Remembering Ziggy

Back in the early 70’s, I taught a seminar at the C. G. Institute of Los Angeles, entitled something like, “The Value of Pop Culture for Depth Psychology.” What I tried to examine was the question of what depth psychology could learn from Pop Culture. This I contrasted with the idea of interpreting and explaining and otherwise understanding Pop Culture using depth psychological methods.

My main idea stemmed from my valuing the creative arts as sources of new and developing mythologies that would become new dominants in the contemporary culture.

At the time, I focused on three figures: David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Laurie Anderson. Each of these figures seemed to me to have  tap-roots in the deeper regions of the psyche and were each in their own way story tellers of what they found there.

It’s now 50 years later, and each of these figures have been icons in their genres for decades. David Bowie died at 69. Leonard Cohen at 82. Laurie Anderson is now 75.

This set me to remembering how in that early seminar we worked with David Bowie’s first major album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It was the story of the end of the world because the world had run out of natural resources and how aliens were coming who were “black hole” jumpers, jumping from universe to universe. It was a musical version of welcoming the Coming Guest that Jung described in his 1960 letter to Herbert Read.

I talked about this story as a “new” myth. I talked about how the mythic potential of the psyche did not stop with Greek myths, but is always creating the stories of new myths both in our individual psyche and in the collective psyche.

I listened again recently to Ziggy, I felt the deep loss of David Bowie.

What he said about dreams is important.

“I suspect that dreams are an integral part of existence, with far more use for us than we’ve made of them, really. I’m quite Jungian about that. The dream state is a strong, active, potent force in our lives…the fine line between the dream state and reality is at times, for me, quite grey. Combining the two, the place where the two worlds come together, has been important in some of the things I’ve written, yes.” (Roberts 1999 NYT Interview “David Bowie: Critical Perspectives”).

Here is a brief interview with David Bowie on the theme of “Life is a Finite Thing.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03f5cyt

Hi all,

I am posting a most important essay from blog member John Woodcock

entitled, DIVINE SERVICE: in a postmodern world. I encourage

everyone to read and story it.

Here is the link:

http://ralockhart.com/WP/DivineService0905b.pdf

Russ

Here is the link:

https://aeon.co/essays/we-live-in-a-wake-centric-world-losing-touch-with-our-dreams?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&&utm_campaign=launchnlbanner

Contents

Life after death?
No stopping it
Dreams as disruptive technology
Down the drain
Hope is evil’s anvil
The bridge is love
Strange and weird experiences
Dart of destiny
The coming guest
A new type of religion
Could the god of greed die like Pan did?
The I Ching’s response
Faster than we thought it would
Dark matter and Jung’s dunkle Substanz
To metaphorize is to imagine
The failure of imagination
Is there an antidote?
Devouring ourselves
Celebrating the end
The necessity and purpose of humility
Epilogue: Paco Mitchell
Epilogue: Russell Lockhart
Endnotes

Dreams, Bones & the Future: Endings will be available soon.

Russ & Paco

Hi all,

COD Scene 34 has been posted.

Here is the direct link:

fexandcoo.website/COD34.pdf

Enjoy!

Russ, Paco, Owl Man and Heron Man

Here is the link:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=disturbed+the+sound+of+silence&docid=608037438075134754&mid=44F600D7B15EC73DAAF344F600D7B15EC73DAAF3&view=detail&FORM=VRAASM&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Ddisturbed%2Bsounds%2Bof%2Bsilence%26qpvt%3Ddisturbed%2Bsounds%2Bof%2Bsilence%26FORM%3DVDRE

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/23/the-vision-collector-the-man-who-used-dreams-and-premonitions-to-predict-the-future

My Photoshop rendering of the dream image is more or less as I experienced it in the dream. The dream voice announced the title: Angel Hidden by Rothko-like Squares. I have been aware of Rothko’s paintings of color fields for a long time as well as what he said he was trying to express by them. But I had never experienced the idea that they were “hiding” something because the whole purpose of his work was to “reveal” not so much what was behind the paintings as what was in “front” that we could not see. His more abstract paintings are subject to a different sense, and these may be more about revealing something emerging from behind.

But the dream comes with an idea that is opposite what has been in my consciousness. Of course, this is often the case with dreams. I do not feel comfortable calling this “my” unconscious idea. To me, it makes more sense to think of this as the idea of someone “other.” An other who makes itself known to me through the dream from some “elsewhere” than my conscious mind. This “otherness” is compelling to me and I take such experiences as tasks or instructions or teachings.

Of course, I spent some time re-looking at Rothko’s work. My intention was see his fields of color as hiding angels. But soon realized the dream was pointing to “something else.” It was not saying that Rothko’s color fields were hiding angels. The angel was hiding behind Rothko-like squares. Of course, Rothko set in motion an expressive movement of artists who took up the exploration of color and geometry. A good sample of such painters is available at

https://theartling.com/en/artzine/artists-follow-if-you-mark-rothko/

I am aware, of course, of the impulse that wants to unhide the angel, to see the angel, to find out all about the angel, why it’s hiding and all those sorts of questions that begin to flood one’s consciousness. Questions. Wanting answers. Now. But then another sense of things entered. Let the angel be. Let it hide. As if I had anything to do with it hiding in the first place. It was not “mine” to allow anything. But as this feeling took over, I felt some degree of humility. I stepped back. I tamped down my urge to see, to know, to relate to the angel.

I spent time trying to be with the image. Just with it. Just with the angel hidden by Rothko-like squares.