'banishing a skill', letting go. And work, a project, broken, along with its attendant ambition. Then, New Moon at the end of the month: new cards, a reading bathed in feeling, and the power of the dream. No swords, the image of the mental plane.

Related to this is a feeling that I have been doing many different things - writing, reading, communicating, walking, planning, discussing, cleaning, and goodness knows what else. All of these things are good things: I have succeeded in concentrating my life and its purpose so that little extraneous matter remains. Yet still it all can seem a bit of a jumble. I strive to experience the overarching intent - or presence.

Self - Soul - Sun (the Divine) is one way that Neil Kramer describes the journey along the mystic path. I'll buy that. 'Self' in this instance is what I sometimes call ' the petty self'. It is concerned with the matters of the everyday. Many people never see beyond its incessant, inexhaustible demands. It has its place. 'Soul' is 'big picture you'. The concerns of Self are as dust to Soul: mortgages, pensions, jobs, money; security, happy marriages, health even. Or if Soul does address these issues, it is from a perspective that is competely different from that which everyday life approaches them with.

Soul simultaneously seems to look after you -  it can be the guardian angel - yet is ruthlessly indifferent to our cares, fears, anxieties. It is, I suppose, intermediate twixt everyday me and the divine. And in -isms like Christianism this miraculous inner gift gets projected onto the priesthood, the cardinals, archbishops and popes; a disavowal of our own inner wealth.

I concede that things have been a bit different since the severe illness I succumbed to just over two
years ago. During those weeks of enforced doing-nothing, my everyday mind had no choice but to simply shut down as well. Many facets of the petty self ceased to function, and in the ensuing silence (aside from the incessant din of coughing) something else came through. This 'something else' had made its presence known before, in fits, starts, and trickles for years if not decades. But now it decided to move centre stage. Soul, daimon, anima, guardian angel, call it what you will: its voice came through loud and clear. It was ready to communicate, to converse. And it became my little secret, our communication. Part of me was done with 'this world', the 'deep concerns of everyday life' as Castaneda ironically calls them in 'The Active Side of Infinity'. Channels were opened up which have steadfastly refused to shut down again - not completely at any rate.

There doesn't seem to be much of a place for the Self - Soul- Divine thing in Buddhism, at least not in its more exoteric forms, and in the ways that I learnt and practised it. In Buddhism there's samsara, which is a bit crap; and there's nirvana, which is all freedom, release, liberation. Except in its more developed forms of thinking, where it is pointed out that nirvana and samsara are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other, so you might as well just relax and go eat breakfast.

In case any Buddhists should feel indignant at my portrayal of its teachings, yes I know, I've simplified and caricatured. And if you're feeling indignantt, that's part of your samsara, so get over it.....

Self - Soul - Divine is better sourced in the fragments, the bits and pieces, that have come down
through the various mystical traditions of the west. Somewhere in the middle of that series of programmes 'The Great Work' (readily viewable on Youtube), Georgia Lambert delineates the different levels of meditation. The practice of meditation, she says, culminates in the ability to 'Shut up and listen'. And learning to shut up and listen is one way to look at the theme of this pansy. Too much mental activity, too much discursive thought, and you're dead. Forget it. Too much internal noise and chatter, even about apparently 'important things', has to be treated as an indulgence to be chucked out. Lots of reading and writing goes out the window, too. We're doing something a bit different. We're tuning in to 'Soul Intuition', outside and beyond the ruminating mind. And 'Shut up and listen' has a different feeling to it than the Buddho-Hindu mantra 'Be Here Now'. Shut up and listen implies a fine-tuning, a marvellous opening to intuition, an active and intentional receptivity. Whereas in comparison, being here and now sounds a bit passive and stupid to me.

I am grateful to the compilers, translators, and interpreters of the western tradition fragments. Some of this material has spoken eloquently to me. In particular, in the context of this pansy, in valuing and validating emotional and intuitive experience in ways which nothing that my decades in Buddhism did. I have been able to breathe a deep sigh of relief at having aspects of my experience properly acknowledged by anyone other than myself, it seems for the first time.