A CAVE BY THE SEA

THE UNCONSCIOUS SEA

2012-01-24T08:51:00.004+08:00

This may seem like a 'doomsday' forecast, but it's not. I come from a pragmatic Dutch culture and simply believe that it pays to know the truth, no matter how painful that might be.

Life is getting more frantic, aggravated and unfriendly - whether it's on the road, in the surf or on social media. There are many benefits to technology but it has also empowered people to fire missiles over the internet anonymously and use cars as weapons to vent their frustration. People are angry, stressed, greedy for good times, sex, food more stuff. Why? Because they are getting more and more desparate to fend off the inevitable. These are simply distractions, they do not satisy for long, they seek more and more and more. It is completely futile.

Why are we descending into this? Because everything eventually reaches a critical mass. Humanity has never confronted it's dark side, its Unconscious, openly, honestly, courageously or collectively. The Unconscious is a real entity, it is the 'evil' we are familiar with but only as it appears outside of ourselves. Because we refuse to confront it within ourselves, we simply projectile vomit it outward, in one form or another, onto the world, each other, the environment.

The sea is rising, and with it the Unconscious sea. This is no coincidence. These are the archetypes of humanity. The Unconscious is leaking through the economical and political facades that have managed to keep it somewhat under control in the West. Ironically but unsurprisingly, since the GFC the murder rate in New York has halved - what does that tell you?

I need to find a peaceful place to ride this out - not to run away from the darkness, because I have always had a commitment to knowing that aspect of myself, but from the anger and frustration of others who, in their attempts to cope with life turn to alcohol, drugs, consumerism, loud music - ego-gratification in general - and end up disturbing anyone near them. I cannot make everyone responsible for their own stuff but I am really tired of humanity's projections - I just need some peace and quiet.

These are fascinating times - from out of the collapse of capitalism and ecological systems will come chaos and change, extraordinary people and creative solutions. But it will not be an easy time.

THE RITUAL

2012-01-23T11:59:00.004+08:00

For me art is a ritual. I have to get myself mentally prepared. Before I start a major new piece there is a series of things I need to do. The idea is already there, well mostly, given that I know it won't turn out like the image in my mind, or dream, or imagination.

The practical tasks of buying materials and priming the surface are done deliberately. I am old-fashioned in that I make stuff to last, it's one of the tenets of traditional art. I have come around to thinking that this is no longer important, but old habits die hard, and preparation of the support prepares me mentally.

I remember when I began this painting over 5 years ago. I chose exterior quality ply so it wouldn't warp. I primed it and filled any imperfections, undercoated several times with a special shade of blue/grey/black good quality house acrylic. It took a while - there are 2 x 2.4 m x 1.2 m panels in each of the 4 paintings.

After working intermittently on this one for 5 years, during which time it has accumulated thick layers of paint as I struggled to make my vision real for others to see, lived in 2 different studios, both with stairs - one with incredibly difficult access, went to the framers to get a wooden support cradle on the back (the ply did warp) and finally moved to my home studio in the new house - it is getting its final spruce up - filling and painting the sides.

It is basically a 'resolved' work. Paintings are never really feel 'finished' - they say something about what I was trying to get across but I have long accepted that they never live up to my expectations. But it doesn't matter, it's the doing and the ritual that really matters. I am ready to say 'that's it - I can do no more' and move onto the next one, another mainly compositionally resolved piece of the same size that needs more layers and some tightening up. But I can't move on until this one is done. I don't want it taking up any headspace anymore. It has been an incredibly difficult image to live with, several others who have seen it in the studio have struggled with it themselves - it is quite confronting. I have worked hard both physically and psychologically and I am done with it, but grateful for the challenge it gave me.

This is almost the final act in the ritual for this painting - there may be a couple of final touches and then I will varnish it. I will put it up on my website when I am ready to submit all of the work for my thesis.

'MY FRIEND MAIA'

2012-01-22T08:00:00.002+08:00

A gently inspiring 4 min video of a 95 year old woman who lives a quiet, healthy and still active life. Just wonderful.

My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

THE VEGIE GARDEN

2012-01-17T18:36:00.007+08:00

Modest beginnings but I am stoked to have actually grown 2 eggplant this time, and some nice capsicum coming on too. Lettuce grows like a weed, I just have to remember to replant every couple of weeks. The usual glut has been followed by a lettuce drought the past few weeks. A lot of Roma tomatoes are now ripening and I just pulled off my first beefheart tomato (I think that's what it is). The cherry tomatoes have been OK but not prolific. There are potatoes in tyres, we have already had one feed from the previous lot, 2 Tamarillos on the inaccessible bank behind one lot of vegies and less silverbeet with the heat.

Robin keeps on adding impractical things like cucumber and yellow squash, which are water and food hungry and pretty boring really. I have been OK with the passionfruit idea, only because with little sunny clear space under the karris we have put it on the fence.

I am a paid up member of Diggers seeds and have just ordered a stack of stuff for the autumn planting. It is a big commitment watering it all but I really love it. And I want to grow a lot more.

THE NEW ECONOMY MOVEMENT

2012-01-17T13:39:00.001+08:00

Charles Eisenstein Interview for Money & Life Film from Charles Eisenstein on Vimeo.

3 +1: THE AXIOM OF MARIA

2012-01-15T19:15:00.005+08:00

The Axiom of Maria is a precept of alchemy - 'One becomes two, two becomes three and out of the third comes the fourth. (Jung, CW 12, par. 26) As these things tend to do, it then cycles back to 1.

This is the 3 + 1 that keeps resurfacing and which I have blogged about a couple of times already.

In the development of the psyche (individuation), or the evolution of consciousness, one is the original state of unconscious wholeness (e.g. childhood); two signifies the conflict between opposites (e.g. persona and shadow); three points to a potential resolution and is therefore also the transcendent function. The one as the fourth is code for the Philosopher’s Stone – psychologically equivalent to a transformed state of conscious wholeness and peace.

This axiom is attributed to a 3rd century alchemist called Maria Prophetissa, the Jewess, sister of Moses. Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) used it as a metaphor for the process of individuation. The Axiom of Maria is an alchemical analogy for this process, from the one to the many to the one, from undifferentiated unconsciousness, through differentiation to a unified consciousness.

REF: Sharp, Jung Uncorked: Book Two, 2008, p. 51

CRAZY? PROBABLY

2012-01-11T07:10:00.005+08:00

Many people think I am crazy. This could confirm it.

Last year I posted about a long and frustrated relationship with music, how I felt I had finally 'found' my instrument and begun to learn the saxophone. After 9 months of weekly lessons I am now able to read music, nothing flash but well enough to sight read some pieces and work out the more difficult ones. I am not good at self-discipline but I made a commitment to practice and I did. Now I feel a bit isolated and bored practising on my own. So, I am signing up for Certificate 2, part-time, in Music at the local TAFE.

This is probably unwise, this year will be the final huge push in getting my doctorate done so I can submit in 2013. I have a 0.5 job that takes up way too much of my head space, a vegie garden, still want to keep surfing - as well as having to maintain all of the other mundane duties in my life. My rationale: I probably should have given the sax a miss this year altogether, but then I will lose ground. My lesson used to be after work in a town 60 km away, and then I would have to practice every day for about half an hour. So I figure: 4 hours a week on a Friday jamming and experimenting with other people with little homework is doable. I can't do my thesis every spare minute and I do have to maintain a level of functional sanity so I can do all the other stuff.

This might be the craziest decision yet - watch this space.

MY METHODOLOGY & THE GRYPHON EXPLAINED

2012-01-07T08:13:00.005+08:00

My partner challenged me to explain the last post about the Gryphon, so here goes.

My thesis and my life is based on the idea that by working with images in particular ways we can evolve consciousness. This means that I work closely with the Unconscious and therefore my personal dreams as part of that realm. So how does this work in real terms?

I follow my dreams and images that 'appear' to me. All dreams are significant in that they reveal something of the unconscious and therefore lead us to the collective Unconscious. I pay attention to all of my dreams however, I work specifically and at length with those that have a high level of emotion attached to them. In Jungian theory this is known as 'affect' and it is the key to working with images in the evolution of consciousness, or what Jung called the process of individuation.

Images that are powerful - where you wake up terrified, disorientated, elated or have a sense that there was some deep significance or meaning you can't quite grasp - are the ones that lead us to the core achetypal images of the psyche. Some of these images emerge in the waking state. I have seen many of this type of image, through many years of study and working in this way. I am convinced that this is a useful and valid way to come to a greater understanding of existence.

Back to the Gryphon. This dream was so powerful that when I awoke startled, on hearing the 'voice of God' speak to me in a strange and ancient vernacular, I sat bolt upright in bed. My heart was pounding and I was blinking quickly in the dark, trying to figure out if I was awake, asleep or even alive. I was so hypersensitised I could actually hear my eyes opening and closing - very uncanny. The meaning of the words was obscure but I am used to that, patience usually pays off in the end though.

I won't go over previous posts about this topic but recently one of my blog readers mentioned that the Gryphon was one of the '12 Mithraic degrees' which I was pretty sure was yet another initiatic system. I'll try not to get too esoteric here.

There are many initiatic systems, different cultures, different times - but they are all basically about the evolution of consciousness and they correspond, as you might expect, with each other and therefore Jung's contemporary psycho-spiritual theories. These initiatatic systems vary in practice and superficial content but the similarities between different stages of the psychic journey can easily be found. There seem to be 4 stages earth, water, fire and air (sometimes air and fire are the other way around) and there are symbols associated with these elements. (This system is based on the 3 + 1 which I have mentioned before also)

The Gryphon is a third stage symbol, igneous, which is fire and relates to the transforming power of the heart, emotion, inspiration. Fire represents transition - it is also a recurring theme in alchemy because to transmute 'substances' requires that they undergo some process. The Gryphon is a creature that spans several realms, it is the mediator, as it were, between earth (Body) and divine Spirit. When the 'voice of God' spoke the words: wear this image and thou shalt be anointed - I eventually understood it as: integrate, know this symbol and you will be given something very precious - some knowledge, understanding or insight. (I had to look up the meaning of 'anointed' by the way)

My recent post included this quote: Consciousness and unconsciousness arise simultaneously out of the primal sea of undifferentiation, which might better be described as twins born from the same mother. The Self is the Mother, one twin is (soul) consciousness and the other twin is (ego) consciousness. The Self, or Great Mother archetype, remains undifferentiated energy. Here is the 3 + 1 again but even more significantly for me is that the Gryphon here represents an integration of consciousness and unconsciousness. This is a very powerful thing in the process of becoming 'whole'.

This does not mean the process is, by any stretch of the imagination, over. But it is significant because these images do not manifest until or unless we are ready to integrate the knowledge. It is a key indicator in my own journey because it was unbidden and unconsciously delivered. You can't simply decide to have a specific dream, it is beyond the control of the individual and therefore the ego-self - and that's why I have learned to trust it.

OK, ONE MORE

2012-01-06T11:27:00.002+08:00

JUST FOR FUN

2012-01-06T11:24:00.002+08:00

OK, I had to do it after I made the threat! I'll stop now....

FRACTAL BLOG

2012-01-05T20:35:00.004+08:00

I am celebrating 2012 with a new psychedelic look and profile shot. And the fact that I can now do screen shots which, if I continued, would mean that I end up with a fractal blog.

HER BEAUTY & HER TERROR

2012-01-04T09:37:00.003+08:00

As part of the submission for my doctorate I have put together a basic website called Her Beauty & Her Terror using a free WIX template. I have dumped a few of my visual research images in there - the pivotal ones won't be uploaded until I submit, so this is a work in progress. The link is on the side bar. Because the images are in Flash to protect them from being ripped off the site won't be available on mobile devices.

Also, my prac. supervisor at Curtin has asked if he can use some of my work for the on-line drawing program he is putting together - I am stoked!

GRYPHON: IMAGE OF UNDIFFERENTIATED CONSCIOUSNESS

2011-12-31T16:49:00.008+08:00

There is yet another layer to my Gryphon dream and subsequent tattoo. This is from a neurobiologist professor who seems to have a pretty good handle on the right-brained stuff as well.

'With the birth of consciousness in each of the rational functions, unconsciousness is also born, separating Heaven and Earth or creating the functions of feeling and thinking. These two opposites are portrayed in the Sumerian myth as the Lion-birds'.

The Lion-bird image comes from the Sumerian culture which dates from around 3,000 B.C. It is believed that this is also where Eastern and Western Creation myths both derive from. It is a significant image to appear in a dream and I am a bit overwhelmed by this piece of infomation.

Apparently also:

'Consciousness does not rise up like an island from the sea of unconsciousness, dividing into the island and the sea...or two that are no longer one. Consciousness and unconsciousness arise simultaneously out of the primal sea of undifferentiation, which might better be described as twins born from the same mother. The Self is the Mother, one twin is (soul) consciousness and the other twin is (ego) consciousness. The Self, or Great Mother archetype, remains undifferentiated energy'.

This relates to my Eclipse and Twin Dream as well. Though I am grateful for it, I am trying to write the conclusion to my thesis and this new knowledge is a major distraction. If I ever get this doctorate done, I really think that I need to do another. I have only just begun.

REFERENCE: W. J. Freeman, Professor of Neurobiology, University of Berkeley.

DRAWING IN PAINT

2011-12-27T19:35:00.006+08:00

I have never considered myself much of a painter. My first love was drawing. It still is. From there, because I seemed to be into 'form' I moved easily into traditional sculpture. Although I learnt how to do lost wax bronze sculpture the whole process was just too cumbersome, time hungry and expensive. In my final year at technical college I transferred my major to painting, really a default position. Being a traditionalist I stuck with oils, but I never really liked paint.

When I began my doctorate I wanted to make big images. The logistics of doing 2.4 metre square drawings - getting flat surfaces large enough, figuring out how to exhibit and store them - was just too problematic. Now I realise that I didn't think it through well enough - too late, I decided the easiest thing to do was to make paintings. Again, I reverted to my default position - only problem was, I still hated paint.

5 years on I still hate it. I am just not a painterly painter. I don't relish in it, can't stand the stuff getting all over my hands, having to wash everything with turps, even though I use the pure stuff that smells like tree gum. (Don't even mention acrylics! They are passionless, no soul, dry 2 shades darker, are flat......) 5 years on I am now getting close to finishing the first big painting I started for my doctorate. There is now so much paint on the masonite support after trowelling it on that the craggy layers cast significant shadows in a side light.

It has got me thinking, it's really more of a drawing than a painting. It's tonal, even though it is in colour, it has been done with spatulas and common hardware store paint scrapers. The paint isn't lusciously applied, and any time I have tried to use a brush, I regret it and revert to the palette knives. I murder a painting with a brush. I should be ex-communicated as a painter. I recently said in an e-mail to my prac. supervisor: I am not a painter's arse! And this is no false modesty.

So I am going to call these works, 'drawings in paint' - because that is what they are to me. I know that in 2011 we shouldn't even be trying to negotiate the difference between a painting and a drawing, it shouldn't matter. But it matters to me because if I call it a painting it will be judged as such.

Anyway, it really is more of an 'idea' than a 'thing'.

images: 2 small drawings in oil. I'll post the painting in question when/if I finish the doctorate.

MY BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT

2011-12-22T08:11:00.003+08:00

After toying with the idea for over 30 years, I have finally signed up with UNICEF as a Global Parent. It is a Christmas present to myself and many people I will never meet. It is only a small monthly donation but it feels like the right thing to do.

I haven't made this commitment before because I have rationalised all this time that my income was never assured, my job never secure enough. I didn't want to start something I couldn't continue. A phone call from UNICEF the other day changed that view. The caller simply said that I could withdraw from the program at any time if my circumstances changed. He also explained that his organisation was keen to get regular donations so they could plan and maintain programs. Rather than sponsoring one child they encourage people to donate to a pool of money that gets distributed where needed. I do prefer the more personal model where you get correspondence and updates re a specific child, but I can see how this new model is more effective.

I have no children. My 'step-children' are lovely but they have way more money than me. My nieces are completely indulged like so many in Western culture. They have probably never even felt hungry their entire lives. I am an atrocious 'aunt' - I don't remember their birthdays or Christmas. They don't need me and any paltry contribution I might be able to make to their lives, even if they did live within driving distance. I am disgusted by our collective childrens' attitudes to their entitlements and yes, I do blame their parents because I continue to meet kids who were not brought up that way.

The focus has been on Eastern Africa but UNICEF are now warning of a famine in West Africa. I know there are those who think we should simply let 'nature' take its course and let these people die. I have no answers but hope my small contribution might at least ease someone's suffering.

MORE FOSSILS

2011-12-20T14:15:00.004+08:00

I can't help it, I just love fossils. This is a Dicynodon. It is believed to have lived in Australia over 30 million years ago. It's in the news because palaentologists are very excited - someone recently found a piece of jaw bone washed up on a river bank in Eastern Tasmania. How the hell they knew what it was is beyond me, it just looked like a bit of a tree or an ugly black rock.

This creature was about the size of a cow and was herbivorous - I think the tusks were just for protection, or perhaps rooting around in the ground for food. They have also found bits of it in Antarctica which is no surprise of course because when the giant continent of Gondwana Land was around, Australia and Antarctica were joined. The Dicynodon was a predecessor of the 'modern' dinosaurs and apparently survived a cataclysmic climate change to do that. There may be hope for some of us yet.

image: Mark Boulay, 2006 (I am guessing digitally generated)

WALKABOUT - ARCHETYPAL SOUL OF AUSTRALIA

2011-12-11T09:55:00.008+08:00

Generally this has been a crap week. It's assessment time and I have students with the gall to query my judgement when they haven't even engaged in their own education. In reality they are just lazy, ungrateful, self-deluded little shits who don't want to make the transition into adulthood. It's ironic nevertheless, that I am one of those who has to try and mould them to a system that I don't even believe in myself. I am conflicted - but my job is to help them survive out there in the 'real' world and they won't if they don't learn the 'rules' and can't play the stupid game. It's not just them that has made me grumpy, it's the culture I live in - I am not only world weary, I am fucking exhausted. It must be time to go walkabout.

I have always loved wandering, not far, just around. When I was younger I lived right in the middle of the city. Apart from working in an office during the day I had no timetable, no real agenda, no responsibility - except in treating others as well as I could. In my attempts to try and inhabit the urban landscape I wandered at night, at will. I would walk through Northbridge (carrying a small knife) to King's Park where I dined alone, shimmy down the embankment, scale fences and explore the network of intersections at the edges of the freeway. I didn't really know what I was doing or why, it was instinctual. I guess I was trying to make some sense of a world that even then seemed completely crazy to me. Motorists probably just thought I was crazy.

Later I lived in my Kombi between Fremantle and Albany for almost a year. I had minimal income from my rental property, would help out at a friend's cafe for a feed, bunk down on her floor, sleep out in the Kombi at marina carparks where I could sneak in and get a free hot shower (inside knowledge). I remember parking on the limestone escarpment in North Freo for a few nights with million dollar river views - just enough scrub for a bush toilet and residents opposite who kindly let me be. Lying on my bed looking out of the Kombi's sliding door was pure and simple bliss.

Some nights I would wander around Freo. On one occasion I walked into one of the old historical limestone halls to find the joint cranking - a really great band on stage and a crowd of young people jumping. No agro, no alcohol. It took me a while to realise I had crashed a Christian rock revival. I stayed and had a really good time.

One summer afternoon I found myself at some kind of picnic on the grass at a gathering of mixed cultures with a great folk band. One family asked me to join them. They had brought food - it was ethnic, delicious and I thought somewhere from the Middle East. They were genuinely nice people and eventually I discovered that they were of the Baha'i faith - basically religiously tolerant people who believe that God reveals 'himself' through many divine messengers and therefore embrace Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad. Pretty damn cool.

I know I am nostalgically pining for a time that is no more but I really need my life to be simpler. And I know also that I have wandered verbally here but I do have a point. I regularly get this desire to chuck my responsibilities and run away. I know this is not a viable strategy for life but I attribute it, partly at least, to what I think is the influence of the soul of this country on its inhabitants. There is a real wanderlust in Australia. Given that its traditional inhabitants have been going walkabout for millenia, it seems reasonable to suggest that even its immigrant residents feel the pull. I know traditional Aboriginals had a hard life but 200 years after white settlement I think we might still learn something from that.

IF YOU LOVE CHRISTMAS DON'T READ THIS

2011-12-09T18:53:00.007+08:00

I fucking hate Christmas. People have so many expectations about it and it often lets them down. It's like bad sex, the anticipation is way better than the act.

Something weird happens to people - they start driving erratically. Everyone is suddenly in a terrible hurry. What for? Where are they all going? They are up your arse, taking ridiculous risks passing - I feel much more vulnerable on the road.

The lead up to Christmas is slow torture. Months out there are retailers making you suffer, putting you under pressure. Weeks out there are 'drinkies', office parties, decorations showing up on the admin. staff's desks. Fucking Christmas carols in the supermarket. Noisy parties everywhere. Aaaaarrrggghhh!

I don't do Christmas. I am not a fucking Christian. My bet is most other people I share it with aren't either. But awe, shucks, you gotta do it for the kids (simpering smile) Why? By the time they are 4 they don't believe in Santa, it's just another excuse to manipulate their parents. They have too much shit, are greedy and probably just want an update on last year's model of iPhone or latest 3D game. Bikes are standard issue, so nothing special there. We are all too fat but we eat more while the third world still starves. People who never jog start jogging a few weeks before Christmas. I saw someone today.

Oh, but Cristmas is nice because you get to catch up with family. You reckon? Every time we get together there's a stoush, some argument over politics (I'm the only one in the family with a social conscience, the only leftie in a family of capitalists since my Grandmother died). I get reminded of what a shit I was when I was 14 ('remember when you did.....' - no forgiveness there) And the jury is still out on whether Auntie Billy was a complete alcoholic bitch or not (she definitely was)

Most of my Christmas days are spent with other self-proclaimed 'orphans' - no pressure, no politics, no personal record file, no need to give gifts - no need to pretend. And the other excellent thing about Christmas - while most people are stuck at home with their loved ones eating too much with a hangover from weeks of celebratory drinks, I go for a surf in the much less crowded local break.

THE 'TATTOO' EXPERIENCE

2011-12-08T18:41:00.004+08:00

Today, in between submitting students' results and negotiating with disappointed parents I slipped out for an hour and a half to get my latest tattoo. The pain was therapeutic in that it definitely made me forget about work! This is number 4 and probably my last. It is the image I dreamed and blogged about earlier this year. I stopped short of including the words I heard so clearly in the dream.

I had known him for about 15 years but Wayne was a new tattooist for me, which is a bit daunting because there is always the possibility that he might have been crap, or slack and given me some dreadful incurable disease with that needle. But I have found it's best, once the decision is made, to just give into these things and go with it.

He had worked at the local tyre workshop where I got my cars refitted. He was always good for a chat. In fact he talked a lot. I learned quite a bit about his complicated love life, his love of speedway and tattooing on the side. He had recently taken the plunge and gone pro. Wayne told me he now made as much money in one day as a tattoo artist as he made all week at the tyre place. I always liked him - just one of those instantaneous and illogical decisions. He talked very fast too and I always suspected he was a 'speed' freak off the track as well. Today he reassured me, without prompting, that he wasn't. He was fast though, and efficient.

The tattoo experience is quite surreal. Tattoo studios are a discrete culture in themselves. Once he knew I used a few expletives myself he relaxed and the conversation flowed naturally. He talked about the stress of being a tattooist: you're only as good as your last tat, some of the horror jobs he had had - like when he realised he had underquoted after a guy had taken off his shirt to reveal a very beefy back. And the woman who kept twitching so that in the end, after fixing quite a few wobbly lines, he advised her to come back later after a large dose of valium and mull - which apparently worked.

I learned about the politics of being a tattooist, how tattoo artists and bikies were inextricably intwertwined, how you had to make sure you only did work for one bikie gang - otherwise they were likely to burn your shop down. I also found out about the new breed of bikie. They aren't big fat bearded middle-aged guys who eat junk food any more, they wear hoodies, like me. What's the point of being a bikie if you can't wear the colours? This new breed are buff, they're on steroids, they're pumped - psychos. If you get in their way, they're dangerous.

I think Wayne did a great job. He said to me: line-work is my specialty, this is the new style - you don't go as deep - fine lines and tonal shading that's me, you've come to the right place for this sort of tat. Fascinating - I love the tat, and I reckon the conversation added value to the very reasonable $200 price tag.

DEATH OF THE LOCAL BREAK

2011-12-03T15:34:00.005+08:00

It is hot, I am restless. I can't settle on anything. I've done a bit of my thesis, some docs for work, spread my first batch of compost, watered the vegies. We decided to give into the poodles' requests and went down the beach.

We hadn't bothered to look for a wave this morning because we knew it was onshore and looked like this. It has looked this way for months. While local potato farmers upstream, environmentalists and various interest groups argue it out, the inlet struggles. Another Western opening and a very wet winter have destroyed the usual beautiful aqua water and much anticipated sand banks that should be forming at this time of year.

I'll admit I went out in this a few days ago. But we jagged a small wave in the corner that day and it was offshore. But with relentless onshore North Easterlies and no swell, this is what we will probably have for weeks yet. The holiday season is upon us and there will be many disappointed visitors. Even though I kind of don't mind really, because they just clog up the local break, I actually feel sorry for them.

Oh well, back to the SUP (stand-up paddle-board) on the river for now I guess.

UNCONTROLLABLE 'CONTROLLED' BURNS

2011-12-03T07:52:00.004+08:00

Yesterday I had to travel 60 kms east to another town for the day and I refused to leave my poodles at home. Today is another day of howling Nor' Easters. They woke me in the early hours when they cranked up again after some respite during the night. There is still an 'advice', not a warning, for a fire burning 19 km Northeast of us. Someone told me recently that a fire front can jump 5 km at a time.

FESA's 'Alerts & Warnings' website is now in my 'Favourites' and I am checking it regularly. We have bought a CB radio and so far managed to collect a couple of our neighbour's contact details. Yesterday I bullied my significant other into facing the possiblity, however slim, that we should have an 'action plan'. Nothing fancy, just things like, which route would we take if..... I am not completely neurotic, I accept that it may not, possibly will never happen. But our heated debate over which route we should take in unstressed conditions clearly revealed that these conversations really can't be left until the critical moment.

Augusta residents a long way up the S/W coast are now evacuating. Any half sane Australian would have said: 'Enough. Let's stop burning. It's obvious that we can't control these burns in these condiions'. But not the DEC (Department of Environment & Conservation) in their infinite wisdom. After the recent debacle in Margaret River I am completely stunned that they had the gall to push ahead with their bureaucratic timetable and start another 'controlled burn' the day before yesterday, with these conditions forecast. I really want to know who makes these decisions. They cannot possibly hide behind their Excel spreadsheets - these decisions are made by real people, in real conditions.

This is the arrogant mentality of the over-hormoned alpha-male - his refusal to accept that he is just an insignificant part of Mother Nature and can't control very much at all. Or perhaps worse, these are people who simply don't have the balls to reject government protocol and make the call to abandon prescribed burns. Heads will surely roll!

It has also occurred to me that we have an arsonist high up in the ranks of the DEC.

Photo: Margaret River fire. Google Images.

RANDOM 2: SOUL ARCHETYPE

2011-11-25T14:12:00.006+08:00

As a way to safeguard, and simply because I found it again the other day, I am posting a drawing I did 12 years ago. I always thought of it as a 'past life' image and perhaps now think of it also as an archetypal soul experience. It is a 'self-portrait' of course, the feet are definitely mine.

WHAT DO YOU PACK FOR A FIRE?

2011-11-24T19:46:00.004+08:00

We live in a high fire risk area and there are two fires burning a few kilometres from us. We are not in immediate danger and may not be this time but I am packing my emergency escape bag anyway. It's a mental thing. I am a Rat and you know that they always have an escape route worked out long before everybody else - just ask a sailor. What can I fit into the bag? Yes, no, someone else in the family will have that photo. Identity papers, qualifications, credit cards, birth certificates - one file. Years of journals - how am I going to carry all of those in one sports bag? My thesis is in cyberspace but my paintings aren't - nothing can protect 5 years of work and I can't shift 4 x 2.4 metre square paintings anyway. Books? Well, I have the references in my thesis. What else? The hard-drive of course, but that will be a last minute grab. That's it really. Maybe some clothes.

I was going through papers and old photos and found this one - a blast from the relatively recent past. She rang me today to ask me about the fire. And then I found the photo. It wasn't her fault - I asked her to wear the dress, but she looks good in it anyway. She still loves books, so the context is perfect. In retrospect it now seems prophetic - literary scholar and all that. I haven't asked her permission so I haven't named her. I will let her identify herself if she is willing. And I will remove it if she doesn't like it - but having it in cyberspace does protect the image at least.....

GRAFITTI FISH

2011-11-24T11:42:00.004+08:00

Haven't got the energy to post anything else. This was done by me as a demo and submitted for the 9 x 5 exhibition. Mixed media on board.

THERE'S NOBODY OUT THERE

2011-11-16T19:33:00.003+08:00

I seem to be sharing my insights with several people at the moment, about similar but different things. My answers are based on observation and personal experience of a lifetime (so far) but also on an eclectic mix of Hindu, Rajneesh, Buddhist and Jungian philosophy, Western and Eastern astrology, numerology and alchemy.

I have been directing people to some of my previous blogs in the hope that some of what I have written will provide some small illumination. This blog has happened in reverse because I am posting a recent e-mail conversation - I thought it might be useful for others grappling with the whole human relationship conundrum. It is a slightly dense ideology but if you can get your head around it, it certainly does cut through a lot of the confusion - eventually.

In certain psychological/spiritual frameworks, Jungian in particular, but also Eastern philosophical systems, there is this idea that 'there is really nobody else out there'. What that translates to in real terms is this: everything we see, feel, know is a reflection, projection of ourselves. That means that if people 'press our buttons' (yes, this is a hackneyed Rajneesh phrase) there is some issue in there for US to look at. So in relationships with others we often choose people, and this includes friends, who either reflect an aspect of ourselves, complement us in some way (maybe some quality we want for ourselves) - that's why opposites attract too - or reinforce a self-belief. If we don't like ourselves we choose to be with people who treat us like shit. However, there is a responsibility in there for us to understand why we have certain friendships and relationships, and maybe why we keep repeating the same patterns.

I will share my own experience which may help. I am attracted to a certain kind of man. And in the past I have not been able to stay in relationship with these people because I felt that they were 'wrong' for me. But repeating the choice and the behaviour over and over had to mean something, so I started looking at that. It was bloody difficult, still is sometimes. It doesn't mean I am exactly the same as that person or that they are my opposite, because obviously relationships and personalities are complex, but I chose these people, and then I couldn't face up to what I had chosen. I didn't like what I saw, I didn't want to accept what they were reflecting to me. Now you could say that was because they weren't what I thought they were, but in all honesty, that was crap. I knew what they were.....but there was still something very attractive. The attraction means there is something to be learned, people we aren't attracted to in some way just fall by the wayside - at least for me anyway. They are bland, nothing interesting for me....there's no angst, animosity.....nothing really, even though they may be very nice people.

I will share something else which may mean something and may not. (I don't know where I read this but I could back it up with reasoning based on gender archetypes) Apparently: 'A man's emotional centre is woman, woman's spiritual centre is man'. (works the same for gays depending on dynamics of the relationship) Is it any wonder that we reach an impasse at some stage?

RANDOM 1

2011-11-14T10:35:00.003+08:00

Just to prove there is a lighter side to my nature, or perhaps to remind myself: Gouache and pen study of something(?) random.

EVERY 'BODY' IS AFRAID OF SOMETHING

2011-11-12T10:04:00.008+08:00

“The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”

“Religion is a defense against the experience of God.” (C. G. Jung)

Being injured has put me right back in the body. There is little space for lofty thoughts when you are in acute and even chronic pain. But nothing is all bad - we learn from everything.

Often I think of myself as a bit of a coward. I watch those big wave surfers and just can't imagine taking off on those monsters. Or perhaps I can and that's what scares me. Unless we have evolved our consciousness to a fair level, we are all afraid of something. Or more correctly - we are all afraid of the same thing. Even those guys.

I have come to think that fear is held in the body. This holding of fear in the body causes us to be sick and injured. But psychological death is a fear for the ego - when the ego fears its own death it can make us crazy and paranoid.

Some people take huge physical risks and the rest of us are in awe. But a big wave surfer fears not being able to take off on a big wave. His fear is an ego-fear.

This occurred to me watching a documentary about a big wave surfer. He broke the law and it looked like he might go to jail. His biggest fear was being locked up. This was death to his ego. He feared inactivity, silence - maybe almost as much as most of us would fear the big waves he surfs.

Big wave surfers who face big physical risks are protected by their big egos. I say that in an analytical, not a judgemental sense. They are courageous, there is no denying that, but because death of the ego is necessary to evolve consciousness, they will have to face that psychological fear one day.

Facing our biggest fear is something we will all inevitably have to do. Some of us take big psychological risks. These are more subtle, more difficult to pin down, and perhaps they are just as terrifying as a big wave.

Sometimes they are the same thing.

Photo: me aboard the 42 ft yacht I crewed from Fremantle to Adelaide.

THE 'ARCHETYPE' OF PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE

2011-11-10T07:17:00.009+08:00

I was invited over to Joan 1's house last Sunday, who is better known on this blog as my Wise-Old-Rosicrucian-Friend. A friend of hers was coming over and bringing a hairdresser along to give them both a haircut. I did want a haircut (if there was time) but had also been wanting to meet this lady who was doing a PhD about Jung and archetypes. Joan 1 had talked about Joan 2 a fair bit and thought she and I might have some ideas to share.

The lady hairdresser and Joan 2 turned up and after sorting out the relationship between the visiting and resident dogs, introductions were made. The conversation was fairly 'typical' to start with as Joan 1 got her haircut. The moving target may have been a slight challenge for the hairdresser. As I watched her wield the small scissors deftly I was reminded of the times I used to watch my Grandfather in his tiny barber's shop in Mosman Park. Conversation and haircutting just go together, except in my Grandfather's case there wasn't much exchange, he did most of the talking. I used to feel sorry for his clients as they got an ear bashing and wondered why they came back - I guess he was just a really good barber.

This hairdresser had the grace to let the 'clients', all three of them as it turned out in the end, do the talking. Joan 2 was up next and the conversation rambled on. It was quite fun watching as people transformed. As the hair came off so did some of the earlier reservations and the topics got more obscure and animated, not in disagreement, just passionate discourse. A few expletives began to creep in. I wondered how the silent hairdresser was going, what she thought. She made some comment that it was not uncommon to hear swearing among groups of women. By now I was really also wondering what she thought of the obscure topic - Jung, archetypes, cultural contexts and some quite esoteric philosophies. She remained focused on the job.

I finally decided, after also noticing that the hairdresser was very good, that I may as well get shorn too. The conversation got quite excited as Joan 2 and I nutted out the finer details of archetypes and how they related to culture and the individual. I tried not to move my head. The conversation reached its climax about the same time as my haircut ended. I stood up in a flourish of draped towels to shake off the hair - which, in the context of the discourse, amused me - an image of togas being brandished in Greek auditoriums as scholars argued deep philosophical questions.

Although I am not claiming that the level of debate was as intense or educated, it amuses me still to think that three women having a philosophical conversation in a small kitchen are driven to do so by the same archetypal framework that existed in early Western patriarchal civilisation. The cultural overlays may have changed but the core human behaviour hasn't - and that is precisely what the Joans and I eventually reached agreement on.

As for the hairdresser, she was given a tip by all three of us and I still don't know what she really thought.

WHAT'S THE POINT?

2011-11-03T10:50:00.008+08:00

The thing is - there has to be a point to things - suffering too. You can say there isn't, but if you want to talk logic, then that would make absolutely no logical sense. Many people say to me I can't prove there is a 'God', (whichever model you go with) where's the evidence, and I say true, if you go with the scientific model - not quantitatively. But qualitatively, from my own experience, then there is a lot of evidence - dreams, images, feelings, intuitions, insights, inspirational moments (sailing in the Bite on a full moon, catching a wave...., music, love)

The other thing is: they haven't proven to me that there is no God either. So their argument is flawed.

The point is, if we don't find a meaning for the shit, then life is a crock of shit. Simple. Because shit happens. We can take the victim approach and just give up on that or find another myth that encourages courage, which is needed. Most people are sleep-walking through thier lives. Shit happens and they just get sad, angry, bitter......or they think they are being punished, and maybe they deserve it for being a wanker, having too much sex etc etc. For me personally, and I don't consider myself very brave at all, the shamanic thing works. I reckon Jung was one. There are physical and there are psychic risks, and I reckon I have taken more of the latter than most.

We have to find our own story, our own myth, our own symbols, take our own journey. That's what Jung was on about, that's what the sages and the gurus have also been on about, in different ways, forever. Skepticism is good, but to the skeptics who want evidence? (and I get quite angry about this): go and have a fucking good look, not just a pathetic attempt at it, a GOOD hard look, over a long period of time, and put some effort and commitment into it. I challenge anyone to go and do that and not find it. I've been on this road, in this life, for 35 years. And people want to say to me: where's the evidence? When they haven't even bothered to look themselves. Go figure.

I heard something the other night (of all things on 'Crownies'). One of the characters said: Why is it considered so much smarter to believe in 'nothing' than 'something'? Bloody good question.

SCENE OF THE 'ALMOST' CRIME: MRS KELLY

2011-10-23T11:01:00.008+08:00

Having realised I may have judged my father quite harshly and erroneously I have been assessing what else I might discover about myself by asking for other people's versions of family 'myths'. A fragment of a story about an incident in my early childhood resurfaced so I asked my Mother about it today, only to discover a very fundamental piece of my own psychological jigsaw puzzle and personal mythology. It is no less a mystery how someone so seemingly insignificant can have such an impact on a life.

Mrs Kelly was a poor 'crazy' woman who lived opposite me in the early 60s in York when I was 4 years old. She had come from a very talented but seemingly 'unhinged' family - her brother had committed suicide and she herself was carted off regularly to Graylands Psychiatric Hospital for E.C.T (electro-convulsive treatment or 'shock therapy'). As was befitting of her status as a 'good' Catholic of the time she had 6 children, one of whom was about my age.

My Mother says I was absolutely fascinated with this family, I was the only one who wanted to play with Royce. I would climb the fence to get there. Mrs Kelly was a virtuoso on the piano and my Mother thought that perhaps that was the source of my interest. The whole neighbourhood could hear her play - when the music was soft and controlled, Mrs Kelly's mental state was stable, but when she played like a demon, she was truly possessed.

Close to our home there was a suspension bridge that straddled the Avon River. It flooded in winter and on one of these occasions Mrs Kelly had taken me there. Apparently she was trying to get me to cross the flooded bridge, which was underwater at its central point. She had urged and threatened me and I had obeyed. I don't know who rescued me, but my Mother says that if I hadn't been such a well co-ordinated and athletic child she thinks I would have been swept away and drowned by the river. She says I was absolutely drenched when she found me.

Life is myth and my personal life-myth has been dogged by dreams of drowning in various visual configurations - dream, after dream and mental images that have made surfing and sailing quite challenging activities. It is easy to see where these images may have originated.

But in psychological terms there is a greater, deeper myth-meaning - an attraction to the 'dark side' of human nature and Nature herself, the fear of being swept away by the Unconscious (my wariness of 'rips' when surfing), an innate fascination for the Terrible Mother archetype that is symbolised by bodies of water, the sea and the Unconscious. Although it didn't need to, this confirms my life's mission and vindicates the choices I have made, often against my own will, in following an image.

I can't express what a revelation this is. It completes a circle.

PHEW!

2011-10-13T19:44:00.005+08:00

As I posted recently I have been waiting for feedback on the first 3 parts of my thesis (which actually constitutes about two-thirds of it so far). I have just received some 'unofficially' from my supervisor at Curtin Uni - her comment: 'it is coming together well'. I will receive a hard-copy in the mail with all her scribbles on it soon so I can sort out the nuts and bolts, of which no doubt there will be many. But I am just stoked that it is actually making sense to a non-Jungian for a start and also flowing as a cogent argument.

That has been no mean feat. The subject is dense, my ideas encompass Jungian theory, the art historical genre of figure-in-landscape in Australian painting, contemporary physics and Tibetan philosophy. The connections are natural for me but difficult to string together for others. My supervisor also advises to write in plain English: 'so your grandmother could understand it'. When you are using vocabulary and language specific to particular theoretical disciplines this is not easy to do.

There is still a hell of a lot to do. I have to write the conclusion, evaluate my findings and tie the whole thing together. Then there will be months of editing. But I can see the top of this mountain.

(Let's hope it isn't volcanic like the one in the image, which was actually a kid's sandcastle I photographed and then PhotoShopped)

LIGHTEN UP

2011-10-09T14:03:00.006+08:00

As a result of my study/research (which includes visual research) and the psycho-spiritual journey I have been on, I have had some very necessary insights into life/death and myself. One of them is about the role of the 'body' in the process of 'spiritual' evolution. In a way I can't believe I fell into the same trap as most of my forbears in Western culture, but then why wouldn't I? It has been the accepted model after all. Head straight for the spiritual, deny/ignore the body.

It's safe to say there are those who are either focused on the body, the mind or spirit, and there are of course various permutations of these. But we tend to favour one or a couple. I now think that it is really necessary to develop all of these. If we are indeed spirit incarnate, made in the image of God, then the physical is a reflection of God also - hence the statements about the need to treat the body as a temple. Of course I haven't done that, in fact, I have had very unrealistic expectations about my body - I have treated it really badly - in all the ways you might expect of a child of the 60s living a life of Western decadence. I have been pretty good about diet, and some of the toxins I imbibed were thrust upon me because of debilitating pain - like anti-inflammatories for 30 years. But really, if I am honest, I have treated my body like crap!

In a way I have come full circle because I now have to re-integrate the physical into the spiritual (see my previous 'Gryphon' post). Which means I have to deal with the body properly. My injury last November forced me to STOP - something I never do - take a good hard look at my attitudes and what I was doing. I started in a small way - 20 mins of yoga/meditation every morning for nearly a year now. I knew a bit about health, but I've done a lot more research, particularly in relation to deficiencies in vitamins and minerals, had a long course of acupuncture and spent a fortune on supplements on-line because you can't buy some of them in Australia.

I still go with the 'image', that is, I guess I trust in an intuitive way the image/ideas/feelings that arise. Like feeling 'blocked', 'congested', 'toxic' - I have had the most extraordinary series of random pains in various parts of my body. A feeling of 'heaviness' has also been with me for some time, no doubt exacerbated by the type of study I am doing for my thesis, but there is also a physical component to it.

I have been an artist for about 35 years which means I have been dealing with toxic substances for that long also. Add to that being a passive smoker for 10 years before I left home, working and living on boats for years during which I used to handle anti-fouling, sand the hulls, grind fibre-glass, use fibreglass resin, all with only a rudimentary mask. I noticed that every time I had a surgical procedure I seemed to over-react to the anaesthetic and felt really toxic afterward. I still get an instant headache if I am near anything like spray varnish or volatile paints/substances. I think what topped it off was building and moving into a brand new house with all the chemicals that involves. My body had reached saturation point.

Modern life ensures that, unless we live on a desert island, we are all over-exposed to chemicals and eat foods deficient in vitamins & minerals. We can't avoid it. We breathe in lead and other pollutants from cars, we imbibe chemical fertilisers and pesticides/herbicides every time we eat. Even if we try and grow our own or buy organic it is difficult to avoid the environment we live in - the water, the soil, the air.

Recently I decided I needed a detox. I have been on Malic acid and Magnesium for a few weeks now and have just spent $300 on the internet for a course of Chelorex to get rid of the heavy metals in my system. It is made up of natural ingredients and does not put pressure on the liver as some other systems do (EDTA for example) I will let you know how I go. My significant other is more than happy to consider me the guinea pig before he tries it himself!

image: Frantom, small experiment with Artisan paints (water miscible oils)

ON THE EDGE

2011-10-01T22:02:00.003+08:00

IMAGE: Frantom. Small work in progress. White acrylic on black painted canvas.

CLIMBING THE PhD MOUNTAIN

2011-09-24T11:47:00.005+08:00

I began applying for candidacy at Curtin in 2006, it was accepted in March 2007. Initially I applied for a Masters and then decided there just wasn't going to be enough words and time, I wanted to go much deeper. So I went through the rigorous candidacy process all over again to apply for the Doctor of Philosophy (Arts) program. Since then I have been writing my thesis and doing the paintings that will be submitted with it.

I had to hire a studio large enough for the 2.4 metre square paintings I intended to create. So far I have managed to keep my part-time lecturing job at TAFE to have enough time to fit in the hours and hours of thesis work and still pay the bills. The panels, studio hire and paints were expensive. I also had to get a laptop computer and a van so I could transport the panels.

During this study period some other big things also happened. After fighting it off for years I eventually had to get a hysterectomy. The recovery took several months. My significant other and I then decided to take on owner-building a house in a smaller town on a block of land I had purchased on a whim. My workspace in the new house was designed to take the 2.4 metre paintings (and I still don't have enough room!) That took 10 months out of our lives - it nearly killed us because we were both working 0.5 jobs as well.

At the end of last year my father died unexpectedly, and then I injured my left foot and ankle so badly that the entire summer break from my teaching job, during which I had intended to paint and do my thesis, was spent flat on my back - I wasn't able to sit at the computer either due to complications with my back.

Last week I sent the first draft of the first 3 parts of my thesis to my supervisor at Curtin - one part to go. I had e-mailed her about my finishing date, which I figured was 2015, about which she wrote 'Please don't take that long to finish it!' - which kind of floored me considering the obstacles I have had. Anway, I am now waiting anxiously, hoping beyond hope that she doesn't declare huge sections of my thesis irrelavent, in which case it is back to the drawing board (depending on what she wipes out)

People often seem to be in awe of someone who is doing a doctorate, you can see them taking a slightly different look at you when you tell them that is what you are trying to do. Which often makes me feel like a bit of a fraud. Then they ask 'What's it about', at which point you wish you had worked out a succinct answer and written it down so you could whip it out. Some people wonder why the hell you would bother, and others share their own nightmare experiences, the majority of which then tell you they chucked it in.

I am telling myself that undertaking a Promethean task like a thesis is like climbing a long mountain. It starts out well, the sun is out, the slope is gentle, but it gets steeper as you go. You get more tired as it gets steeper, you don't have the energy to turn around and look at the view, you are just head down slogging up the mountain. As you get nearer the top you really doubt you are going to make it, you imagine what it would be like to just turn around and slide all the way back down the slope. In your darker moments you actually decide to do just that. But then you turn back the other way, you can see the top and you know that once you get over that crest, things should be a whole lot easier.

Well, I don't know if I am close to the top or not, there's still a long way to go but I think, hope, that I am over half way at least. But it means that the climb will surely get steeper before, if ever, I reach that peak.

LETTING THE LIGHT IN

2011-09-23T11:45:00.006+08:00

I don't want to paint it today

I'm tired of the rocks and the water

I'm not scared of it

Though I know what it can do

All I really want

Is to look beyond it

To the open sky

And paint white clouds

I knew the moment I finished it

That I was the 'body on the rocks'

Lying on hard, immutable 'truths'

I can't quite integrate.......yet.

In pain

Flashes of sight

Become insight

Now wanting the light

To penetrate

Not quite, yet able

To let it all in.

It's been a hard road. Early on I realised, but couldn't accept for a long time, that this life was about integrating the dark side. There is no possibility for redemption, no way to become whole unless and until we can do that. Darkness is not just out there. It's a shamanic journey and if it is your fate then you simply can't escape it. The pain arises from resistance, but who wouldn't resist?

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:31

But just as there is darkness there is light, if one is powerful then the other must be also. And it is true, if one knows great evil then one can also know great love.

GONE TO SEA

2011-09-06T19:37:00.005+08:00

There's a 'body' on the rocks

I don't know what it's doing there

It's not dead, but it's not alive either

So I guess I'll just paint it

It's all I know to do

Two honking gulls

Souls of the drowned some say

Maybe that's why no-one likes seagulls

I'm in the West

Gateway to the Other World

Wave comes crashing over rocks

Near where I sit, painting

Hold fast

Heart thumping wildly

One year since my father left for the Unseen Sea - a year is long enough for any ghost.

THERE'S A BODY ON THE ROCKS

2011-09-04T10:46:00.010+08:00

I have this taboo that says you can't write in books. It really upsets me to see things underlined and highlighted - partly because it seems disrespectful, but also because it influences my own reading by emphasising things I may or may not want to focus on.

I loaned my copy of Jung and His Symbols to my father many, many years ago when I hadn't even read it myself. I got it back a few years ago (he had a Scorpio ascendant so it was difficult to get him to relinquish anything at all) Imagine my outrage when I discovered the dreaded fluoro highlights throughout the book. After his death last year I inherited quite a few more Jungian books that he had purchased himself, also filled with similar scratchings and even the occasional exclamation mark.

Even though I had been studying Jung for many years already I started reading them because they were Jung's more mainstream writings. I tried to ignore the bits that were obviously important to my father. Once again I was trying to resist what I had always perceived as his cloying possessiveness - I didn't want him to influence me.

Fairly recently I have been directed - through my own research and injury - to tackle the last chapter of The Portable Jung: Answer to Job. It was fortunate that this was one of the chapters I inherited in one of my father's books. It deals with the very difficult question of the unloving version of 'God', an experience that is one of the later stages of individuation in Jungian psychology - real 'soul-loss' and 'loss of faith' on an epic level. The 'night sea journey' of the soul is the focus of my thesis - the 'aweful sublime' in nature, the dark face of God. At first I was surprised that my father had read it, it is the really spiritual end of Jung's philosophies, and then I started taking note of the bits my father had underlined. Suddenly it dawned on me that he knew about this stuff, that he had perhaps had the same struggle with a God who has no conscience as humanity usually perceives it. I knew he suffered from depression and great angst but I hadn't appreciated the depth of it.

Like a detective I have been trying to unravel his thoughts. I am guessing, maybe incorrectly, that the fluoro highlights were done earlier than the texta and pen underlining, simply because in the later stages of his life he had developed Parkinson's, was in a nursing home and may not have had access to highlighters. Some of the underlinings are also wobbley which seems to confirm that they were done when his condition had deteriorated. Suddenly these annoying textual disfigurements are providing me with an intriguing and unexpected insight into his life. I had prematurely closed the book on the chapter that was my father.

It is difficult to express why this is so significant but I feel I must. What do I feel? Terribly sad, and terribly guilty. I think I may have completely dismissed and underestimated him. When my parents separated and I went to live with my maternal grandmother an inevitable contamination of my father's character resulted. I suspect they blamed my father for everything, much of which was justified, but some wasn't. My mother had said that my father was 'shallow' and had little 'insight', which was corroborated by my own experience of his outrageous tantrums and violence. I willingly believed that he was the demon, even though we got on really well when I wasn't living with him. I still don't excuse his destructive behaviour, but I must now also admit that I may have missed something very important.

Today is my first father's day without my father. Last Thursday I went out to the Gap to do some more visual research and reconnect with my personal manifestation of the aweful sublime. Among the images that always flash through my brain when I am there was the 'body on the rocks'. Of course it wasn't really there, but I drew it because it sort of was there too. I wrote in my journal 'it's not alive, but it's not really dead either'. And I wrote on the rocks in black charcoal, close enough to the water for it to be washed away on the next big swell:

'Dad, I am so sorry. Please forgive me'.

page from The Portable Jung

image: Frantom, 'body on the rocks'

ANY SURF STOKE IS GOOD

2011-08-22T17:45:00.009+08:00

Haven't surfed for over 2 weeks, dodgy ankle, shallow banks, inlet open, cold smelly brown water, no swell - you name it. Plenty of reasons not to go. It really has been appalling.

Today at the leisurely time af midday I strolled down to find green water, very civilised offshore conditions, rain showers interspersed with bright sunlight and nobody at the point. I almost didn't go in because it seemed as though there was no swell at all, but the little surfable sets convinced me. (These are old pics but similar to what I surfed today - I have noticed that I have lost some weight since these were taken which is a bonus!)

I had an hour there all to myself before that characteristic odour signalled the tide had turned and the inlet was flushing - literally - icy sewerage and rotting vegetation from the inlet. (if I have to handle shit I at least want it to be warm, and my own preferably)

So nice to get some gentle stoke from the mild conditions before 3 days back at work.

PhDs: A MODERN 'INITIATION' RITUAL

2011-08-14T09:48:00.006+08:00

Despite all the repeated warnings - the horror stories about PhDs that ramble on for 10 years, the stress, nervous breakdowns, relationship breakups - I decided to continue. It has been 3 years since I converted from the Masters program at Curtin to the Doctor of Philosophy(Art). Although the content and writing style has changed a bit, most of my candidacy document is still relavent. This is an extract:

If I were to choose a genre for my own work it would be the figure-in-landscape because it summarises a philosophical orientation rather than a literal categorisation of subject matter. Unsurprisingly this is based on an obsession with my place in the world but extends beyond economic and physical comfort. It is more about the spirit of the body and the soul of the land.

The figure-in-landscape is a recurring theme in Euro-Australian painting and provides a visual record of changing attitudes to our place on this continent. It enables us to view the evolution of a national identity through images, many of which convey the difficulties artists had in including the human figure; even an iconic painter like Heysen was unable to integrate his figures successfully within his landscapes. (Hoorn, 2007: 204) Although this reveals something of the physical problems of painting it is also tells us about the struggle with an unfamiliar and harsh environment. More interestingly for me it speaks of a psychological struggle.

I have just officially returned to my study after a 6 month leave of absence - the death of my father last November followed by the serious injury to my foot and subsequent depression made it impossible to continue. I couldn't sit at the computer to write, I couldn't stand to paint. The sheer meaninglessness of trying to share my obscure theories with what was likely to be a very specific and tiny audience finally overwhelmed me.

Lying on my bed watching inane daytime television I was forced to accept the possibility that I just may not be able to complete my doctorate. After the endless hours of painting and study I was shattered. I had already drafted the e-mail to my supervisors. However, as I crawled out from the black hole on hands and knees I began to re-evaluate the paintings and take another look at the thesis. I was still passionate about my subject.

Having had a real break made it much easier to see the huge flaws in both the practical and the theoretical work. I have now finished the first draft of the first 3 parts, which leaves findings and conclusions - about 30+ pages in a 100 page (36000 word) document. With edits, linking statements etc I expect it will finish up around 40000 words all up. I have chosen 4 from the 5 x 2.4 sq metre paintings to submit, they are basically resolved works but will need finishing off. I am about to send my first draft to my supervisor for attack by the entity that is the savage 'red biro' (my little joke with her about her corrections and feedback). I may still not get to the finish line, but I am going to give it my best shot - I can at least see the finishing line now.

What changed my mind about conceding defeat in the end was watching an interview of some famous sportsperson (whose name escapes me, not into sport) about the huge physical and psychological barriers they encountered trying to reach their final goal. Instead of thinking that maybe life is telling me not to do this, perhaps I am just being tested and these are barriers I can and should try and overcome.

I have come to the conclusion, that in this context, a PhD is simply a modern initiation 'wisdom' ritual.

image: Frantom, small study, ink and gouache

CHINA'S 'SOFT POWER' THREAT

2011-08-12T11:18:00.006+08:00

Before Australian businessmen and politicians get too smug about how 'safe' the economy is because of our great trade relations with China, perhaps they need to consider who they are really in bed with.

When 'China announced in March that it will increase its military budget by 12.7 percent this year', its defence minister was quick to reassure Asia Pacific neighbours that 'his country's growing economic and military power' wasn't a threat. This may still be of little comfort to the West because, although the journalist seemed to think that the minister in question was telling the truth, he was also quick to highlight another more insidious threat. 'From the World Trade Organization to the United Nations, Beijing is happy to use its soft power to get what it wants - and it is wrong-footing the West at every turn'.

And this is how they are doing it:

'The Chinese are in the process of conquering the world....very successfully by pursuing an aggressive trade policy toward the West, granting low-interest loans to African and Latin American countries, applying diplomatic pressure to their partners, pursuing a campaign bordering on cultural imperialism to oppose the human rights we perceive to be universal, and providing the largest contingent of soldiers for United Nations peacekeeping missions of all Security Council members'.

Apparently, 'Soft Is the New Hard'.

China's track record isn't great, they have always lived by their own rules. They aren't playing fair but then they never have. This is how they play the game:

The Communist Party manipulates its currency to keep export prices 'artificially low'....they use 'every trick in the book when buying commodities or signing pipeline deals'....'aggressive and pushy tactics'. Meanwhile, they 'unscrupulously restrict access to their own natural resources' while at the same time denouncing 'protectionism'. Beijing has recently 'imposed strict export quotas on rare earths, resources that are....essential to the operation of hybrid vehicles, high-performance magnets and computer hard drives'. Apparently 95 percent of these metals are mined in China, which gives Beijing a virtual monopoly. They play dirty, to 'secure a government contract in China, an international company has to reveal sensitive data as part of impenetrable licensing procedures and even agree to transfer its technology to the Chinese - often relinquishing its patent rights in the process'.

China has invested in countries with large oil and natural gas reserves - Venezuela, Kazakhstan and Nigeria, but they also buddy up to countries that the West tends to dismiss, even though they too have voting rights in international bodies. 'Beijing has forgiven billions in loans to African nations and pampered them with infrastructure projects....For the West, failed states are a problem. For China, they're an opportunity'.

With all of this in mind, how much of Australia do we really want China to own? The Australian said recently that Chinese mining giant Shenhua Watermark Coal 'spent $213 million buying 43 farms for coal exploration in the NSW Northern Tablelands in 2009 and 2010. 'The purchases triggered an overnight property boom for the community, with some properties changing hands for 10 times....their previous sale price'. Nobody could seriously blame cash-strapped farmers - this demonstrates that we really do need to support them.

This is directly in conflict with the push for coal alternatives because Shenhua Watermark Coal, as a 'subsidiary of the world's biggest coal company' and is now 'seeking NSW government approval for a coal mine on the Liverpool Plains, surrounding Gunnedah'.

'Gunnedah sits in the heart of key independent Tony Windsor's New England electorate, who helped Ms Gillard form government after last year's knife-edge election' which seems to raise a conflict for Tony. Thankfully Julia Gillard has commissioned her treasurer Bill Shorten to 'review the “total picture” of land ownership across the nation'.

Or doesn't any of this matter, because, given their military and economic might, they could probably just take it from us anyway?

China's Soft Power Is a Threat to the West, abc news international, July 29, 2010 http://abcnews.go.com/International/chinas-soft-power-threat-united-states/story?id=11277294

China says military boost no threat to Asia Pacific neighbours, 6 Jun 2011 http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201106/3235968.htm?desktop

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/probe-into-possible-foreign-investment-loopholes-after-china-land-buyout/story-fn59niix-1226082704254

TIM WINTON'S 'RISING WATER'

2011-08-06T10:36:00.005+08:00

For my birthday in July my significant other bought us tickets to Tim Winton's Rising Water. It was the first time we had been to the recently completed Albany Entertainment Centre and I have to admit, I liked it. It confirms that Albany might have finally earnt it's badge as a city. The theatre was intimate, maybe a bit too claustrophobic which I put down to budgetry restrictions, but seemed to work well. I didn't even mind the bright purple seating.

This is the promotional blurb:

Only loosely tethered to shore but never ready to set sail, Col, Baxter and Jackie have made a jumble of boats in a Fremantle marina their barely floating homes.  

It’s Australia Day, and as the city noisily celebrates around them, they just want to hole up and be left in peace. When Dee, a young English backpacker, stumbles upon them with far too much anger and alcohol in her belly, she well and truly rocks their boats, and the past they want to escape from gets dragged up like jetsam from the sea.

I listened with some trepidation to the early part of the play. Actors John Howard (Baxter) and Geoff Kelso (Col) had some dense monologues to deliver. Even the dialogue was heavy going at times. Winton seems to have packed a lot in conceptually, philosophically - I think that is what I found exhausting. Geoff Kelso gave a seasoned 'old school' theatrical performance, he was impressive. And Alison Whyte was also very good. Beligerant backpacker Claire (Dee) Lovering put in 110% and sometimes that much effort overstated the character for me. I put that down to the overzealousness of youth, it was a difficult part having to maintain a cockney accent and I reckon with some more experience she will be wonderful.

Apart from local bands I haven't seen a live performance in many years. I had forgotten how demanding it could be. So much more work for the audience to do than passively watching the TV or a DVD. There is something raw and more real about it that I like. We were second row back so we were very close to the actors. Some of the audience were offended by the 'bad' language, I think it was the 'c' word that got to them. The language didn't bother me but I was grateful for the lengthy intermission that divided the two act play.

Given the conversations about climate change that predominate the title of Tim Winton's first play taps into the collective zeitgeist but ultimately still focuses on his predominant theme - the emotional and psychological struggles of individuals trying to make sense of their dysfunctional lives. Probably in reality a self-portrait of the author.

Having lived on a yacht in similar marinas with similar social reject neighbours for 3 years the play was very nostalgic for me. Winton was spot on. I picked up on the 'dirty old man' syndrome that I think one of my friends commented on just recently, which I think is a throwback to Winton's very Christian upbringing and his own personal moral struggles. But hey, I give him absolute credit for getting it out there.

I wonder what Winton himself thought of the play and character interpretation by the actors. I could have asked him because he was there that night but I am not the type to be a 'groupie'.

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD.....GO WE

2011-08-05T08:21:00.006+08:00

I've just donated some money to UNICEF. I'm not blogging about it because I think I should be considered a heroine. In many ways I am ashamed that I haven't done it before. I always drop money in various charity tins and throw money into busker's guitar cases no matter how bad they are, however I have allowed my mistrust of big organisations to stop me donating to African famine funds.

I usually flip TV channels when images of starving children are paraded on the screen. Not because I don't care, they upset me terribly, but that's partly the problem. I don't like being manipulated by the media - it often seems like a cheap shot, even exploitation. The other reason is that I feel helpless about contributing anything meaningful to the problem. This time, particularly in light of what is happening to the global economy, I just couldn't ignore it.

My donation is pathetic really, only a small fraction of my income that I won't even miss. But I do feel better for doing it. Sure, maybe I am driven by guilt - that has to be a part of it. My life is very modest by Western standards, technically I am on the poverty line! In reality my life in comparison, at the moment at least, is luxurious. I often reflect on how lucky I have been in being reincarnated into such a great country.

If you are not sleepwalking through your life, maybe even if you are, there is an innate human desire to ease the suffering of others. I will concede that it must be linked to a desire to relieve our own. But that doesn't really make it a bad thing.

THE FALLING PATRIARCHIES & THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF MADNESS

2011-08-03T18:38:00.006+08:00

I'm sorry - I just gotta have this rant. I have been keeping it under control, it's been boiling away for a while now but has been fuelled by Sarah Toa's latest blog.

I am watching with glee and some consternation as the patriarchies fall. I will gloat a little here. I have been theorising for a long time that matriarchal institutions and systems are overthrown by outside forces (think Romans and Celts/Brits) but that patriarchal ones are destroyed from within (think Rome - they get too big, too arrogant and too greedy). It's just another archetypal matrix, the way energy systems work.

So I have watched with impatient interest, events of the last few years, and then months, unfold. The beginning of the end for the US was most probably 9/11. Another case of assassination from within is the patriarchal News Ltd empire. Now the US government, all those stupid blokes arguing, holding out for power and greed so desperately that it looks pretty certain they have successfully unravelled their own economy - it was inevitable whatever they did.

Consumerism, waste, economies that rely on growth and exploitation, societies driven by self interest. This madness just has to stop.

I watch in consternation because I know that unfolding events are going to hurt a lot of people, always those who are struggling already. But perhaps now we can start to look at economies that are sustainable, fight back and regain some moral ground - things like ethics and social conscience have long disappeared from the debate. I don't care if it's politically correct or not. I think we have a responsibility to the planet, to each other. I am so unbelievably fed up with the way we are living and look forward to change. There are many, many wonderful people out there who still care.

The Falling Man is a photograph taken by photographer Richard Drew, of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City.

THE ARCHETYPE OF BETRAYAL

2011-07-28T08:58:00.005+08:00

Betrayal is a theme that runs throughout our lives in varying degrees and permutations. Betrayal is not just about sexual infidelity, although that seems to be one of the most powerful. My own experience was initiallly more about feeling betrayed by my parents. But here, I want to focus more on what betrayal actually is in an archetypal and spiritual sense.

Hillman says that 'primal trust' is akin to Adam's faith in God in the Garden of Eden. It is an innocent form of trust, that despite everything the 'Sun will rise tomorrow'. It is a paternal view of God as Father, based on an assumption that there is such a thing as justice and a 'why-is-this-happening-to-me, this is not fair' response to tragedy and conflict. I am very guilty of this one - I have been overheard yelling loudly at God on many occasions. The problem is that we tend to take things way too personally.

Some time during my own 'loss of faith' I read about Job. Job's relationship with God was very difficult. God was a real bastard to him. Recently I realised that I was less angry with 'God' - a new view that is directly related to some realisations I have had over the past 8 months while grappling with injury, the death of my father and my commitment to the process of withdrawing all projections from others and the world in which I live.

The Biblical tale of Eden suggests that 'God recognized that he is not....enough for man, that something other was needed....that the situation of primal trust is not viable for life....' Which is why Eve was created. That was the end of Eden. Implicit is the 'essential truth that trust and betrayal....contain each other'.

Responses to betrayal are critical - revenge, denial and cynicism, bitterness and maybe the worst - paranoia. Hillman considers that 'cynicism' is really a 'betrayal of one’s own ideals, a betrayal of one’s own highest ambitions'. It can lead to a further danger, and probably the core of the issue - self betrayal.

'Self-betrayal is perhaps what we are really most worried about. The alienation from one’s self after betrayal is largely protective. One doesn’t want to be hurt again, and since this hurt came about through revealing just what one is, one begins not to live from that place again'. It is therefore essential that we carry our own suffering - basically, that we withdraw that projection, absorb it into ourselves 'no matter how it hurts'. And it does, it hurts like hell - but the only possible way forward is through forgiveness, which is why the Christians are always banging on about it. They are right about some things.

'Forgiveness, like humility, is only a term unless one has been fully humiliated or fully wronged'. Which means that the experience of betrayal is part of the evolution of consciousness, 'one cannot re-establish primal trust once one has left Eden....relationships after the experience of betrayal must start from an altogether different place'. The unfolding through the various stages from trust through betrayal to forgiveness presents a movement of consciousness. It is an opportunity for growth, however painful.

Hillman quotes taken from a 3-part article: http://www.blacksunjournal.com/psychology/21_betrayal-part-2-of-3_2002.html

ARRRGGH! THE EMPEROR'S GOT NO CLOTHES!

2011-07-21T09:12:00.006+08:00

According to many leading economists, that is, if you listen to interviews by credible ABC journalists rather than GWN's 'Let's Reject the Recession' little 'happy club' - the 'perfect economic storm' is nearly upon us. This is not news to many of us who have been watching it unfold and have been waiting expectantly since the artificial recovery plans were put in place during the last GFC. The arrival of this storm, when the world finally submits to it's inevitability, evokes mixed feelings for me and may well lead to general panic.

America is about to raise debt levels once again for debts they can't afford to pay back at existing levels. Or else they will default and bring about another 'depression'. Several countries in the EU are in similar positions. Rich countries like Germany are nervous about loaning more because of their own rising debts.

China hasn't floated it's yuan which is artificially stimulating its rapidly growing economy and causing inflation. They also have huge debt, which, if nobody can afford to buy their goods as their own economies are struggling, will compromise their ability to service debt.

Australia is highly dependant on China and Asia for it's booming mining industries. The high dollar and the mining companies who are making enormous profits are creating rising living costs and economic hardship for the majority of Australians. Apparently only 200,000 Aussies are directly employed in the mining industry and the two-tiered economy suggests that benefits are not being passed on to the rest of us. The strong Australian dollar is making exports expensive, there are gluts in Australian oranges now, in which case we are victims of our own success.

According to the ABC APRA is requesting that the big 4 Australian banks create 'living wills' or contingency plans to avoid 'financial panic' if there is another global financial crisis. In other words they want banks to make sure they have enough funds to cover their own debts and not rely on the Reserve bank and government to bail them out as America did. We are currently witnessing the fallout from those decisions. The share market has been flat for months, which means our superannuation funds are not growing - we may all be working until we drop dead!

The long and steady climb in the price of gold is telling.

We live in interesting times. It seems finally we, and the Emperor, will have to admit that he is, in fact, butt naked! Not only that, he is suffering from severe hypothermia.

EVERYONE NEEDS A BIT OF A NUDGE SOMETIMES

2011-07-19T20:21:00.004+08:00

Up to my neck in documentation to be ready for the beginning of semester 2. Looking for images on the net to embellish handouts for students when I found this one. Just couldn't resist posting it. Such a tender image. I just wanna hug that little hippo.....

RANDOM BIRTHDAY THOUGHTS

2011-07-13T19:57:00.008+08:00

It's my birthday again. Birthdays are not usually my favourite days, for reasons I outlined in last years post. The day began with a very stupid e-mail entitled 'The First Book of Government'. It went like this:

Julia is the shepherd I did not want.

She leadeth me beside the still factories.

She restoreth my faith in the Liberal party.

She guideth me in the path of unemployment for her party's sake....blah, blah

I think you get the drift. It was even more annoying because it came from a work colleague who sent it to all the staff at Great Southern Institute of Technology, from the directors all the way down the line. I am not in love with Julia but have welcomed the carbon tax because at last someone is doing something. I have been a Green voter for years and trust they are now keeping an eye on things. So I sent him a very abrupt but polite reply.

I didn't get a birthday surf because the point was clogged with seaweed and there weren't any banks unless you were hard core and went right around the bay. Tomorrow they open the inlet so there will be no surfing at our local for a couple of weeks. We went for lunch at a new place we have been meaning to check out and it was full. So we went somewhere else and watched as the newly arrived table next to us was served our lunch, the one we had been anticipating for half an hour. I had to stop myself from jumping up and ripping that kebab out of that obese teenager's hand. Unfortunately his teeth closed in on it too quickly. Apologies all around from the manager and another 20 minute wait.

Across the road to a clothing shop closing down sale. It seems businesses in this small town are taking a bit of a hit. I hate new clothes, much prefer the Op Shops, but I bought myself a $200 birthday present anyway - Adam and Anastasia (pictured top) They have taken up fashionable residence in the dining room against the burnt orange wall. I am going to be teaching figure drawing again and with a lack of models and education budget cuts these two will be cheap to keep. Not ideal, but......

My present from Robin was tickets to Tim Winton's new play, a voucher at iTunes and a really great card. It's one of those that changes, so the dog goes from serious to delirious if you move it around.

Another birthday done and dusted.

....AND IT JUST GETS BETTER

2011-07-04T17:26:00.003+08:00

It's the last day of the semester tomorrow and there is going to be a flag raising ceremony at Great Southern Institute where I work. My Aboriginal students all got personal written invitations last week. Finally someone realised that although we fly the Aussie flag, we have never flown the Aboriginal flag. This is 2011....but, better late than never I guess.

This wadjela is really looking forward to it and I can only imagine how my students are feeling. Our program is still pretty much on the fringes there and I hope it gives them a sense of 'ownership'.

GO GREEN

2011-07-04T17:17:00.003+08:00

I've never seen Bob Brown looking so happy. He is smiling even more than me. If you'd told me about 10 years ago that the Greens would have the balance of power in parliament I would have given you 100 to 1 that it would never happen. I have been voting for them consistently all that time, donated money and even helped out on polling day once.

I think what I am enjoying even more is watching 'the Monk' (Tony Abbott) squirm, because he knows that even if he wins the next election, which is likely, he will have to work with the Greens. This is a great day. Maybe there is hope for humanity yet....

THERE ARE DAYS I LOVE MY JOB

2011-06-22T16:14:00.006+08:00

When I can stay under the bureacratic radar and dodge the ubiquitous political manholes I love my job. I can handle my students' quirks - I have spent a lifetime learning to appreciate my own dysfunctions. I can work with that - people are real. It's creative even if it is emotionally exhausting at times. It's the mindless uncreative aspects of my job that drive me to distraction.

I have had a couple of great days, Aboriginal students yesterday and Graphics and Media students today. Quite different parts of my job but kind of the same. My classes can be rowdy because students turn the radio up loud sometimes when they work. Or we talk and laugh as they work.

I don't really teach art - colour theory, composition, design elements and principles are almost incidental. I trust that given the time, space and support my students will figure out the rest for themselves in their own unique way. I don't really like telling people I am a 'teacher' or a 'lecturer' when they ask what I do for a living. I think I am really just a mentor. It's more of a heart thing than a head thing - even though my head works perfectly well and people do learn stuff. In the end though I care more about what they learn about themselves, that they have confidence and belief in themselves.

Art can be a difficult thing to teach - people are vulnerable. They are exposed because it is not only their technical ability that is out there under scrutiny - it is their beliefs and ideas as well. You have to think on your feet, respond appropriately to ever changing information, juggle what to say when and to whom. Each person will react differently and you have to figure out how to share knowledge respectfully, when to really listen, when to back off and when to push because you know that person needs a timely kick up the arse. Sometimes you get it wrong and have to apologise but that shows that you don't know everything and they will usually forgive you, maybe even like you more for it. These are the things I love about my job. Next week it could all turn to shit - but these last two days have been brilliant.

Google Images:

http://api.ning.com/files/1IAyU7sWF4ys6RHqgl2Ksj2-01*d3rE3QFELQKi-44z9TgOQ0VjQp87HSXoLlTbD90D2Kc4mC4ls0q4D1Fzz8-Z3rnAz20XB/mentor.jpg

POINT 'MELLOW'

2011-06-19T09:47:00.005+08:00

Yesterday was one of those mellow days at my local break, surfing the sets instead of taking evasive action. The swell was 3m but being from the S/W has to wrap around the point to get into the corner. When I first looked there was nobody in the corner, 10.00 am on a Saturday - are you serious? I was joined by a couple of girls on longboards and a beginner but I knew them all so it was a cruisey session.

I hardly surf the point because it is usually too busy and the longboarders tend to backdoor the wave, sitting right in the channel near the rocks. On my hybrid 8' 4" more high performance board I have to be in the suckier part of the wave, so I don't get many opportunities. It is also tricky - you have to be a lot further inside than you think and it can be difficult to maintain position because the rip alongside the rocks pulls you over to the corner. The strong N/W wind was also pushing me over that way so it was a constant paddle - back in and across.

BUT....there is nothing like paddling like hell into that wall of water, pushing you along until you know you are on that wave and setting up, the position of the board, and then your feet - to slide along as it moves towards the shore. I haven't had such a clean, well-behaved wave in a loooooong time - having to settle for mush to stay out of everyone's way and nurse a recovering ankle/foot injury for the last 7 months.

After half a dozen good waves I thought I would quit while I was ahead. It was enough to make me feel good for the rest of the day.

FLAWED ANGEL

2011-06-01T22:03:00.004+08:00

This is a self portrait I did many years ago - I see myself as a very flawed 'angel' - definitely no saint.

I used to think I needed to be perfect before I could contribute anything useful to the world, to other people. I hid out, avoided the world at large. When I started my job as a TAFE lecturer several years ago I felt completely unprepared - I didn't know enough, I didn't have all the answers. Somewhere along the line I think I have contributed something. I guess it's a bit like parenthood.

Sitting in a retreat or monastery preparing for death just so you can choose a better incarnation is a luxury that few can afford. It also seems to be missing the point of being incarnated in the first place. I believe we are incarnated to undertake a journey of consciousness but it has occurred to me lately that the adepts who spend their lives in 'blissful' meditation are very fearful of the afterlife. I don't dispute what they predict because I have experienced things that confirm what they say, in life we can encounter what we will also encounter in death. Consciousness goes on. Be aware of death so you can live your life awake, yes, I get that. But to not live a full life, one that includes love, sex, food, fear, art, music - ?

I hate suffering too, so I get why you would want to avoid it in endless reincarnations BUT - I don't know - I still don't have all the answers.

WHEN THE BUCK STOPS

2011-05-21T14:43:00.005+08:00

Being a disciple of Rajneesh many years ago gave me some very valuable lessons. One of which is about 'responsibility'. I have this rule: it's not OK to pass on the inconvenience - and I apply it vigilantly. That is, just because someone acts unconsciously someone else should not carry the mistake or the consequences of that person's dysfunction. Of course in reality it happens all the time. And I admit, I have been the perpetrator more times than I can count. In my defence I can say that I have tried not to do that and where possible have rejected that phenomenon of human behaviour called 'kicking the dog'. That is, shit happens, you feel bad, so you just kick someone else.

My 'take-no-shit' rule is a result of events early in my life where I felt disempowered in my relationship with my father who had very little insight or control of his anger. It is the reason I did not have children - I was simply terrified that I would pass the dysfunction onto them.

Its a thing that happens in families, often in very subtle ways. One person seems to carry the angst for everyone else, mainly because everyone else is unconscious. I was reminded of it whilst watching a documentary on the ABC recently. It was about a Jewish family by the name of Wallisch whose matriarch witnessed the murder of her parents and siblings in Auschwitz. She had only been saved from extermination herself because she was a cellist. During her stay at Belsen she was asked to play for Mengler in his 'laboratory' - about which she expressed a lack of comprehension regarding the paradoxical positioning of the beauty of music alongside the horror that Mengler wrought. She was still scarred by her experiences but had been 'saved by music' - which was the title of the doco - and had simply got on with her life after the war. Any lingering issues didn't seem to have been passed on to her son who was also a musician. However the daughter was a psychologist and had obviously been working through her own issues. In the interview she said matter-of-factly: I am the wound.

I have observed this phenomenon in families. A family can move through the stages of life often without any real insight. Many of them get away with it until the time comes to leave the body and this life behind. Of course as I have aged I have developed something called 'compassion' and I realise that most people are sleepwalking through their lives. And even if they aren't - recognising a behaviour and actually re-programming it are two very different things. I know, I have tried - I am always trying. But often, within the family there is one 'black sheep' who carries the 'sins' of the family.

Many years ago I decided that the buck had to stop somewhere and that to change the world I had to start with myself. I would like to say it was a noble pursuit but in reality it seemed like the only thing I could do once I had made certain dicoveries about being a human-being. If the buck stops with you there is no-one to blame any more, you have to absorb all of the projections you usually throw out into the world because there is no-one else out there. You have to grapple with your ego, guilt, confusion, the notion of 'evil' within yourself. If you are really lucky or really strong you will avoid self-destruction or being burnt to a cinder in the flames of transformation.

If you decide that the buck really does stop with you, you are in for one hell of a ride.

THE GRYPHON

2011-05-14T19:48:00.002+08:00

9 Sept, 2010: I just had this dream that woke me up. About a Gryphon on a shield which I originally thought was a Phoenix and in relation to the wound on my chest which I expected to be bleeding when I woke but wasn't.

A voice said audibly: 'If thou shalt wear this symbol thou will be anointed'

(Anoint: To choose by or as if by divine intervention....put oil on, sacred ritual)

The legendary griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Greek: γρύφων, grýphōn) is a creature with the body of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion is traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle the king of the birds, the gryphon was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature.

Variations of ancient lore say the gryphon builds a nest and lays sapphires instead of eggs. Both the feather of a gryphon and the talon are supposed to have medicinal properties, even restoring sight to the blind. Gryphons are known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions. In antiquity it was a symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine. Celtic gryphons are a symbol of duality which reflects their dualistic physical form, representing a balance of good and evil.

The gryphon is a powerful symbol, reserved only for times of greatest need. Misusing or invoking the gryphon for selfish reasons results in gluttony, vengeance and violence. In Roman texts, the gryphon is strongly aligned with the fire god, Apollo, which makes it a possessor of fiery forces and not to be trifled with. Respect must be paid when invoking the spirit of the gryphon.

IMAGE: GOOGLE

REF: WIKIPEDIA & GOOGLE

THE 'MEANING OF LIFE'

2011-05-09T19:47:00.009+08:00

It would be interesting to see how many hits I get on this blog as readers either Google in earnest or search for the Monty Python movie (which I am not really too embarassed to admit I watched, fully expecting to get real answers) But this really is about the 'meaning of life', or at least some of it, based more on Jung and spiritual psychology than religion. I have been researching this topic all my life but once again it was a dream that provided another pivotal piece of the mystery puzzle. There is of course nothing new here, every seeker everywhere repeats the same journey. But it only makes sense to each of us when we travel our own road.

On the 9 Sept, 2010, nine days after my father's death, I had a dream which woke me with an abrupt start. I saw a Gryphon on a shield, it had something to do with a 'wound' which I really expected to be bleeding but wasn't. I heard a voice, loud and clear, speaking in an archaic vernacular: 'If thou shalt wear this symbol thou will be anointed'. I wasn't even exactly sure what 'anointed' meant. I awoke with a jolt.

I did the usual research, looked it up on the net, found an image of the Gryphon. I wrote about its symbolism but I couldn't figure out why it was supposed to be relavent to me. But I knew, as one does when one has been working with dreams and images all one's life, that it was significant - enough for me to ring up my tattooist and arrange to have it inked on my left forearm. That didn't eventuate, so I printed out the image and stuck it on the wall in my office.

During the several months of recovery from my small surfing accident I grappled with many things. I knew the injury was significant - why was I being stopped in my tracks, full flight in life? It had something to do with being in the body, not taking it for granted and making some changes in my life to reflect that. It was about ego and personal will, and there was much more.

On the 27 April I wrote this in my journal (and just in case you think I am having inflated religious delusions, this is not exclusive to me of course):

I think I can finally say 'what' it is I am doing here, incarnated on this planet. I am here in body, to incarnate 'God' into human, spirit into flesh - and reconcile heaven with earth. It is not a matter of transcending the body or denying the spirit but in being both. That is what the Gryphon dream was about. The damage to my ankle, which I have discovered is a sacred joint in eastern mysticism, and 5 months of healing body and soul, have forced me to stop and pay attention..... I think I can finally accept my 'human-ness', this has not been possible before because I just wanted to get the hell off this planet..... but this is what I am doing here. The 'why' is more difficult.

Just like the process of arguing a solid thesis, there is the 'what', the 'how' and the 'why'. The 'what' has been mainly answered, the 'how' is still evolving, lots of research into matters of the body, vitamins, minerals, acupuncture, daily yoga and chakra meditation. Trying to balance the material and the non-material aspects of being. Knowing something deeply means living it.

It still doesn't explain why God needs to be incarnated in the first place. Sure, there are philosophical explanations for that. Jung says it is because God is not conscious of itself and needs to be made conscious. But after all, if God is this supra-ordinate deity, why does it need us? I may never know the answer to that, and I am happy not to. Having at least part of it figured out has made me feel a whole lot more content just to be here.

NOTE: The model for God is taken from archetypal psychology and not Christianity, although of course the archetypes still apply and remain relavent.
image: From the net, no credit given so unable to reference. I suspect it is a mediaeval wood engraving or woodcut.

BACK TO 'EARTH'

2011-05-07T17:30:00.008+08:00

In times of confusion, stress or sorrow it is even more essential than usual that I get back to nature. Probably an instinctual response to healing the body and getting back to one's centre. The block we built the new house on is covered by a canopy of tall elegant Karri trees so I hadn't bothered with a vegie garden. Although the soil is a beautiful heavy loam the roots of eucalyptus won't allow some things to grow. But the deck is wide and sunny so as part of my recuperation I began trialling some seedlings in polystyrene fish boxes. Hamish (white poodle) has already been helping himself to the roquette. (I was wondering why he had the runs!)

I also rescued the nearly dead lemon tree from where I had been attempting to grow it and it is now thriving ecstatically in a pot (below)

Because the house was designed by an architect it faces north, which in this case means we present our arse to the street. People naturally head for the back door so to redirect them I went looking for interesting signs to put on the gate to indicate it was the preferred entrance. The result was disappointing so I made a sign instead. It is intended to fit in with the quasi-industrial look of the place.

Robin was a little skeptical that people would figure it out but I reckon even if they don't immediately get it, it will act in a subliminal way.....

The 'Stratco' planter is the first of many, because now I have the bug again I am re-arranging the parking areas so that I can get maximise benefit from the sun at the back (street-front) of the house.

My foot is still sore, but at least I can now do some light work. Next week, after months off, I will be back at work. I can't complain - it has been a gentle landing back on the planet.

THE SECRET

2011-05-01T15:32:00.004+08:00

There has been so much to process over the last 5 months that I don't know where to start. So rather than attempt a full scale assault, and because there are no consclusions to be drawn, I will begin here - for the moment, Jung says it best. Here he is speaking of his own spiritual journey but speaks for me as well. (I have assumed that 'he' refers to both sexes, and anything in between):

Like the initiate of a secret society who has broken free from the undifferentiated collectivity, the individual on his lonely path needs a secret which.... he may not or cannot reveal. Such a secret reinforces him in the isolation of his individual aims. A great many individuals cannot bear this isolation..... The need for such a secret is in many cases so compelling that the individual finds himself involved in ideas and actions for which he is no longer responsible. He is being motivated neither by caprice nor arrogance, but by a dira necessitas which he....cannot comprehend....

Thus he would find himself.... in possession of a secret that could not be discussed, and would become a deviant from the collectivity..... The man, therefore, who, driven by his daimon, steps beyond the limits of the the intermediary stage, truly enters the "untrodden, untreadable regions", where there are no charted ways and no shelter....

There is now an authentic secret in his life which cannot be discussed.... Once this happens the psyche of the individual acquires a heightened importance.... The ego becomes ambivalent and ambiguous.... It becomes aware of a polarity supraordinate to itself.

Image: author, unfinished, Untitled, oil on card

Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 345

LOCAL LEGEND AT NOTORIOUS (AWESOME) LOCAL BREAK

2011-04-05T18:19:00.006+08:00

This is Carl Beadham at a notorious hard core local break. I don't claim to know Carl that well but I know his parents and met him as a skinny kid and young adult. As far as I know he lives to surf - often at Cactus in S.A. He comes back to work just long enough to make enough money to go surfing again. He often wins the local surf contests but doesn't really give a damn about the pro side of surfing.

I am guessing this was taken recently in the awesome offshore 30+ degree conditions we have had. Robin and I have actually paddled out at this place, twice - when it was a hell of a lot smaller than this of course. Neither of us got a wave - paddling up a face the size of a large building was enough to freak us out. We realised we were out of our depth and were lucky enough to get back in one piece. It is sharky, fringed by treacherous sharp-pocked limestone reef and rock and the rips are perilous. Really good surfers will tell you that they have been caught out and paddled for 45 minutes non-stop just to get back in.

All power to Carl. Next life I am coming back without the fear gene.

New Passion

2011-04-04T08:06:00.004+08:00

Lately one corner of my studio has been taken over by a new but kind of old passion - music. Amid the collection of Barbie dolls and art materials the heavy Washburn electric bass has been retired until I can afford to swap it for a gorgeous violin Hohner bass (like the one Paul Mc Cartney played) I saw in the local music shop. I want to keep some type of bass because I spent 2 years at weekly band rehearsals learning how to play it, but really, the sax speaks to me like the bass never did.

After doing a short stint with the bagpipes (which I adore) I swore I would never try to play another reed instrument. They are just so damn temperamental. But even with the difficulties involved in getting a good tone and the occasional random demoralising squeak I am completely seduced by the variety of voices the sax provides, even for a complete novice of 7 weeks.

I am supposed to be practising my scales, memorising them along with arpeggios (which are basically chords). And I am. Every day I do that, even the days I have been in a fair bit of pain. It's part of the new regime (along with my 10 Kum Nye Tibetan morning yoga exercises). But I have to admit that once I have gone through the basics I drift off - I play one of my mp3s and see if I can pick out some of the notes so I can work out what key it is in. Then I can jam along, very simple arrangements, but such fun. The surfing definitely helps with lung capacity but I have to stop before I want to because my mouth is still not strong enough to maintain its position for a long time.

There are many subtle ways to get a sound out of this complex looking instrument. It will take me years to gain a rudimentary understanding. So close to the human voice, which Robin says is the 'ultimate form of musical expression' - the sax is a wonderful marriage of hands, fingers and voice.

Although there is obviously something very primitive about the throbbing beat of the bass, which is itself a beautiful fusion of rhythm and harmony, there is also something primal about an instrument played with the breath.

Onshore Slop - But I'm Not Complaining

2011-04-03T15:11:00.006+08:00

This morning the waves were a bit messier than this - onshore, mushy, no shape with the occasional closeout on the shallow bank. But am I complaining? No way. I was only perfecting my technique of surfing on my knees anyway - just to get in the water and get some exercise while resting my foot after being out of the water for a week.

Last Sunday the ocean swell was finally getting in. When I first got in the sets were closing out quite dangerously on the shallow bank so I stayed inside to try and get the occasional working waves on my hybrid 6' 10" fish. The side-shore rip was fairly strong and with the nasty closeouts (where the ocean sucks out until you think you might be surfing on sand any second) it was difficult to stay in any kind of position. I was almost going to get out. But the tide must have come in enough to bring the water levels up, the closeouts were less frequent and even started working near the tenuous channel - a bit like like the pic above but with closeouts twice the size.

I had such a good time. It was a relief to get a couple of steeper takeoffs and see a clean shoulder, go down the line and get a couple of small turns in. It was the first time since my injury nearly 5 months ago that I tried surfing 'properly' - and although it felt alright at the time, I have been paying for it ever since.

Previous sessions have consisted of going out on Robin's 10 ft single fin Warren Thompson board, mainly just paddling and taking about 3 small waves, no turning, just gingerly putting some weight on my left foot - and going in. So today I had regressed again and I opted to stay on my knees. It was still fun because I got a few waves on Robin's 9 ft Walden (with bevels, which I really don't like - I get much more radical turns on my 8' 4" hybrid without the bevels). I found I could lean into the face while on my knees (because it's a triple fin as well, unlike the Thompson ) and grab the rail. After the last week I am so grateful to be back out there - on any craft at all - that surfing on my knees was absolutely fine.

Being in the Moment- Poodle Style

2011-04-01T09:00:00.007+08:00

There's a lot to learn from dogs. When it comes to 'being in the moment' they are experts.

This is our boy-toy-poodle Hamish who is a 'speedfreak' (he gets really excited when we are in the car and accelarate quickly) In fact both poodles are speedfreaks, Hermyne is forbidden from putting her front legs on the car window sill and leaning out alarmingly.

Here we are on the way to the beach. More proof that dogs do smile. Pure joy, for me almost as much as for him.

LIFE AFTER DEATH AFTER LIFE

2011-03-21T15:51:00.005+08:00

I will accept that this blog entry is intended to back up some of my potentially whacky theories about life and death, but it is also meant as a gift for others. I don't need to be convinced that there is life after death because my entire life has been dedicated to this enquiry. Personal experience and research have confirmed, as much as it is possible, that my intuition is valid. So I am now offering some 'proof' for others.

In respect of my more 'morbid' writings I say this: to want death more than life is just as unbalanced as wanting life more than death. To live in the best possible way is to take a neutral position which means living every moment as if it were your last. This is difficult, being in quite a bit of pain these last few months has made it even more so, but lately I find myself more frequently, and gratefully, right where I am - even when it hasn't been pleasant.

An MD called Jeffrey Long has been doing research into NDEs (near-death-experiences). He admits that he was a sceptic but after interviewing 1300 people he is now convinced that 'there is life after death'. Here are Jeff's 'nine lines of evidence':

1. The level of consciousness and alertness during NDEs is usually greater than they experience during their everyday life even though NDEs generally occur while unconscious or clinically dead. The elements in NDEs generally follow a consistent and logical and order.

2. What people see during a NDE is generally realistic, and often verified later.

3. Normal or super-normal vision occurs among those with significantly impaired vision or even legal blindness. Several NDErs who were blind from birth have reported highly visual NDEs.

4. Typical NDEs occur under general anaesthesia at a time when conscious experience should be impossible.

5. Life reviews in NDEs include real events that took place in the NDErs lives, even if the events had been forgotten.

6. When NDErs encounter beings they knew from their earthly life, they are virtually always deceased, and usually deceased relatives.

7. The NDEs of children, including very young children, are strikingly similar to the NDEs of older children and adults.

8. NDEs appear strikingly consistent around the world. Many NDEs from non-Western countries are very similar to typical Western NDEs.

9. Changes in the lives of NDErs after their experiences, the NDE aftereffects, are common. Aftereffects are often powerful, lasting, and the changes follow a consistent pattern.

Further: 'NDErs who have life reviews view themselves from a third-person perspective' (I have experienced this while conscious). 'A spiritual being sometimes accompanies the person who is having the life review….. (during which they) almost never describe feeling negatively judged' and 'knowledge and love are two elements that we take with us when we die'.

During these experiences people made discoveries about: 'God, love, the afterlife, the reason for our earthly existence, earthly hardships, forgiveness….' Jeff found that these were strikingly consistent across cultures and races ie pre-existing beliefs did not significantly influence the content.

Having read the Tibetan's view on this (and again based on my own psychic experiences) I consider that Jeff's findings are only the first stage of the journey through death and back again. However, his report does undermine the patronising medical view that bright lights and visions are just a neurological after-effect because in many cases these events happened while the person was clinically dead. Of course we could argue the concept of 'consciousness' till the end of time so I will leave you with some words from the 'Master':

I cannot prove to you that God exists, but my work has proved empirically that the pattern of God exists in every man and that this pattern in the individual has at its disposal the greatest transforming energies of which life is capable. Find this pattern in your own individual self and life is transformed. (C.G. Jung from Steve Parker's recently published book, Heart Attack & Soul: In the Labyrinth of Healing)

Image: Frantom, photo.

Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-death Experiences, Jeff Long & Paul Perry, http://ndestories.org/resources/book-summary-evidence-of-the-afterlife/

SEERING FEET & SOARING EAGLE

2011-03-17T08:17:00.005+08:00

My 'boss' has thrown me a life-line, at least for a few weeks. Perhaps it was the sight of me moving around the campus on crutches - not a good look. Or maybe it was my outburst to her secretary: if I win the Lotto I will be resigning immediately. Apparently I had accumulated 34 sick days which I didn't know about because I haven't worked in the public service for 30 years. So until I go back at the beginning of next term I am trying as hard as I can to get myself sorted.

I am able to walk some distance without the crutches and as both feet are now burning sometimes, swims, very short surfs and walks in the ocean help. One of our unsafe local beaches has developed a large shallow pond which was great for the kids during the summer break. It's also just the right depth for two water-loving retriever toy poodles.

As I was absent-mindedly throwing and wading a young woman seemed to be hurrying back along the beach. She scrambled over some rocks to get to me and pointed upward: watch your dogs, there's a wedgetailed eagle above you. I was a bit surprised, then remembered that wedgetails will take lambs out of the paddock. I hadn't seen it because I had my Akubra on, but there it was, wheeling just 15 foot above my head eyeing the poodles off as convenient takeaways. Extraordinary - this bird is one of my favourites, but it wasn't having my poodles for a snack. Regardless, I took it as a sign that things were starting to look up.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TSUNAMI

2011-03-12T19:31:00.007+08:00

I know my recurring dream of the tidal wave is personal. I have been having it all of my life. It first appeared in childhood - along with the one about twisted steel wreckage and the complete destruction of civilisation. At first the wave was far off - in the last few years it has come nearer and is always just about to come crashing down and engulf me. I accept these dreams as being a psychological projection and an aspect of my own unconscious, but there was also always a sense of foreboding about them, something beyond me, something collectively unconscious.

I watched yesterday as these scenes unfolded before me - my 'dreams' sadly come true. Transfixed, like every other surfer would have been, in the complete fantasy of riding this advancing nightmare of impending doom - a 30 foot wall of perfection, peeling off to right and left. An apocalyptic ride it would have been fatal to wipe out on, but almost worth it.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people. I wish to God they hadn't chosen to go nuclear. You'd think after what happened to them in the last world war.......well, what can anyone say about that now?

THE ART OF WAITING

2011-03-07T09:57:00.002+08:00

Apart from physical 'death', this annihilation has been almost complete. Just like the dream I had a few weeks ago - where I hit a solid object and exploded into a thousand pieces.

EVERYTHING is up for evaluation. EVERYTHING. There is not one part of my life untouched. Identity, sense of self worth, thesis, relationship, job......Inevitable if you can't do what you usually do. Nothing left if you can't do what you normally do - any of it. No walking, unable to sit at the computer for more than 15 minutes. No surfing, no thesis, can't finish the big paintings, can't do your job, can't resort to the usual escape mechanisms - like surfing, dancing, walking on the beach. Can't even swim.

Lots of physical pain, sleep difficult. Lots of emotional pain. Cried as much as when my Mum left when I was 9. Cried for everything, about everything - until I am completely exhausted. Breakdown? - sure. Breakthrough - I hope so. It's one thing to understand what is happening, another to live it. Annihilation of the ego, almost unbearable.

What's next? I don't honestly know. Still waiting. Healing slowly. Waiting. Waiting. For clarity. No doing, just being - whatever that is.

FIRST SAX LESSON

2011-02-09T19:55:00.006+08:00

The last couple of days have been a bit difficult. Returning to work with a still sore foot which is slowly healing but which hates the concrete floor in my drawing room. The bureaucracy as usual was unnecessary and frustrating but my students were great. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that after work today I was going to have my very first saxophone lesson.

I am a frustrated musician. I have avoided it largely all of my life because I want to do it well. Taking on another commitment as huge as visual art just seemed impossible - you can only have one sadomasochistic 'mistress' at a time. The love affair started even earlier than my love of images. My parents were very active members of the local Light Opera Company so I was always at rehearsals with the rest of the family, singing harmonies and 'rounds' in the car and plonking out one-fingered melodies on the hard-working piano next to the stage. My mother decided to invest in piano lessons, but apparently the little devil wouldn't learn to read music, preferring to play by ear, so that was the end of that.

I should have gone to a private highschool where everyone did music. My staunch social-realist Grandmother wouldn't allow it of course. My very best friend Andrea Hutchins went there so I had two reasons to be broken hearted. Instead I went to a red-neck highschool complete with skinheads and luckily, a fantastic art teacher who let me hide out from the madness in the art room. But no music program.

Pathetic attempts at learning the clarinet and then classical guitar as an adult where I was more interested in talking to my hunky music teacher. Again, I just wouldn't knuckle under, be disciplined, so I chucked it in - I kept the teacher though and we have lived together for 9 years now.

I ended up playing the electric bass with same partner in a four-piece band he formed but I never felt fully conversant with the instrument. I did OK, but it wasn't really my thing. I'm into melody, the voice and harmony. There's enough heavy bass in my life already.

Since my injury I decided to commit to a couple of things. One is the 8 Kum Nye ancient Tibetan exercises which I have been doing every day for 6 weeks now and the other, among a couple of other things, is the sax.

Today, after my first lesson where I got to move right on to the second, third and even fourth pages in my very basic music reader, I felt fantastic. I didn't feel as though I was fighting my teacher, myself or the dots on the page. It felt right, it felt like my instrument and that I should be doing this. I know it is going to get a lot harder, but this time I have committed to learning music 'properly'.

Artist: Xavier Cortada
Title: Music
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Size: 60 inches x 95 inches
Year: 2005

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

2011-02-09T06:58:00.002+08:00

First day back at work. The students were great. The rest was hell. This doesn't feel like my life. Something's gotta give - and soon.

HEALER OR MYSTIC

2011-02-03T19:04:00.003+08:00

During this recent bout of 'illness' which included some very dark depressive states and mental anguish, I felt like I was dying. There was no rational explanation for this because I wasn't - I only had a physical injury that was taking longer than expected to heal. I have felt this 'death' before, and when I remembered that, went about putting myself back together as I tend to instinctively do. It has taken me a while to put this psycho-spiritual jigsaw together, which may be evident in the absence of blogs regarding my recovery. To be honest, it was all too ugly to share, but I will share this because it might help others understand something about the role of misery and illness in our lives or at least explain some of my 'aberrant' behaviours.

Death has been with me all of my life - not merely as an arbitrary consequence of being alive. It sits, just here, on my shoulder. It never, ever leaves me - not even for a second. In my early twenties I wrote a short account about a 'boy who fell in love with death'. It was autobiographical of course.

As a child my play things were often dead, I was fascinated by the decomposed body of a rat I found under the house. I loved bones and I wanted to dissect dead things so I could look inside and see what they were made of and where life had gone. For as long as I can remember, I have been on a quest to understand death - I have been obsessed with it.

When I was 15 I wrote a story for my English class. It was chosen for the end of year school magazine, which surprised me because it was a morbid tale without a happy ending. It told of a boy who died in an accident, how he rose out of his body and drifted into his village along the street where he lived. The boy describes in detail what he saw from his hovering view above the houses. He enters his own home to discover that everyone is mourning his lifeless body which is lying there on the kitchen table. He tries to communicate with his family to reassure them that he is not ‘dead’ but they can’t hear him - he doesn’t exist. He gets more agitated but they don’t respond. When he ‘wakes’ he is inside a coffin and hears pebbles bouncing off the lid - they are burying him - alive. He calls out, desperately trying to get their attention but nothing, he descends into the void, screaming ‘I am alive’.

In her paper, Annie Shapiro explains the stages after death as they are related in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This account appears in the Bardo Thodral and ‘describes the journey after death that everyone must invariably make'. It is uncannily similar, in part at least, to the story I wrote for the school magazine 30 years previous to reading the Bardo Thodral.

Many of the ‘stories’ in my head felt like ‘experiences’ but were treated as fantasies from a child, and then an adult, with an over-active imagination. According to most people all of this is just in my head. Sorry, but I think you are wrong, and this is why.

The 'shaman' is initially a 'sick' (this can be mental or physical or both) individual who experiences 'nervousness, extraordinary dreams, trance states' and displays a number of 'aberrant behaviours'. S(he) is 'innately disposed to extreme introversion which effect(s) a radical separation from others'. These people are 'tortured and dismembered by various demons and spirits' but they get help from 'spirits' as well. The shaman's passage through these ordeals and the knowledge s(he) gains from these experiences provide entry into the 'realm of the sacred' and can allow them to develop into a 'healer'.

The illness in the shaman is an 'illness-unto-death'. Illness and death are one and the same and are an initiation into a 'sacred reality'. Healing is only achieved when the initiate accepts death. 'The shamanic illness is nothing short of a recomposition and a restructuring of the entire body and spirit of the initiate. The illness is an entrance and as such is a radical disjunction with the world of ordinary reality'. Well that explains a lot.

In modern terminology a 'psychonaut' is one associated with 'neo-shamanic practices'. There are some however that make a distinction between 'mental/spiritual exploration' in the mystic and 'healing-oriented shamanic practice’.

So healer or mystic, or just plain nuts.....I'll leave it with you.

IMAGE: 'Two heads are Better than One', one of my early anatomical images from my stint at the Anatomy dept of UWA

REFERENCES: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Annie Shapiro (Pdf)

The Sacred Heritage: The Influence of Shamanism on Analytical Psychology, D. Sandner, S.H. Wong

Jung, C.G. 1973 (1942) Transformation Symbolism in the Mass. In Psychology and Religion: West and East, CW XI

Shamanic Reconstruction http://www.ecottage.co.za/page3.htm

TILTING AT WINDMILLS?

2011-01-30T19:22:00.004+08:00

Very recently a wonderful Noongar friend said to me: 'it's not culture that will save our people, it's education'. Having been an Aboriginal Art lecturer for 4 years now I have to say that I absolutely agree with her. This evening a piece of random ABC journalism about a young man in Africa demonstrated just why. It inspired me so much I had to share it.

William Kamkwamba had to drop out of school because his parents could not afford the minimal fees. But he had a passion for science and engineering, he wanted to learn so much he decided to educate himself. He went to the local school library every day. One of the books he checked out explained how to build a windmill to generate electricity and pump water.

At age 14, amidst poverty and famine, this Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family's home and irrigate vegetables. He had to scrounge the bits to make it, the footage showed him cutting, heating and flattening PVC pipe to make the blades. He wired these to bamboo sticks, built a rickety 12 meter tower from gum saplings, mounted an old bike upside down at the top and finished it with a few more bits. One evening William climbed the structure with a bulb in one hand to try it out.

'He.... told me that he did not know if his windmill would actually work....a lot of his family and friends thought that he was absolutely crazy....However, when the wind began to turn the rotor blades and the improvised windmill started to generate enough electricity to power the light bulbs and the radios, everyone realized that William had managed to create something they had never dreamed was possible'.

William's story does not end with his windmill….he was invited to speak at the prestigious TED Global Conference. From there, he was introduced to computers, the internet, google, and blogging. He is now studying to become an electrical engineer, taking 10 courses to make up for lost time.

CYBER-PSYCH

2011-01-28T17:55:00.010+08:00

In April, 2010 I blogged about a cyber-friend I had made in Steve Parker who is a psych. living in Alaska. Steve had a heart attack a while ago and decided to work through the aftermath by doing a series of drawings and journal entries that he initially made into a blog. His journey is really interesting, being a psych he has a lot of insight about what he is going through psychologically as well as physically. But he is also honest and real about it and isn't offering any convenient answers. He has been gathering information about the ability of dreams to 'predict' or alert us to impending illness and their role in the healing process.

Steve's images were uncannily, but unsurprisingly familiar to the many I have created over a period of many years. Basically because they were archetypal and we had both plundered the unconscious as source material - each in our own way. It was ironic that the closest thing I had found to my own journey was an account by a mature man half a world away in Alaska. I e-mailed him some time ago and we have maintained irregular contact.

Steve has been working towards getting his images and diary entries published in hard copy. He e-mailed me today to say that his book Heart Attack & Soul will be released to the public very soon and he has generously offered to send me a copy. It's a pity he and his wife can't deliver it in person and maybe we could go for a surf together!

I have also been following Steve's other sites which are listed on the side bar of this blog, one about Jung and the other about what dreams reveal to us.

THE LIGHT WITHIN THE SHADOW

2011-01-27T17:04:00.004+08:00

I liked this quote so much I pinched it from my cyber-friend Steve Parker's site. It makes me feel better about my own struggles and that maybe I am on the right path here. I just wish the 'rewards' would kick in about now and give me some relief, but in truth, things are slowly getting better.

'If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a (wo)man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day'.

“Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140

SEA LUST

2011-01-25T07:51:00.003+08:00

Sea-lust has been with me all of my life. As a skinny shivery child, turned blue while my mother taught swimming at Middleton Beach, frantically windmilling to shore when the shark siren sounded; as a teenager suspended above the sea-grass and limestone reef every weekend on the west coast; as an adult rocked unquietly into deep sleep on a yacht; fishing, working in the marina, diving for crabs; surfing the cold Southern Ocean; mesmerised by the glide of ocean dwelling albatross running before sea-storms in swell as high as a six-storey building - lost in its vastness.

You can’t spend that much time with the sea and not witness its dark side. Eventually it will reveal all of itself - it will pour into you and it will reveal you too.

When you are cursed or gifted with a soul that has no defence against the realised world; when there is no division between you and everything else, you feel too much. When you stand on the edge of the sea your eyes drink in its thrown-wide expanse, the whole ocean of clear cold pours into your heart. With your soul thus possessed there is no place to hide. The night-sea swells in each quiet space. It whispers the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.

You can long for it, be angry with it, be afraid. It is of no use. The sea is relentlessly wounded - pushed and thrown - like you, changed by everything, by nothing.

Be fluid, forgive, thrown together and let it feel you.

image: small oil study for thesis

TRUTH & DARKNESS

2011-01-23T12:20:00.003+08:00

I am now quite convinced that if I hadn't been able to filter the darkness of the Gap through the images I make that it may have completely overwhelmed me. I am not suggesting for a moment that I would have jumped into its gaping mouth as the two artists I knew did. I am much too much of a coward for that. It also doesn't mean that I have survived it unscathed or escaped it entirely.

In most ordinary lives darkness is feared, denied, rejected - and rightly so. It is given no place or reason to be yet continues to pop up everywhere, unwanted, misunderstood. My life, this life, has been one long initiation through darkness. For what purpose? Truth just can't be known, can't even be approached, without knowing the darkness - it's as simple as that. If you want to know the light of truth, you must also know its darkness. Not wanting to know the truth, being happily ignorant, is no protection either.

MIRRORING GOD

2011-01-13T09:53:00.004+08:00

It's all very well listening to the rhetoric, 'we are all Gods because we are God's reflection', but how can you actually understand that, really see that as an image. Previously I shared one model in the candle analogy but recently came across another which is quite profound, and puts all of us in the picture.

Henri Corbin was into Sufism and psychology. He says that we do not see God because, when we look into the mirror, we do not see the mirror but the object reflected in it.

'When you contemplate a form in it, you do not see the mirror, though you see forms and your own form.....you cannot at the same time look at the image which appears in the mirror and at the body of the mirror itself....God....is your mirror, that is, the mirror in which you contemplate your Self....' (Corbin in Avens, 110)

Makes sense doesn't it? Needless to say this is the esoteric philosophical end of depth psychology.

Image: early digitally manipulated photographs of mine of a rock pool at the Gap

Reference: Avens, The New Gnossis

THE SHAMAN, THE PSYCHOLOGIST & JESUS

2011-01-09T09:44:00.005+08:00

This is a self-portrait, an old watercolour drawing I did many years ago. I had been haunted by shark dreams throughout my childhood and into my twenties and this was one of the more benign ones. After living with the shark for many, many years I decided to let it eat me and the dreams stopped. The decision to give into the shark allowed the dream, and therefore my psychic relationship with it, to transform. Recently I realised that it was also a 'shamanic' experience.

From my own experience and reading Jung, Corbett and others there seems to be a major sticking point in the process of transformation. It is to do with the balance between the small self (ego-self) and the Self (God-self). Corbett talks about needing a strong sense of self to get us through the process, saying that if we don't have that we can become fractured and fall victim to the depressive and destructive aspects of the psyche. However, the process for me must include this dismantling in order to make me vulnerable and therefore open to the Self at all.

It is an extremely delicate balance because the other side of this is an identification with the Self that leads to what is known in psychology as 'inflation', which is why you get your 'guru' types and insistent but aggressive 'new-age' healers who are saving not only you but the entire world. This is also why psychiatric hospitals will often have one or two Jesus' floating around the wards, mostly well intentioned of course.

The other alternative is to take the experiential and shamanic path which leaves us walking a fine line between a 'death' (mental or physical) from which we might not recover or, on the other hand, a God-complex where power, though not necessarily wielded in a completely destructive way, must create blind spots.

This is where the shaman's path differs from that of the depth psychologist. I think Jung was both, he was an extraordinary man, but many who followed him have not had the shamanic experience first hand within which to contextualise the theoretical structure.

Just like Jesus actually. Jesus was a shaman, a wounded healer who suffered. Most of those who followed, though well meaning, had not had the direct experiences that he had. The shaman's path is not for everyone - it is difficult and dangerous and we don't choose it. It chooses us.

CATHEDRAL

2011-01-06T15:13:00.002+08:00

I can feel myself changing, calming to match the deep-wave-sines of the sea. Driving out to worship, hand on the wheel - BRINK - written there to remind me to pass on some information about a community youth art project.

Chatting with a friend in cyberspace about her recent fall - and painting. Falling and painting, we decide, go together. But not today, don't fall today. Some things stick like iron filings on a magnet, come from nowhere and you can't shake them off.

One by one the impatient drivers peel off behind me, going home. Getting towards dusk.

Breaking on the outer reef, already big - and coming up to 7 metres tomorrow. Westerly swell and wind.

I come to worship, to remind myself that I am not what I seem, to be terrorised, awe-struck, daring God to strike me for being in alien territory - for having the audacity to think I can understand anything at all.

THE TRUTH ABOUT EVE

2011-01-02T15:51:00.005+08:00

This is a really early painting of mine. It hasn't seen the light of day until now because it belonged to my father - the only reason I got it back was because he died last September. Most people think it shows the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, which is partly correct because I did have a passionate love affair with them for a while. However, the major influence for my early work as a painter was Botticelli.

When I paint mythological subjects they never turn out the way that mainstream culture would depict them. Somehow in my hands, as I am putting the image together, things get shifted around. Not necessarily in a compositional sense - that has been a more recent passion - but in the sense of the narrative and even the symbols and what they really convey. This painting is one perfect example.

I never bought the Old Testament myth about Eve - it really annoyed me. Something about blaming women, particularly this one who was the mother of humanity after all, for its downfall. It does fit well with the old Jewish patriarchal view of women though. I lived with a Jewish man for 3 years and he refused to have sex with me when I was menstruating. I know many non-Jewish men would feel the same but that's the sort of stuff some modern Jews still get into. Basically they are just afraid of women and their seductive powers because of course its never their fault when they get tempted either.

And the Serpent - well who wouldn't like a snake? They are gorgeous creatures and also much maligned. Interesting that the snake is a feminine symbol associated with the Goddess, despite Freud's attempts to appropriate anything pointy as being phallic. Anyway, I thought I could at least try and clear up some of the bad press that the feminine and the snake have endured over the last few thousand years.

Result: an erotic 'feminist' slant on the relationship between Eve and the Serpent. The way I see it, and you don't have to look very hard to find these symbolic references, Eve is actually like Prometheus and should be applauded. She had the guts to recognise that she and Adam were living in a Fools Paradise, in ignorance. She went against God to do it and that took more balls than Adam obviously had, who was probably just having a wank under a mango tree.

She took the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, like Prometheus who brought the fire of illumination to his people - except that he gets to be a hero and she gets to suffer every month and go without sex because she is unclean! I ask you - where would we be without Eve and the Serpent. Oh yeah, probably still sitting under the mango tree.

THE MAGICIAN'S ART

2010-12-30T18:30:00.014+08:00

'In Tibet, those who aspire to be great magicians.... (go) alone to a burial place or any wild site whose physical aspect awakens feelings of terror, especially one associated with a terrible legend or a recent tragic event'. (Elkins)

Isle of the Dead

'....a God originally experienced does not separate and distinguish good and evil....' (Rilke)

SUFFERING(?)

2010-12-23T10:28:00.002+08:00

There is a purpose to suffering. It is a consequence of the Self, the image of God in hu(man), trying to incarnate within us. This presupposes (as I do) that the purpose for human existence is the evolution of consciousness. We incarnate into matter in order to undertake this journey.

Of course most of us avoid suffering and would like to eradicate it from our lives entirely. I am no exception. Some of us with great empathy also get really distressed at the suffering of others. But ultimately we should not and cannot avert our eyes or escape it. It is a consequence of being human in the first place.

Jungian, archetypal and transpersonal psychology advocate working through suffering, paying attention to the 'images' that present themselves - not to become attached to them but to understand what they are telling us. I have worked with images in this way most of my life. I didn't always understand why I was doing it or what the images meant.

Most Eastern systems head straight for nirvana, freedom from suffering simply because, like 'reality', even happiness is illusory. An image is just an image - this is true - but then nothing else is real either, or rather - everything is not-real and real at the same time.

I don't accept what I haven't experienced but having experienced this I have come to accept that the Void is our true nature, just as the Buddhists and Existentialists tell us. I am as sure about that as I can be sure about anything. Reality is created from nothing, from the Void, from what? Light? Energy? Spirit? I don't really know. I do understand now why 'Godhead' is not the same as 'God' - God is our image of the Godhead, the Void, made visible so we can see it. We can't see a void because it is a 'no-thing'.

Quantum physics confirms that matter spontaneously foams forth into existence in and from a vacuum, a void - it's the same phenomenon - science has finally caught up. Mainstream culture hasn't.

In my understanding the Collective Unconscious is what the East calls the Godhead, and the Self is the image of God reflected in us. The Self (with a capital) incarnates into 'matter', the self, us. The psyche, the soul, is the go-between and helps us become fully conscious. Significantly though, the Self has a dark aspect that has to be integrated for this to happen. Suffering reveals the darkness and we struggle to at first recognise, then reconcile, integrate and transform it in our own psyches. This means that rather than suffering being a sign that we are doing something wrong, we might be doing something right. It is comforting to think that within our 'woundedness, our neurosis, lies the numinosum' because suffering then has a meaningful role in our lives. (Jung)

So continues the great cycle, from Spirit to matter and back again, and all the while never separate.

Note: this is my personal view, though it is one informed by a lifetime of enquiry and study. I have relied heavily on Jung, Corbett's The Religious Function of the Psyche, Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, as well as numerous other sources and most importantly my images and personal experience.

SOLSTICE

2010-12-22T07:24:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Joan Campbell for letting me post her Solstice image.