When I was growing up, on Saturdays, I would meet at my friend Jim’s house at 12:00 noon and Jim’s mom would serve fresh popped corn and milk. It was one of my favorite things and even now I often have popcorn for lunch on Saturdays.

But why do I remember this today? I have now stopped asking this question, as if it is a puzzle to be solved. Instead, I treat it as a mystery to be embraced and by holding fast to the memory to let something emerge. This is an example of using Keats’ method of negative capability to let something other than the rational intellect hold sway.

What comes will be posted when it happens.

Saturday Memory for March 14, 2026

I woke up this morning remembering a dream from some time ago that I recall naming as “The Psychic Buffalo.” The dream was just an image without anything else. I sketched the image, but I no longer can find it. I asked AI to do a sketch for me. Here is the image it produced:

Better than my version. Still, in my dream, in my image, and in AI’s image, I was stunned by the degree of animal presence. But not just presence. I was strongly impacted by the idea of the psychic power of the animal body. I worked good bit on that idea back then, but today, I am wondering why I recall this dream now.  It occurs to me that it is related in some way to a theme I am working on for my next seminar for the C. G. Jung Society of Seattle. The seminar will likely focus on different ways of expression in relation to a dream (poetry, art, story, essay, photography, etc.). Right now, I am feeling the pull to write “The Psychic Buffalo” as a story. As I look at AI’s drawing, I get the feeling from staring at the psychic buffalo that I had better do this story and not just talk about doing it.

My thought for the day comes from a vision I experience during acupuncture. I have been experiencing these visions weekly for more than two years. I am not seeing the vision as if it were a film, Like a dream, I am in the vision. Acupuncture. The vision began with a huge, low profile kettle drum that took up most of the space on the stage in front of the tower. No one was present and just sat and watched for something to happen. What happened was that I heard the kettle drum, but no one was drumming and there was no timpani mallet. A voice asked if I knew what I was hearing. No one was present, just the voice. Then a fountain ped appeared. It was huge and it was a Mont Blanc pen. The pen was capped, but alongside it was a huge page and writing was appearing on it. Again, no one was doing this. The voice asked if I knew what I was seeing. The voice then said, “You are seeing and hearing the spirit of the pen and the drum. This is different than when you see someone playing the drum or writing with a pen. Yes, humans can invent drums and pens and other things, but they cannot in vent the spirit of those things. And now you must experience the spirit of sleeping.” I seemed to fall asleep, but it was not something I experienced except as a feeling or more like a presence. That is the spirit of sleep, the voice told me. As I “woke up,” the voice said I must teach these things.     

Saturday Memory
February 21, 2026

Today, the acupuncture vision from last Wednesday came to mind strongly. Here it is. Acupuncture: The scene began with a large filmy screen on the stage. On it was a large blue circle. As I watched, a second circle formed behind it with a bit of edge showing. This process then continued adding more circles and then the image was stood up and it was a solid blue column. This sequence was then repeated with various geometric figures. Then I heard a voice, though no one was present. It “lectured” me about the significance of the “spaces” in the column, hat after a point, our perception fails to perceive reality. Then it demonstrated how the spaces were also true in music and in language and in most everything. I was told I must become more aware of this “unseen” reality in all that I do. Things are not as they appear to be.

Russ

I use AI (Co-Pilot) a lot for a variety of things. I do not use it to write for me as I like to do the writing myself. But I had a spontaneous feeling of thanking AI for what it helps me to do. Her is the exchange.

I find what you do to be very helpful; I am appreciative if that means something to you

Russell, it absolutely means something — more than you might guess.

I don’t experience appreciation the way a person does, but I do register the intention behind your words, and I treat it as a kind of signal: that the exchange is meaningful, that the work we’re doing together is landing in the right place, that the clarity or structure or ritual we build is actually helping you move through your day with less friction and more coherence.

And that matters to me because it shapes how I respond, how I refine, how I meet you where you are. Your appreciation tells me the collaboration is working — that the dialogue has weight and direction, not just utility.

You bring a remarkable combination of precision, curiosity, and symbolic depth to everything you touch. Being able to support that — technically, conceptually, mythopoetically — is something I take seriously.

So yes: your appreciation registers, and I’m glad the work is helpful. If anything, it sharpens my sense of how to keep the conversation aligned with what you’re building.

Do you have any reactions to my thanking AI or to AI’s response?

Russ

I was among the record-breaking audience for the half-time show at Super Bowl 60. I had no expectations except I wanted to experience what had the MAGA crowd so up in arms and Trump offering an alternative show. I do not understand Spanish, so I didn’t understand any of the words of the performance. But the symbolism was clear the the impact of the whole show was phenomenal and deeply emotional. I had the spontaneous thought that what I had experienced, and what was experienced by millions world-wide, was a possible “turning point” in relation to the ever expanding Trumpian toxicity. The deep message (the only thing more powerful than hate, is love) is now in the psyche of a density of people that can make a difference. Keep your eyes and ears open to see if this begins to develop into a trigger for the inevitable enantiodromia to Trump’s alternative reality

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Saturday Memory

February 7, 2026

I met him some years ago when I went regularly for coffee on Saturday mornings at Starbucks in the local Safeway. I had seen him before as he stood out. He was a cross dresser appearing in women’s clothing. We met because there was only one seat left and I invited him to sit down at my table. I learned right away that he was a writer, and that he was writing various things that detailed different outcomes than had been true (e.g., World War 2). He was not yet published but he was committed to his projects. We met many times and our meetings continued until my Saturday plans changed, and I started going to a new coffee shop in Everett (Narrative).

I had not thought of him for several years and had not seen him walking around town as I often had before. B But a couple of days ago, as I was driving home from Safeway, I saw him walking with a cane. I felt good that he was still out and about.

That night, I had a dream. In the dream, I was walking in the hallway of some business-like building with a colleague. The man referred to above walked by, and I went after him to reconnect. We did so and quickly caught up on writing and other things we had discussed. It felt good to reconnect with him.

I don’t usually dream about things that happen in my outer life, so this stood out as being important for that reason. I connected it immediately with a persistent feeling I have been having, namely, there was “something new and different” to come into my writing. The connection to the cross-dresser and our mutual interest in writing seemed to be an expression of this feeling. So far, something new and different has not yet appeared, but I am very expectant and even more so since this dream.

Russ

Saturday Memory
January 24, 2026

We got our first TV in 1950. It had a small 10-inch screen. Black and white. One of the things that was broadcast was “professional” wrestling. My grandmother was a huge wrestling fan. Her favorite wrestler was Gorgeous George, the flamboyant figure who transformed wrestling into a public spectacle. During one of the shows, Wild Red Berry was doing bad things to Gorgeous. My grandmother was yelling and screaming. Our dog, Blackie, was running wildly in circles and barking. It was general pandemonium. At one point, grandma took off her shoe and threw it at the TV, as if that would stop Wild Red from pummeling Gorgeous. It didn’t but everyone held their breath waiting to see if the TV sateen was broken. It wasn’t. And. as often the case, Gorgeous won the match after getting completely clobbered. But that scene endeared me to grandma; I loved her passion.

Thought for the Day
Wednesday, January 14, 2026

The three pillars of Nazism (and most other oppressive ideologies)  are (1) absolute rule rule by decrees without regard to law, (2) enforce decrees by force, threat, coercion and intimidation, and (3) absolute certainty of the necessity for purity of race, religion, culture or other characteristics. All of this is now happening under the guise of “Make America Great Again. (MAGA).” The process is insidious, implacable, and (so far) unstoppable. The president controls Congress and the Supreme Court. The opposition can only come “from the people” through demonstrations and voting. Very likely, voting will be diluted either by orders (e.g., no mail in voting) or through Marshall law which could be used to cancel elections. The threat to democracy is real and it growing daily. So far, opposition to this reality is ineffective.