Greetings from the Night Garden

A strange thing happened while I was writing this post, and it's never happened before since I've started the blog. I had most of the post written and was in editing mode when I noticed that the first two thirds of my essay had disappeared. Ouch! Horror! Fire! Calamity! No amount of hitting the back button has brought it back, so I have to conclude that all that Beautifully Constructed Prose is gone for good. I don't know exactly what happened, but of course word processors can be tricky. Trickster-y, too.

I was writing about the mysterious dark thing I thought I saw outside my window at work a week or so ago. Something fluttered by, and I only caught it out of the corner of my eye. I kept watching for it all week and kept seeing other things -- a leaf one day, a moth the next -- but I never saw what I thought I had seen the first time. Though only half-glimpsed, it had seemed bigger, darker, and more exotic somehow than a moth, like a creature from a night garden. What I really thought I had seen was a large black butterfly.

Since the butterfly is a symbol of psyche, and a black one carries implications of the shadow, the undeveloped part of our being that holds so much potential, this was a sighting guaranteed to spark the imagination of a Jungian. It might not be as exciting as the scarab beetle that bumped against the window of Jung's consulting room right after his client had dreamed about just such a beetle, but it was a break in the routine all the same. I was sitting there working, probably looking at news databases in Lexis-Nexis or doing something equally prosaic, when all of a sudden this creature appeared, hovering just on the edge of my vision and disappearing before I could get a good look.

But had I really seen it or had I seen something else, like that humble brown moth I spotted a few days later, and had my imagination turned it into something grander? That was the question.

I had somehow connected this to Jungian psychology, the quaternity, and the three men who appeared in my dream last night and dumped a yellow couch in my living room, but all of that has disappeared into the ether of Blogger's text editor. So maybe I should just say what actually happened.

On Friday afternoon, I was finishing up loose ends at my desk when something flew by my window, and I was quick enough to get a good look this time. It was a black butterfly, and an unusually large one, with big bold wings. I'm not sure where it came from, or even if it's the same one I saw a week ago. Now, the practical, rational side of me says, OK, a butterfly, you've seen one like it in the Arboretum. That's true. But my poetic side likes the contrast of midnight wings and bright sunlight, and the fact that it was flying so far from the ground.

Dessert and Metaphysics

Yesterday was lazy. I got very little reading done, even though I took a book with me when I went out to lunch. I was what you might call "out of sorts"; either that, or that Peanut Butter Honey Amaretto gelato did me in for the day. I came home and thought I'd lie down for a while and read about postmodernism. What happened was that I lay down and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was after 1 a.m., and I'd been dreaming.

Today, I buckled down and finished the chapter that's been holding me hostage for several days. In all honesty, not only is the material dense, but I also have a problem with the loss of the self since I'm kind of attached to my "self." The author of my book says that the way to deal with the "death of God" is to keep marching on until you arrive at a type of nihilism that is ultimately affirmative but causes you to lose the death grip you had on your sense of self. You lose the polar opposites of not only self and other, but also of life and death, and this leads to a strange sort of happiness (at least for philosophers). 

That's great, but on a hot July afternoon with an "everybody's out of town feeling," it's a little tough to hear that you're probably not even who you think you are. 

To think that the core of your being is in some sense quite insubstantial is not only disorienting, but it also goes against the way I experience myself. But as I've started thinking about the connection between Buddhism and this idea of the loss of the self, the whole collapse of inner/outer takes on a certain beauty.

In Old Path White Clouds, the life of Buddha by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha explains the principle of interpenetration (and the loss of the self) to his follower, Ananda, using the example of an empty bowl. Although the bowl contains nothing (except air!), the Buddha points out the presence in it of all the elements -- earth, fire, water, and air, as well as the hands and the skill of the potter -- that came together to make it. So, appearances to the contrary, the bowl is not an independent thing in itself, but the nexus of all these things. In the same way, I'm not just myself, separately and alone, but a dynamic matrix of many different forces that have come together in a specific place and time. 

Actually, this is comforting in certain ways. In some sense, we're never as alone as we think we are. I'm not just alone in my living room, typing this in tranquillity; I'm composed of long-dead stars that once breathed fire and now live in me: "The world in a grain of sand," as William Blake said. It's beautiful and profound, but I still like the idea of my uniqueness and the solidity of certain things. Call me stubborn, but I don't want to dissolve into nirvana. I'd rather stay here and try another gelato.

Home Before Dark

I drove back from Chicago today, a trip of about six and half hours, not counting stops. I had never driven there before and wouldn't be anxious to do it again, since it involved a complex chain of interstates beginning with I-75 and ending with I-290, a black hole of a tollbooth line, numerous construction zones, people losing their luggage in and by the road, and a weird little maneuver through a rusty corner of Gary, Indiana, that probably saved time but was not at all scenic. Yes, it sure sounds like a labyrinth.

Chicago itself was nice. I spent the weekend seeing the sights of Oak Park, listening to bands at a music festival, and visiting a Pacifica friend who lives on the North Shore. All of the neighborhoods I saw in the suburbs were decked out in their finest red, white, and blue, and the atmosphere was very festive. Chicago is a very proud and patriotic town.

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday touring the neighborhood around Frank Lloyd Wright's house and studio in Oak Park. Since I was on vacation, I had decided not to worry about looking for labyrinths (ha, ha), but lo, I was walking back toward Chicago Street after seeing the Unity Temple when I ran smack into a labyrinth on the grounds of a church. I went back later to walk it, and it was different from most other labyrinths I've seen because the path was made of crushed gravel that made a nice crunch under your feet. You could hear the sound of your own progress.

I drove out to visit my friend last night, and we ended up on her back deck, talking, comparing notes on our research, and just laughing. It's good to stay connected with other people doing the dissertation because the process does get lonely sometimes. You can certainly get lost in it.

Driving back home this afternoon, I realized that MapQuest had become my Ariadne's thread. I also discovered that you can have a thread and still get lost, as I did, trying to get back on I-90 East. I never meant to see the South Side, but I did -- at least a little piece of it. Going back was supposed to be the same as going in, but parts of the route didn't look familiar at all, maybe because there weren't a lot of memorable landmarks. After all that flatness, it was a relief to get to the rolling hills of southern Indiana with its dips and valleys mellowed by the afternoon light. Once I got back on I-275, I was on familiar ground again. After that, I knew my way.

Next time I go to Chicago, I think I'll fly. Even Daedalus didn't mind using wings to escape the labyrinth he had built, and I think the pilots can usually be trusted not to fly too close to the sun.

Escaping the Jaws of Saturn

I've been watching a DVD of a seminar James Hillman gave earlier this spring on the archetypes of the senex and the puer. I hadn't considered it before, but while listening to him speak, it occurred to me that they have a lot to do with the process of writing.

Hillman describes the puer as the spirit of spontaneity, creativity, and risk. The puer is a youthful figure, light on his feet and quick-moving. He has a certain heedlessness about him, maybe even a recklessness. He might be personified by Hermes, the stealer of Apollo's cattle, who manages to talk his way out trouble, charm the other gods, and invent the lyre all in one go.

The senex, on the other hand, is a somber figure associated with age and experience. He is steady, deliberate, rational, authoritative, and concerned with measuring and ordering things. His personification is Apollo, or -- according to Hillman -- Saturn, a somewhat cold and gloomy god, whose heaviness is in sharp contrast to the light-heartedness of the puer. (Saturn is also noteworthy for eating his children.)

Puer and senex characteristics are present in both men and women, at all times of life. They are more like patterns or types of energy than rigid representations of stages of life, though it is possible to see certain correspondences between puer and senex and the respective concerns of youth and old age. I'm wondering if they can also be related to the differences between right-brain and left-brain thinking.

Writing is a skill that requires the use of both sides of the brain, though not necessarily at the same time. When I write, the part I really like is playing with the words and ideas until they come out right. I might have a hunch about something that isn't substantial at all until I write it down, so I'm actually writing to figure out what I think. Writing itself is the way of discovery.

The other aspect of writing is editing, tidying up, and citation-checking, the part where you run the spell-checker and hunt for unmatched quotation marks. I am actually very good at this; I once worked as a copy editor and often had other people wanting me to proofread their work -- but I dislike it. I consider it the necessary finishing stage in writing and am meticulous about doing it but do not consider it fun.

I never thought of myself as a puer, but now I realize that that is exactly what I am when I'm engaged in the creative, exploratory part of writing. This is all risk-taking and not knowing if something's going to fly or not; it requires looseness and willingness to leap without seeing a net. The senex comes in later with the careful, deliberate editing, the consultations with the MLA style book, and the attention to structure and the length of paragraphs, things that usually don't occur to me until the end.

The puer-senex dimension actually explains a lot of things, not just writing. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said that I had more senex in me. I was usually the careful, reasonable, responsible one, always double-checking my work and being thoughtful about the way I approached things. I am still like that. But there was a whole other side of me trying to get out, which explains why I was always scribbling poetry at Starbucks, daydreaming, and driving around without knowing where I wanted to go. I was restless, but I tried to think I wasn't. What was really happening was that my senex was sitting on my puer and trying to eat him. My puer finally fought back and took such a flying leap that he landed on the other side of the country in graduate school.

I'm thinking about the wistful little boy from my dream, the one I wrote about in my first blog post in January. I think he's important on a lot of different levels, and I'm just now recognizing him as an infant puer. He showed up in another dream later on but was bigger and stronger and didn't seem quite so in need of protection. I didn't know I had him in me, but he did.

Practical Jokes from the Universe

Yesterday was really pretty nice. I woke up to the sound of rain and distant thunder, and it felt so cozy that I stayed in bed listening until I fell asleep again and woke up rested an hour or so later. The rest was a typical Saturday: yoga, lunch, writing, and shopping for chocolate and groceries. I even got a pedicure at the little nail spa run by that nice family and emerged with shiny toenails in a lovely shade that one of the little girls picked out for me. I was feeling pretty good after all that.

So I have no explanation for what happened today. I was planning to get some things done at home and then go to a movie, but it didn't turn out like that. It all started when I decided to wash a couple of loads of laundry. I had taken one load to the laundry room and was on my way back for the second one when I put out my hand to type in the security code on the front door and suddenly could not remember it. I have been typing this code in every day for 10 years, usually without thinking about it, but suddenly it was just gone. I could remember the first digit and the last but not the middle part.

This had happened once or twice before but not in a long time. I thought at first that it would come back to me if I waited a minute or so, but it didn't. I typed in what I thought was the right code several times, to no avail. Then I became convinced that I was just off by a single digit, so I tried various combinations without getting anywhere. Fifteen minutes went by and I was still locked out, so I decided to go back to the laundry room, wait for the washer to stop, and put the clothes in the dryer. Not thinking about it for a few minutes would almost certainly make the code come back to me, or so I thought.

I did all this and came back, but I still couldn't remember. By now, I was feeling less and less certain I knew what it was. I thought of ringing a neighbor's doorbell and just saying I'd forgotten it, but aside from feeling silly I was also reluctant to disturb someone on Sunday morning. After another frustrating quarter hour or so, someone came by and I followed them in. I was now back in my apartment but still had no clue, so I felt almost as trapped inside as I had outside. I knew I had the code written on a piece of paper at one time, but after searching the kitchen drawer, I had to admit that the piece of paper was probably long gone.

I decided to wedge something in the side door so I could go out and come back, praying that no one would remove it before I had a chance to throw my second load in. I finally ate a late breakfast, then went over to put my load in the dryer. I was so rattled that I didn't realize until I closed the dryer door that I didn't know where my quarters were. I thought I had the little envelope in my hand when I went to the laundry room, but they were nowhere in sight. I went back to my apartment and looked all over.

Now I was missing the means to get into my building as well as the means to dry a sopping wet load of sheets and towels. It wasn't quite as bad as the Fellowship of the Ring trying to figure out the password to get into Moria (no sinister gurgling lake at my back or ravening wolves), but there is something disquieting about being locked out of your home. I started to feel strange hanging around the entrance, as if I shouldn't be there. The only bright spot was that I kept noticing my pedicure and thinking that at least my nails looked great. 

I went back to the laundry room to hunt around for those darn quarters. If I could at least get the dryer going, that would be something . . . and sure enough, this time, I started moving things in the dryer and found the folded envelope at the bottom. I had thrown it in along with the load.

Having solved that mystery, I thought I would feel better if I took a shower and changed clothes. After that, the last load was dry, so I brought everything back, made up the bed, and put everything else away. It was now mid-afternoon, and I was still codeless (and clueless), but I decided I wouldn't be a prisoner in my own apartment and would go about my business in the hope that the code would reappear in my memory by the time I got back. 

As it happened, a young man from my building was coming out as I was standing at the door, gazing at the lock as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. I asked him, "What is our code?" and he told me what it was, saying he hoped they hadn't changed it. I said "No, I'm just typing it in wrong" . . . and then I tried it, and it worked. Once he said it, it sounded right, but I'm not sure when I would have remembered it on my own. It was like I had gone on a trip and been away so long that I had forgotten where I left my key. Greatly relieved, I went out to the car to run my errands -- but not before writing the code down.

Perhaps Jung would say there are few accidents. I wouldn't say that everything that happens has a deeper meaning, but it's hard not to muse over such an odd occurrence. I was writing about mazes yesterday afternoon, and the sense of being lost; the experience of being locked out was a lot like ending up in a blind alley. I won't say that this was a case of unconsciously acting out a subject I've been preoccupied with, but that's one possibility. Stranger things have happened.

Deja Vu All Over Again

I attended a conference this weekend at my school. It was the first time I had stayed at Ladera, our second campus, since my first summer as a myth studies student. I drove up Thursday from L.A., met a friend for dinner in Carpinteria, and walked down to the beach for a stroll under the stars. We arrived at the campus in the dark, just like I did the first time I stayed there. I drove myself this time and was proud of being able to negotiate the winding, hilly lanes that had seemed so bewildering a few years ago.

By some quirk, my classmate had the same room in the residence hall that she had the first time through; I was still next door to her, but on the opposite side, which resulted in a very strange feeling of deja vu. It was one of those instances where time does a loop and carries you back, like a labyrinth that circles you around to the same spot from a different vantage point.

This circumstance invited a meditation on where we are now compared to where we were. I know that I listened to the conference presenters with a practiced ear, better able to evaluate both content and form, on the other side of doing multiple presentations of my own as a student. I talked to a filmmaker whose film I had seen years ago in my home town, never dreaming I would ever meet her, much less be able to talk to her seriously about my own interest in film. I played with graphite pencils, Play Doh, and crayons in the art loft, no longer so afraid of feeling silly and more willing to just see what would happen. I attended an early morning session in which people shared their nighttime dreams in what was called a Social Dreaming Matrix. (Hey, why not? -- this is California.)

I also noticed that the old Jesuit residence hall didn't seem quite as sinister at night, that the mountains are still stunning, whether viewed sharp-edged against the light or enshrouded in Arthurian mists, and that the walk up to the pretty little Vedanta temple is as steep as it ever was.

I thought the highlight of the weekend would be the pre-conference workshop on myth and the movies, until I was astounded by a lecture yesterday morning on Jung, imagination, and social consciousness. The presenter, Mary Watkins, explained the importance of bringing individuation into the wider world. A truly individuated person, she said, is an advocate for human rights and the need to heal divisions between people and countries. I flashed back to the first presentations I heard as a prospective student and remembered how exciting it was to hear someone talk about the ways depth psychology could help make a better world. Maybe that will give me a touchstone to steer by as I find my way through the labyrinth of my own research.

It's never too late to be surprised. I was heading down the hill yesterday, on my way back to L.A., with the satellite radio station cranked up in my rental car and '50s music rocking, when I realized, for the first time in four years, that the name of the road I was on -- Toro Canyon Road -- means "Canyon of the Bull." I have seen the minotaur in many places but overlooked his presence on this road until now. Of course, now I know that not only can you find him everywhere, but that he's more complicated than I used to think he was.

Adventures with Hestia

This morning I planned to do some housework that I thought would take about an hour. Instead, it turned into a marathon cleaning session lasting about three hours. Even though it threw a wrench into other plans I had for the day, it was great to get so much done. It didn't sound like a lot -- dusting, mopping the floors, cleaning the bathroom -- but it somehow turned into a cleaning odyssey.

It started yesterday when I threw away the carpet in my hallway that I've had since moving in here. It was hard to keep clean and had gotten a lot of wear and tear, and I finally decided to let it go. It was so nice to see the hardwood floor afterwards, and the hall seemed so much more spacious, that it encouraged me to start cleaning and clearing on a wider scale. This morning, I decided to dust the furniture before breakfast, and I ended up clearing away some long-term clutter from my bookshelves right off the bat.

I was moving things out of the way before mopping the kitchen and decided to tackle the accordion file containing some of my mother's papers. This was kind of a big deal because I've had it since before she died, and it's been in the kitchen for several years. I felt much the same way about it that I did about the papers, clippings, photos, and memorabilia my father gave me before he died. It was a long time before I had the stamina to go through any of it. Today, once I started going through the file, I saw that it was going to be much easier than I thought. It contained mostly monthly statements for utilities, credit cards, and insurance payments and was pretty dry as far as contents go. An object that had assumed a heaviness out of all proportion to its size was dispatched in under 20 minutes.

When I was dust-mopping my room, I encountered a flat box that's been under the chest of drawers for years. Now I was really in the mood to jettison things, so I hauled it out and looked inside: it was mostly paperwork and manuals for a computer I don't even own anymore. I also found a dream journal I was keeping a few years ago and a couple of other items worth saving, so I took those out and made another trip to the dumpster. It felt so good to be getting rid of things that I was tempted to start going through my closet. But since it was getting on toward mid-afternoon by then, I decided that could wait for another day.

After finishing the floors, I scrubbed the bathtub and the sink. Then I jumped in the shower to wash all the dust off and was surprised how much lighter and more relaxed I felt when I got out. Instead of feeling annoyed that the housework had taken so long and prevented me from getting into the shower until after 2 o'clock, I felt like I had just had a spa treatment.

I had planned to do some writing, but by the time I got dressed and ate lunch, it seemed better to go out. It was beautiful outside; rain earlier in the day had washed the air clean, and there was a pleasant breeze. I don't know if it was feeling virtuous from all the housework, the fact that I was wearing my denim shorts, the brilliant green of the summer lawns in the light, or just what it was, but I felt unencumbered, the way I remember feeling when I was about nine. It seemed impossible that I could actually be an adult with responsibilities; it felt like school had just let out.

The cleaning and clearing ritual must have jarred something loose and created more space; I seem to have swept something else out the door besides dust and cobwebs. Hestia is an unassuming goddess, but a goddess is still a goddess. It's never wise to underestimate even a modest goddess.