It was the mid-seventies. I had just become a Jungian analyst. We lived in Santa Monica. People in the neighborhood were well known or would be one day. Among several people I got to meet and know, one was Frank Gehry. He was an architect and graduated from the USC School of Architecture a couple of years before I began my studies at USC. I would encounter him from time to time in my walks around the area. He lived a couple of blocks away. In 1978, I think it was, he began an extraordinary renovation of his home. I believe this was his first “deconstructionist” project. His renovations caused an uproar. He would leave the interior of walls exposed, ducts could be seen, a lot of what is usual unseen and hidden became fore fronted and visible. It was about this time that C. G. Society in Los Angeles, where I was Director of Training, proposed building a building to house the Society, the Institute, and the Analytical Psychology Club. I was on the committee and recommended Frank Gehry as a designer. Frank met with all the members and the clash between members was astonishing. No agreement could be reached and so the idea of Frank designing a building for the group was abandoned. Frank has become one of the most famous and rewarded architects of the modern period. His work is extraordinary, and I encourage you to explore it. You can see his philosophy at work, for the hidden to be seen, for the straight and linear to come alive with movement. An extraordinary person to be sure. Here are some examples.

Thought for the Day
Wednesday, May 14, 2025

One of the first things to understand about the word olmelleon is that it is not to be judged by it’s absence from any known language or dictionary. It is not there at all. This is because the other is speaking a new language. This illustrates that the psyche (the “other” as I call it) is originating a new language, as it also originates new myths, new stories. I take this to be a word that applies in some way to the conflagration my dream referred to. When I experience a new word like this, the first thing I do is to close my eyes and repeat the word out loud until “something” happens. As I noted last week, “seeing with the eyes closed” is the literal meaning of the word “mystery.” Doing this (closing the eyes) is one way into the mystery the word presents. Repeating the word becomes a chant, a kind of mantra. Speaking this way with the eyes closed has all the qualities of a ritual and begins to excite the deeper psyche. One of my experiences in doing this brought an image of smoke on a distant horizon, billowing clouds of dark smoke, a major blaze to be sure. This image presented itself autonomously and without any conscious effort on my part. Another experience produced an image of smoke as well as flames—closer this time. A third time, the image was looking out over a fire ravaged area completely engulfed in flame and smoke over a vast area. When I was saying the word out loud, I would say it in “threes.” This reflects my habitual use of the “Rue of Three” Whenever I can when faced with the unknown, uncertainty, or doubt. It is one way into holding Keats’ negative capability. So, doing the experience with the eyes closed and saying the word olmelleon led to three images. My sense is that images were providing the “meaning” of the new and created word. It might be synonymous with the word “conflagration” that the dream referred to. But the important thing I feel is that this word means more than just the destruction of a conflagration. It’s pointing to something far more destructive, and I believe it is pointing to what is transpiring now on our way to the future. I take it now as the name of what is happening culturally, politically, economically and socially: utter destruction. Olmelleon is what it is. It is, I believe, one aspect of the sixth extinction manifesting on many levels. What is happening has never happened before. Hence, a new word, perhaps a new language is brewing.

Saturday Memory
May 3, 2025

My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Brand, was a stickler for using English correctly. She taught us with a fierce passion, as if speaking English without error was of supreme importance. Of course, most of us kids thought it was something to joke about. I don’t remember any of the jokes, but I remember what Mrs. Brand did when we recited something and made an error. She always carried a yard stick, and when the error offended her ears, she would cry out, “Murdering the King’s English,” and she would crash the yard stick hard on a nearby desk. No matter how often it happened (which was a lot), it was always a shock. To this day, I can hear her and the crashing ruler, and I cannot proofread anything without her voice in my head.

Thought for the Day
Wednesday, May 7, 2025

The dream that is the impetus for “thought for the day,” referred to the present world situation as a conflagration. The intensity of the word in the dream was striking and I must not ignore it. The word comes from the Latin word conflagratio. The con here is meant to intensify the word flagratio which means “to burn,” “to blaze,” “to glow.” So, the word itself carries the feeling of intensity that I felt in the dream. My sense is that intensity not only describes the degree of the inferno we are facing, but argues I believe for the urgency of attention this requires.

Of course, what we are seeing is literal conflagrations at work in climate change, but it may be imagined that the degree of denial that is being exhibited may itself be a form of destructive fire. When so much of reality and truth is subject to denial, then everything becomes fuel for the fires. Everything losses stability. All values become subject to the flames.

One thing that seems to escape the ravages of the fires is dreams. Dreams seem to have a kind of “immunity” from being destroyed. Part of this may be the simple fact that so little attention is ever given to dreams in the halls of power or anywhere else for that matter. So, what do dreams have to say about the conflagration? Some dreams seem to be so personal in nature that they are likely to be about one’s conscious and unconscious relation to what is happing in the world. But other dreams have little to do with the personal. These dreams come from a dream source I call “the other.” These dreams in particular have to do with the future and they have little to do with one’s conscious or unconscious intentions. It is these dreams that we learn what the creative other is proposing in relation to the conflagration. These dreams are a source for what cannot be derived either from history or from conscious and rational states. These dreams will convey not ready mades that we understand and can explain, but highly original forms that we may not understand at all.

What I am seeing in my own dreams and those of others, is the advent of something “new” and “unique.” These dreams will strike the dreamer as “odd” and “strange.” For example, I recently had a dream that featured only a word. It was not a voice dream, nor was there any image. I simply felt the “presence” of this word and it was striking. I could not deny the importance of this and it was most certainly way beyond anything personal. The word was olmelleon. This word will not be found in any dictionary or in any language. It carries the sense of “new” an “unique” I mentioned earlier. It stumps AI. However, AI adds an interesting observation: “words without literal meaning that come in dreams can be very important, if for no other reason than the mystery they embody.” The word carries a sense of mystery for sure and one are “stumped” trying to “figure it out.” The deep sense of the meaning of mystery is “seeing with the eyes closed.” So that is how this word must be approached.

Next Wednesday, I’ll describe my work in seeing olmelleon with my eyes closed and what this has to do with the conflagration sweeping the world.

Russ

Thought for the Day
Sunday, May 4, 2025

A dream has prompted me to post a “thought for the day” concerning dreams and the current “conflagration” of the world. In the dream, the world conflagration was intense and could not be doubted. From the perspective of the dream source (which I call “the Other”), the world is on fire and dreams have something to say about this. According to the dream, these posts are to be made on Wednesday mornings. So, come Wednesday, May 7, 2025, watch for the first of these dream-directed posts.

Russ

Saturday Memory
May 3, 2025

I was on a hunting trip with my dad. It was my first. He had bought me a .22 rifle. I think I was about 10 years old. Nothing much happened for quite a while as we tramped around looking for things to shoot. Then, on the path in front of me, I spotted a rabbit. It was sitting upright and seemed frozen to the spot. My dad said to go for it. I looked through the scope and yep, the rabbit was quite still. So, I aimed, pulled the trigger and shot at the rabbit. As I looked at the scope, I could see I had shot the rabbit through the ear. It was still frozen in place. But I was stunned by what I had done. I handed the rifle to my dad and said, “I can’t do this.” When I looked again down the path, the rabbit was gone. My shooting days were over.

After dropping Michael off at Sorley’s sister, I went to Sorley's home. He greeted me with a single single-malt, and we sat down in his study together, tasting the treat with eyes closed. “What’s your favorite poem?” he asked. “The Raven,” I replied. “It’s because I memorized it in 8th grade and it’s in my bones.” “Memory is the best home for poems,” was his response. The meeting started at eight and went on well past midnight. I asked him if his dreams played any part in the making of his poems. “Oh, yes, many, yes, many. Dreams are the best source.” He continued: “sometimes, it’s just a word in a dream that catches me. Sometimes, a phrase, Sometimes, even a whole line. And, once in a while, several lines, perhaps even a whole poem. How about you?” “The same, I said. I always experience these as gifts.” “Oh, yes, gifts indeed. That’s why the only response that meets the occasion is to put one’s heart into the making. The heart is the thing. Having the full poem in memory, by heart.” The conversation was like this the whole time, and it was unforgettable.

That night, I dreamed of a basement workshop. In it was an old hand press. In the dream I understood it was to be mine and I was to print a book called Moonstone.

I never did print that book. It is one of my deep regrets. But I did acquire a Washinton hand press. It was from the Cincinnati Museum of Science and Industry. It had been slightly damaged in a fire and I was able to get it at a reasonable cost. My wife and I hand printed three books on it using handset type and handmade paper and hand binding. Our first book won the Letterpress Prize for the Best Handmade Book printed in the Pacific Northwest in 1982. [My apologies; my trip to Scotland when I met with Sorley was in 1980, not 1992.]

Saturday Memory
April 19, 2025

On a trip to Scotland in 1992, I had arranged to meet one evening with the great Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean. My son Michael was with me, and I was trying to find someone to sit him while I met with Sorley. The person in charge of where we were staying recommended someone and gave me the address. I took Michael there and had a brief conversation with the woman I I was referred to. In the course of the conversation, she asked me where I would be and I told her I would be meeting with Sorley MacLean. I reached for my notebook to give her his phone number, and she said, “Oh, no need, Russell. Sorley is my brother.”

I have learned over the years that such synchronicities are often the “portals” to important experiences. This was certainly that. Next Saturday, I will tell of my experience with Sorley MacLean, one of the most important experiences of my life.

Saturday Memory
April 12, 2025

I was staying at Dunvegan Castle, on the Isle of Skye. It was July 1992. I was the representative of the United States at the Dunvegan Arts Festival. What I am remembering today, is a dream I had one night. In the dream, I was in the great hall. On the walls were huge tapestries and, in the center, an enormous rectangular table. As I looked intently at one of the tapestries, I could see it contained historical images of battles and events of importance. Then the figures began to move and as I watched, the whole tapestry zoomed in and what I saw was enormous heads of various figures, some seeming like Vikings. As I focused on each head as it rotated into view, I could tell it was speaking, if not shouting, but I could hear nothing. When I woke from those images, I was still asleep, but I found myself standing looking out at the bedroom window, looking down at the field where the Highland Cows were. The window was open. I could barely make out the cows sleeping as it was still dark. I was telling them about what I had seen as I came fully awake.

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