Thought for the Day
Wednesday, July 16, 2025

I was startled awake this morning with Mary Traver’s (of Peter, Paul & Mary) voice ringing in my ears. She was singing lines, “If we do these things in the greenwood/What will happen in the dry? The song, from 1986, has been a favorite, though I have not heard it for a long time. I listened to it this morning and it still pierces me to the quick. As I was listening for the fourth time, I had the feeling that this would be the topic of my Wednesday, “Thought for the Day.” I am struck by the relevance of this song to our time, 39 years after it came out. So, my “thought” for today, is that you simply listen to this song, and note what strikes you. Here is a Spotify link to the song: Peter, Paul and Mary – Greenwood (25th Anniversary Concert) and here is a link to the lyrics:
Lyrics for Greenwood Peter Paul and Mary – Search

Questions and comments always welcomed.

Russ

Saturday Memory

July 12, 2025

When I was in the training program to become a Jungian analyst (in Los Angeles, 1969-1974), the most interesting thing was that the crucial part of my training was not part of the training program at all. The most crucial part of my real training was in a seminar on Zarathustra that was hosted by Hilda Kirch.

Hilda had been in the seminars on Zarathustra that Jung gave between 1934 and 1939. Jung would read from the text of Zarathustra and comment on it, and then the participants would ask questions that Jung would answer, or they would be asked questions by Jung about the material.

Hilda had been deeply affected by the seminars, and she told me it was one of the most important experiences of he life.

The transcript of the seminars (by Mary Foote) was made available to the participants in multigraphed form altogether distributed in 10 volumes. In 1970, when Hilde started the seminar for analyst candidates and others, she let me copy the 10 volumes. It is still a prized possession. The seminars were published in two volumes in 1988 by Princeton University Press as part of the Bollingen Series.

Hilda would read from the text of the seminars, slowly, and comment on both the portions from Zarathustra and Jung’s commentary as well as on the participants’ questions and comments. What was so amazing about this experience of Hilda’s doing this was that almost all participants would report on synchronicities that were occasioned by the seminar. The whole experience was psychoactive in ways that were not characteristic of the training program itself.

There was something “palpable” in the air during these meetings. I think it was some combination of the psychoactive text of Zarathustra, the psychoactive effects of Jung’s deep commentary, and especially Hilde’s psyche, so “alive” with the material from her experience in the original seminars, and then again in doing it her way.

Thought for the Day

July 9, 2025

Orogine is a figure that appears in my visions during acupuncture, as well as in my dreams. Her purpose, she says, is to “mentor my completeness.” In my most recent experience, she introduced me to a male figure, appearing in a Roman-like tunic, whose name is Tonarius. She tells me he will help with some of the details of my completeness and that I should follow his instructions closely. He tells me of the importance of discovering and knowing the geometric nature of things that I do and experience. He asked me to imagine a triangle. At the left base angle would be my weekly blog post called “Thought for the Day.” And at the right base angle would be my weekly post called “Saturday Memory.” He told me I needed a “third” at the apex of the triangle. I was not to “make something up” but to wait for the third to come to me. I’m waiting, and I’ll let you know when whatever it is arrives.

Saturday Memory
July 5, 2025

I once worked with someone who was a well-known film editor. He asked me to come to his studio. He wanted me to understand how he worked to make strips of film into what was finally seen as a “film.” He said it was important to work initially with just the film strips without sound, and that the soundtrack would be added later to be in synch with the actual product. At every point of the way, he asked for my reaction. In turn, I asked him to elucidate what he was “after.” What he said depended on the story, but for the action movie he was editing, it was increasing the rapidity of rising and falling tension. “But none of that was in the strips themselves. So how is that possible?” “Ah,” he answered, “that is the art.” The edited film became a masterpiece; it won several Academy Awards. He was overwhelmed with anxiety at the prospect of giving his speech if he won, so we practiced his speech together. What seemed to calm him the most was when we both did his speech out loud together in sync. At the ceremony, his speech went off without a hitch and was quite impactful. From time to time, over the years since, I have done this, speaking out loud in synch with dreams. Awkward at first, but repeated speaking brings the dream text together in a way that is surprising and meaningful.

Russ

WEDNESDAY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY 

July 2, 2025 

A clear feature of today’s political, cultural, and economic climate is the staggering degree of hubris. In the Greek period, hubris was not only a person’s unending greed, pride, and rejection of any boundaries and limits; it was also a crime against the gods. 

Human attempts to punish hubris are most often ineffective and inconsequential. So once the crime of hubris is committed and human efforts fail to punish, the gods direct Atis to begin the act of punishment. Atis is an affliction that begins a process of degeneration. The hubristic character begins to “lose his mind” and as a result increases his hubristic behavior. The degree of pain and suffering of those impacted by the offending hubris increases dramatically.  

 It is this double aspect of increasing hubris and increasing pain and suffering that results from it that finally triggers the presence of Nemesis. This is the extremity that begins her awful punishment. She alone decides what fate will befall on the  one who commits the crime of hubris. The punishment always leads to utter downfall. And when this downfall is complete, the “story” is immortalized for future generations to learn from. This form of story is called Tisis.  

I got this far today before my acupuncture appointment. During my treatment, I experienced a vision, which is what happens at every session. Here is what happened. 

Acupuncture. The scene begins with me sitting in the chair area in front of the stage. Orogine appears and tells me she wants to talk about the piece I am writing on hubris. She tells me I am on the right track. She says I need to emphasize even more not only the hubris of individuals or collectives, but the pain and suffering their hubris causes. Likewise, she says she wants me to write a lament about the situation. She went on to tell me that when Nemesis comes, it will be like nothing ever seen before. She said I need to watch out for signs of her presence in dreams and visions. She tells me I will know when Nemesis is about to strike. 

So, I’ve got some work to do. 

Saturday Memory

June 28, 2025

In my yet unfinished novel (Dreams: The Final Heresy), one of the darker characters is the Faceless Monk. He is Cardinal Broga’s right-hand man, his fixer. When I am actively writing, I write from what I call imaginal space. The characters occupy this space, and I can see them and hear them. Since I do not plot or outline or write from conscious expectations or ideas, I am mostly in the position of a kind of scribe. The imaginal contents take the lead in what gets written down.

Near the end of 2018, I woke from a nap experiencing either a receding dream or a hypnopompic image. The image was the Faceless Monk and he announced that there would be major and disastrous cyberattacks in 2019. The image pierced me with an intensity difficult to describe. The fictional character was clearly referring to an outer reality and not to a time point or theme of the novel. I wondered how this would change my experience of the Faceless Monk when I return to writing the next scenes of the novel. So, here we have a fictional character, entering a dream (or vision) and announcing future events in the “real” (outer) world.

What is the psychological status of such a phenomenon?

In my experience, I do not question the “reality” of a dream, vision, imaginal space, or things I experience of the outer world. They are all real experiences. The issue for me is not the reality status of experiences of any kind, but more the nature of the eros relation to any experience (regardless of source) and what I do in response to such experiences.

I am aware of the dire warnings of cybersecurity specialists about the inevitability of major cybersecurity attacks. As well, I experienced the dire warning of the Faceless Monk. The latter warning pierces me more deeply, and in response, I not only want to write this brief note but also to prepare for the likelihood of coming cyber disasters. I have my own fantasies as to what these might be, as I’m sure you will have as well.

The ontological nature of the Faceless Monk and his knowledge of future events in the world fall readily into the nature of prophetic intelligence. How this comes to be is unclear. Like Pirandello’s characters in search of an author, fictional characters, like dream characters, can function as autonomous beings outside of and independent of ego consciousness. They can “know.”

More about this another time.

Enantiodromia, Imagination and Dreams

Saturday’s Memory for June 21, 2025

I think it was in eighth grade when the teacher assigned us to write a short story. I had a dream then, that was about what happened to the world when dreams stopped. So I wrote a story from this dream prompt. The teacher gave me an “F,” the one and only F I had ever received. When I asked her why, she said I had copied it from somewhere. I was stunned by this accusation. The next time I wrote any fiction was in college. I took a short story class. There were twelve students in the class. When our first attempt was returned, there were 11 Fs and 1 D. I had received the D. Improvement! At least I was not accused of plagiarism. I did try to write my first short story again many times but always failed to complete it. Almost 40 years later, I decided to take another class in writing fiction. The instructor was the well-known author, writing coach, and editor Gloria Kempton. She has been a prolific contributor to Writer’s Digest.

“Imagine an apple,“ she directed. She then led a discussion on what we had experienced. Everyone complied, and she pointed out that our experiences were not gripping. They all amounted to putting a coin in a machine, and out popped an apple image, a compound of memories of apples and such. No drama, no tension, no plot, no story. She then proposed a writing prompt in which a minimally described character was on the verge of a crucial decision. She wanted us to be prompt in our response as well. Then, as we went around the room, the room was filled with story possibilities. No one seemed to suffer any writer’s block, perhaps because we were not writing, just “imagining.” She pointed out that all the proffered story lines were realistic, as if we all were aiming to mimic Flaubert. Then, she said, “Now, the hard part. Close your eyes; let all contents drop away. No prompt, no need to be prompt. See what comes. Don’t try to do anything.” I don’t recall how long this went on, but after a time of such spacing out, “something” happened that was different. No one could name it, but there were references to “electricity in the air” and “sparks flying.” The teacher said that we had contacted, to one degree or another, the story engine. She said she wanted us to write our short stories from “there.” No one could say exactly where “there” was, but we had had a taste. This experience broke the logjam I had suffered for so long, and I began writing my first novel, Dreams: The Final Heresy. I am writing the final chapter now, and I will publish it this year.

Wednesday Thought for the Day 

June 18, 2025 

Humanity is failing in many ways, not the least of which is the failure to be an effective steward of resources, whether those resources are economic, social, cultural, scientific, artistic, or anything else. At bottom, this is nothing less than suicidal. For the first time, Homo sapiens are facing extinction, and much of the impetus for this ineluctable reality is the result of our own unbounded hubris.

One resource so far exempt from this ubiquitous mayhem is what happens when our ego consciousness and our body become paralyzed. I am referring to dreams. The likely reason for this exemption is that for the vast majority of individuals, collectives, and organizations, this resource is ignored.

Dreams are a resource other than conscious intentions, and for this reason are likely to be the source of “outside the box” ways of being, doing, and functioning. Where dreams are an object of attention, most of this attention is interpreting, explaining, or trying to understand dreams only in relation to consciousness. This is not the most fruitful way of working with dreams. The “otherness” of dreams requires recapturing the early sense of dreams as “alien.” So, to relate to dreams would be relating to an other. In this mutuality, this eros potentiality, the ego may find ways of “serving” the hints and possibilities presented by the other.

Recall the scene in The Day When the Earth Stood Still. Klatu, the alien, holds up a device, but the military decides it’s a weapon, destroys it, and injures Klatu. It was a gift from the alien for the president to be able to understand life in the universe. This scene provides a riveting example of wrongheadedness in the face of the other. It also mirrors how most humans treat the gift of dreams.

Saturday Memory
June 14, 2025

The first “girl Friday” was a young male selected by Robinson Crusoe to be a helpful servant on that day. “Girl Friday” came from the movie title. My first real job was as a “boy Friday,” as the owner called it, to be an all-around helpful hand in his local stationery store. I would stock stuff, sweep the floors, and run errands.
It was the summer of 1953, I was 14 going on 15, and my pay was $0.75/hour. The best thing, though, was what I fell in love with in the back room: a print shop, complete with an old-style Chandler & Price press, a Chandler & Price paper cutter, and several type cases and type stands. The owner set type by hand for business cards, stationery, envelopes, and a variety of other printed items. He noticed my interest and over the summer taught me to set type and to use the press and the cutter and even let me do real jobs as he began to trust me to do a good job. I was hooked.

I started high school in the fall of 1953 and immediately volunteered for the school newspaper, which, as I had discovered, also included a press room. I became the business manager after a while, and my girlfriend became editor in our senior year. I spent a good bit of time in the print shop. I gave one of the graduation speeches (entitled “Franklin and Einstein”). I spoke of Ben Franklin’s love of printing and talked about the importance of doing what one loved. In spite of all his achievements, which were extraordinary by any standard, his gravestone refers to only one thing: Printer.
In the fall of 1956, I started college, and one of the first things I did was to secure a volunteer position in the university’s Typography Laboratory, as it was called. It was indeed the most advanced such place I had ever seen, but it was still, basically, a print shop. But as my studies began to consume my time through the college years and then graduate school, my involvement in printing fell away.