In the back of the Elementary Latin Dictionary is a table of roots where you will find this curious combination gna- strung together. Gna- forms the root of our gnosis and know. And gnaw perfectly captures the process of transferring energy through the body.
I was keyed into this root by Charles Olson who often jotted it into the marginalia of the books he was reading when he’d find a puzzle piece to the knowledge he was pursuing.
In the following passages from Jung’s Religious Ideas in Alchemy, Olson gnawed heavily on the text. The marking from paragraphs 375 to 379 are heavily underlined and dated 1/16/66, 1/21/68 and 5/19/69. It’s clear that Olson was finding a key to his understanding of the importance of analogy, for the marginalia notes include “analogy is mind working on matter” and “like to like” and “likeness : analogy.”
Photocopy of Olson's markings on Jung
And these specific passages get marked up:
He must accomplish in his own self the same process that he attributes to matter, “for things are perfected by their like.” Therefore the operator must participate in the work. Carl Jung, CW v. 12: Psychology and Alchemy, Religious Ideas in Alchemy, par. 375
Through time and exact definition things are converted into intellect. Ibid., par. 376
The assumption underlying this train of thought is the causative effect of analogy. In other words just as in the psyche the multiplicity of sense perceptions produce s the unity and simplicity of an idea, so the primal water finally produces fire, i.e., the ethereal substance – not (and this is the decisive point) as a mere analogy but as the result of the mind’s working on matter. Ibid., par. 377
and finally:
By studying the philosophers man acquires the skill to attain this stone. But again, the stone is man. Thus Dorn cries: “Transform yourselves from dead stones into the living philosophical stones!” Here he is expressing in the clearest possible way the identity of something in man with something concealed in matter. Ibid., par.378
It’s a great deal to chew on, and Olson’s repeated return to the same pages as he approached his death shows that this content continues to remain vital through repeated visits. The “something” is the objective psyche we’ve been referring to here as of late…
It’s always a cool thing when the narrative of what one is attempting to articulate seems to fall into ones hands on it’s own accord. As a followup to the previous post concerning the objective psyche, and the “what if” I posed, this nugget jumped from the page. It tosses the ball I’m playing with here further down the field.
“The full significance of synchronicity is still to be discovered. We already have hints from what is so far known that at some point the objective psyche may emerge with the outer physical reality to form a unitary reality transcending the antithesis of subject and object.” Edward Edinger, An Outline of Analytical Psychology, in Quadrant, 1968 (reprint 1, pg.12)
And what would that look like? …the force be with you.
“The alchemical opus must be understood as a phenomenology of the objective, autonomous psyche enacting its drama of transformation on the stage provided by the material world, the objective nature of which must remain unknown in order for the play to continue.” Tom Cheetham, Green Man, Earth Angel, pg.36
The subtlety of the wind, can you grab hold of it? Can you pin it down and so know it? Or do we encounter it as experience? The psyche will ever elude our attempts to define it by our rational concepts. Just as we become confident in our firm grasp, it will slip from our grip. Or like an opossum it will play dead so convincingly we will be sure all we hold is but a corpse of the sought after.
The mercurial analogies for psyche are accurate. The quicksilver is indeed quick. Yet like Cheetham’s claim above, we must need to champion the cause of the objective psyche. Collective consciousness is so trained to dismiss the realms of psyche and the imagination, or more accurately the imaginal, as a “nothing but.” It was just a dream. It’s was simply a crazy idea. It was nothing,…really.
Can we afford to move into the next dawn as a society with this prejudice closing us off from this aspect of reality? What do you think might happen if together, not just a few of us, but all of us helped each other take the blinders off? A hunch: it’s beyond our wildest imagination.
One of the lessons I learned from the artist Deane Keller first, and it clearly applies to any analytic undertaking as well, is the importance of the sealed vessel. In analysis the clear analogy is to the alchemical vessel, which if not properly sealed will result in the spirit escaping from the bottle.
I recall sharing with Deane one evening a vision of a poetic work I was formulating. My enthusiasm was electric. When he finally got a word in he questioned: should I be telling him?
As you might imagine, he was correct. The “work” never launched. Does this tale sound familiar? Can you point to the different approaches you took that resulted in either a successful completion, or a failed attempt? Does a strong hermetic seal have anything to do with it?
How are you utilizing all the folks you exchange ideas with across the social media platforms? The number one difference from this corner is that no matter where I go these days, connecting with folks that I met first through this world is now a regular occurrence. Each time these exchanges translate into encounters, I get an amazing affirmation of the value of being active in this space.
Each time I meet up with someone it changes the nature of the relationship in this space moving forward as well. It creates some texture in memory, fills in the blanks and builds a shared history that acts as an anchor as the relationship moves back into the cyber world.
I’ve met hundreds of folks now that I first encountered on-line doing this work and each and every time my life has been enriched through the encounter. Are you reaching through the screen?
Every so often I enjoy tossing a post onto the blog by a different method. For instance I like playing with the scheduler. I try the quick press which Wordpress has on it’s dashboard. My friend Jeb hooked me up with the Postie plugin that allows for posting by email.
This post is being crafted with the blackberry application BlogLive. It’s interesting how if we alter our practice we gain a fresh perspective. Typing with the thumbs while seated in the Adirondack chair out on the deck after dinner has a completely different feel to it than peering at the computer screen. Sometimes, when seated with the computer, it’s as if that screen becomes the whole world. And that’s terribly skewed.
Here, the immersion in the environment predominates and the two inch screen of the blackberry seems much more a note pad in relationship to the overall experience. The birds have begun their night song. Hankins Creek rushes down the valley swollen with the recent rains. A mower hums off to my left. I can hear a jet above the clouds. Some of the weekenders from the city are driving past on their way home. Here comes…and there goes the son of a farmer in his loud (no muffler?) pickup truck. A pesky fly pulls my hand from this task repeatedly.
How do you mix up your practice?
My copy of the 10th Anniversary Edition of The Cluetrain Manifesto arrived yesterday and with it my journey to read into the important books that make up the bookshelf of this space will be complete. I could start spilling all the excitement I’ve found cracking the book open, but part of me knows that’s for you to go find. Instead let me just highlight this amazing post today by Doc Searls on celebrity:
“I submit that obsessing about celebrity is unhealthy for the single reason that it is also unproductive. Celebrity is to mentality as smoking is to food. (I originally wrote “chewing gum” there, but I think smoking is the better analogy.) It is an unhealthy waste of time. And time is a measure of life. We are born with an unknown sum of time, and have to spend all of it. “Saving” time is a rhetorical trick. So is “losing” it. Our lives are spent, one end to the other. What matters most is how we choose to spend it.”
I was given the great opportunity to hear Doc Searls at the SXSW this past March. While there are many players in this space primarily concerned with leveraging status into success, he’s about content. So much of what the imitators are preaching in this space was already embedded in the Cluetrain a decade ago. I’m looking to Doc to show us what 2020 will look like.
Unfolding, unfurling…one of the best images in nature of the mandala, which in many traditions is a visual representation of the soul, is the flower. Each petal a different facet, a different capacity, a reflection of desire.
Our garden provides ample opportunity to reflect upon flowers. How their designs attract the insects in symbiotic purpose. How their colors adorn the creation in splendor.
But it is the surprise of each flower, how it’s unique fragile statement reflects the wholeness and perfection of our souls. Yes, it’s the surprise that unfurls as we walk into the completion of our lives that each flower sings of while turning to face the sun.
Related Post:
Portrait of the soul
It’s a few weeks shy, but the geography is right. It was while visiting DC last July that I launched into this space. Bush was limping out of town. The Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac scandal had seized the town. The depth of the economic crisis was starting to take root in our collective consciousness, but the circus of the presidential campaigns provided ample distraction. I was deeply affected by a homeless encampment under a train bridge literally less then one hundred yards from the main stage of the huge conference I was attending just down the block from the U.S. Treasury. Walking for blocks beside the Department of Agriculture I began to recognize the scale of our bureaucracy.
This year the beltway is gripped by the uprising in Iran and the talk of health care reform. Each of the Senate Offices I visited while doing some advocacy with NATSAP was swamped with the bustle of the machine. With the July 4th recess approaching an implosion of work just got dropped in their laps of all the aides. Most where still smiling.
As I consider my own journey this lap around the sun I’m struck how focused I’ve been able to remain. I started this blog last July with the simple post Ever Anew:
Ever anew, the demand for commitment. When I learnt reading Sylvia Brinton Perera that Queen Maeve’s challenge to her chosen was name the three deepest desires of your heart (and here’s the kicker) in the next breath!, it was then I knew I had yet to get serious with my practice, my posture, or my life.
It took about six weeks to clarify and prepare myself for that eventual ordeal. Since then, my entire life path has changed and the doors are opening by themselves…
A year later, while DC continues to grind under the pressures of the nation, things have greatly changed with my practice, my posture and my life. What has unfolded here and across these platforms has been a major part of it. And walking through the seasons, at each doorway connected to this path, as I knocked, it opened. Likewise, when distracted, where I knocked, those doors remained locked.
Leaving town yesterday I was treated to this view of the Upper Delaware River from the Basket Brook Bridge just south of Long Eddy, New York.
In the back of the Elementary Latin Dictionary is a table of roots where you will find this curious combination gna- strung together. Gna- forms the root of our gnosis and know. And gnaw perfectly captures the process of transferring energy through the body.
