the art of hans ruedi giger

"...swallow everything out of the preacher's mouth..."

~the amorphous fury of the biological organism that seeps from the matrix of this piece reminds me of faith in the divine~

It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster's body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature.
~Jung~ Two Essays on the Collective Unconscious




To make light visible God had only to postulate shadow. To manifest the truth He permitted the possibility of doubt. The shadow bodies forth the light, and the possibility of error is essential for the temporal manifestation of truth. If the buckler of Satan did not intercept the spear of Michael, the might of the angel would be lost in the void or manifested by infinite destruction launched below from above. Did not the heel of Michael restrain Satan in his ascent, Satan would dethrone God, or rather he would lose himself in the abysses of the altitude. Hence Satan is needful to Michael as the pedestal to the statue, and Michael is necessary to Satan as the brake to the locomotive.
~Levi~ Transcendental Magic



What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T. S. Eliot~ The Waste Land



In the Swiss soul, as all human souls, there are regions we do not know about...
~C. G. Jung~



"Human history in all ages is red with blood, and bitter with hate, and stained with cruelties ..."

"... death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free."
~Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth~

my dog has been dead exactly a year. i miss him ... terribly.

enigmatic? the human psyche

[~inspired by an email i wrote recently to a dear friend, currently suffering @ the hands of that dark shadows that crosses spirits - depression~]

... about the beast within ...

each of us resides in special, certain part of ourselves ... some of us live in our heads ... some, live in our guts ... and so, those of us that have this beast .... share that space with said beast. as for 'subtle genetic make-up that adversely affects behaviour/personality ...' i do think that we - i.e. our current human society/species - have little or no understanding of the human psyche ... society speaks of psychiatric imbalance as purely a physiologic phenomenon. i, however, (having had lifelong exposure to said psychiatric imbalance) choose to see it less definitively. i see it also as a spiritual phenomenon ... those of us frail of psyche, prone to channelling the despairs that surround us, etc ... i think we have special sensing capabilities that other humans do not yet recognize ... call me crazy if you like ... but i cannot view any psychiatric illness entirely devoid of considering one's spirit ... one's soul.

i believe environmental manipulation - i.e. engaging in some spiritual ritual (in the case of johnny cash, this would mean appealing to his god in prayer, etc etc) - has proven helpful for some. and perhaps this reinforces my view of psychiatric imbalance as having partially spiritual origins. ... can the spirit/soul and the channels that it finds itself 'surfing' - can such activity manifest itself in brain chemistry activity? no doubt - i believe that's how our primitive medical community attempts to understand the psyche.

i see illicit drug use as intimately intertwined with this phenomenon - as in so many, many humans see and feel the need to self medicate. everyone does, somehow - through pursuit of power ... trifling, shiny and completely unnecessary material goods ... speed ... or just plain old trying to get as 'high' (i.e. 'stoned') as possible - comfortably numb, as the band Pink Floyd called it. we all have heard of that movie The Matrix. i believe its a wonderful, gothic-ly surreal (in a modern way) metaphoric interpretation of humanity and perception. in particular the choice Neo must make to take the blue pill or the red pill. does this not constitute the choice one's spirit makes regarding perception of one's world? one's truth?

... about the concept we call masochism ....
and ... that nebulous concept called 'balance,' or sanity ...

i wonder about myself sometimes. in a subtle way, though. like ... in the times when the shadow of darkness falls upon my spirit ... the feeling of despair reminds me i feel anything at all. and sometimes the purging sensation that courses through my very wise blood feels oh-so-much sweeter than does that often numbing sensation of 'happiness.' does that constitute masochism? or ... could one man's sorrow become another man's joy? and who decides ....? how can anyone determine whether any of us have psychiatric balance ...? considering our Selves all reside @ different calibration points (and in different parts of our own biologic microcosm) - what makes one one individual, with several years of university, qualified to judge something so raw ... so mystical ... so enigmatic? just thinking out loud, here.

martin has old, old scars along his arms from his youth/early adulthood - when he used to press the glowing tip of the cigarette against his skin ... just to feel something. masochistic, perhaps? to appeal to physical pain in order to dull that gnawing, aching, searing wound that makes one's spirit throb? i have had analogous experiences ... albeit with food/appetite ... in times of deepest depression ... it strangely, sickly lifts my spirit ... to feel the physical sensation of hunger. it gives my Self a physical focus ... draws it away from that which lies inside. does this constitute masochism? who's to judge?

on the cusp of change?

[written yesterday]

i feel some strangeness seeping into me. like - the strangeness of change. i watched oprah yesterday [wednesday]. she had the dinner of a lifetime for sydney poitier and 7 guests. a touching event. frought with emotional and spiritual intensity. i am feeling this .... thing in me ... this thing that senses what others do not ... that senses what, physically cannot be senses. it grows ever stronger. the tears of another -- quickly become mine.



when i spend these tiny periods of solitude, i discover little bits of myself. like ... why people intimidate me so. being around them ... i find so overwhelming. i feel every molecule ... every electrical impulse from every cell. i feel their very essence and core. i am beginning to feel as though nursing denuded my soul by causing this .... sensory thing that lives inside me .... to explode exponentially inside me.

this thing ... its so very underdeveloped and immature. the feelings that manifest themselves in my sensing ... they get tangled up .... imagine a large, matted clump of hair. and for those of us with a long, wild mane, imagine how painfully slow, delicate and difficult de-matting this clump becomes ... as it grows.



i must read about the emperors in antarctica.

i cannot focus. maybe the emperors will help