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The Absence of Love
from Dreams, Bones, & the Future: Queries & Speculations by Russell Lockhart and Paco Mitchell

PM: Earlier you referred to the “pathology of orthodoxy,” which sounds like one of those statements that could have gotten you burned at the stake as a heretic alongside Jung, or at least put under house arrest with Galileo. The forces of orthodoxy do not take criticism kindly, having for centuries presumed to define what is good and acceptable for all. But now you are saying that the spread of orthodoxy into every corner of our lives and every form of society, amounts to an epidemic disease, and that narcissism is one of its primary qualities. Can you elaborate on that viewpoint?

RL: At bottom, narcissism rejects love and if love is rejected, it’s always power and “power over” that fills the void. Orthodoxy is afraid of love. So, in demanding conformity, whether bluntly or subtly, the principle of exclusion becomes dominant. One of the chief mechanisms of conformity is fear, and orthodoxy is always operating both out of fear and using fear. Love cannot thrive in an atmosphere of fear, but power relishes it. Eros always goes deepest on the personal level and goes to precincts power cannot know, because power always adheres Velcro-like to “principles” over people. So, I see narcissism’s rejection of love and Eros as the fundamental psychology of orthodoxy. And this is where the tipping point from orthodoxy to tyranny, from fundamentalism to fascism, becomes inevitable. It is the absence and rejection of love that lies at the root of so much of our modern character as a culture.

A new poem from blog member Mike Daniel

A Hidden Life

In every land
In every person
There is a still place
Of quiet knowing
Where our machines
Have not yet come
Imagine-a valley, a dale
Alive
Plants, animals, insects
Are
Humbly living together
In harmony
Sunset, death day
Dust motes float
Lazily spinning
Flashing light, now dark
Waiting in still air
Dusk's veil spreads
Slowly, silently
Can you see it?
Feel it?
Ahead of the dark tide
Subtle light flickers
Moving from leaf to leaf
Tree to tree
Light dances, plays
In her wave
Gliding, enlivening, beauty
Caressing delicate
Life
Wind out for an
Evening ramble
Weaves with light
Desiring together
Crossing dark mirror loche
All woven
Sparkling, faceted interconnection
Wind whispers to light
Enough?
Surprising wind
Light dives down
Deep, timeless waiting
Otherness arises
Bubbles
Oh, delightful
Wind sighs

Some poems are "frictional," and give off sparks. These sparks can ignite something in you. Let them in. Always remember to speak the poem aloud so your ears can participate. The words enter the ear's vestibule and yes you see Vesta in the naming, none other than the hearth goddess. She keeps the fire going, the fire that must never go out, ignis inextinctus. Sparks, indeed!

A new member of the blog, Daniel Blake, offers these sparks.

Under the mound of my belly, the occidental is ended

God awful Sun-days

Going all sideways,

Gone asunder suddenly;

Gasping after salaries.

Gary asked somebody

Going around sounding,

Garbling about summertime

"Got any spare 

gillyform-aero-space-suits

going?" And so

Gary and Saz,

Giggling about stardust,

Got away swiftly

Gaia's almost shifted

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!

Bear only yesterday scattered

Beady Owl's yarrow stalks...

Bundling, orating, yelling skyward,

Bear overwatches your secret

Beehive. Ominous, you say?

But only your splitside 

Boxed off your shine.

Bring out your seafaring,

Bellybusting overalls, young soldiers.

Look up, nighttime arrives.

In response to my "poetry invited post, blog member Estela Bourque has offered up a poem expressing what many are feeling, what many are questioning. There are no sure-footed answers yet, but immersing oneself in these questions and others swirling about, is something worth doing.

A State of Disbelief

These days I live in a

State of disbelief

As thousands of people succumb

To an invisible force and

 Structures crumble in submission.

There is no sense to be made

Of this foe that has arrived

On the doorstep of humans

Unwelcome in its vengeance.

Where has this enemy come from?

Some speculate that it escaped from a lab

Others say it is conspiracy borne

Still others say it is Nature’s revenge

Against the exploitation of life by humans.

It has arrived during a dark time on Earth

When humans no longer live in harmony

With Nature or the Cosmos

But instead have gouged and destroyed

The land and habitat of animals

In pursuit of wealth and power.

Now the search is on for an antidote

A vaccine that will eradicate the virus

And once again restore the power of

Humans over Nature without

A deeper lesson being learned.

What is the lesson?

That humans cannot control life

And continue to exploit it

For their benefit alone

Instead they need to cherish the

Gifts bestowed upon us all

With love, care and gratitude.

These days I wonder . . .

Where is the wisdom that will

Lead us back to the Holy Grail.

Poetry in times of duress has the capacity to express more directly than what is possible in prose. This is because, in extremity, the veil between the conscious and unconscious mind becomes porous making the flow of deeper images more available than is typical when the rational functions are dominant. Giving oneself over to this flow of images informs poetic expression more readily because, as Joan Baez said of Leonard Cohen's songs, "they do not have to make sense."

We are in a time of extremity and duress at most every level. This is a good time, then, to try and catch that strange and often haunting influx of images coming from deeper waters and put those images into form, into poetry. This is not about good poem/bad poem. This is about hearing the images. This is why I encourage reading the poem aloud, so it gets into your ears and not just your eyes. Hearing excites the older brain more than seeing does. And it is re-connecting with our older brain functions that will be most helpful in the current time, those ways of being where our ancient ancestors spent most of their time.

So, I encourage you to send in your poems. Here is a recent offering from blog member Mike Daniel.

Little Bitty Pretty One (read while playing Thurston Harris song)

Outside known space

Separate

Did our eyes say

Something very old

Dead to us

Alive too

It just doesn't jive

Floating in 

Dynamic stillness

Only natural

Flow

like this,

Like This

LIKE THIS

Bats, chickens, pangolins, cats, dogs

Any bloody thing

Caged, crammed in

Murdered on demand

for

meat

Meat

MEAT

By animals living

Ecosystems of death

Free now

Flowing to new space

Creating relationship

Someday coming to

Stillness- death and change

Plucky little one

May you teach us

In royal style

In response to my post entitled "Tipping Point" that accompanied the link to the film The Century of the Self," someone asked me if I really felt that the coming election was more important than the election of 1860. This is my reply, which may be of general interest.

Thanks for your question, Roberto. As you imply, the election of 1860 is often considered the most important election in US history and particularly so in retrospect. As everyone knows, Lincoln was nominated by the Republicans, Douglas by the Democrats, and several other parties also contested. The Republican platform was not opposed to slavery as such but only opposed extending slavery to the territories. The Democratic platform supported the idea that each area of the country should decide for itself about slavery. The underlying issue here was not slavery per se, but the competing economic implications of slavery.

I think it fair to say that all the presidential candidates were honorable and competent men. The different outcomes if others had been elected have been the subject of much speculation. The ordinary understanding is that Lincoln saved the country from splitting and freed the slaves. A fair reading of events since the Civil War, reveals the splitting of the country has only taken more nefarious forms, as has the so-called “freeing” of the slaves. Racial equality is still very much a dream in this country all these years later.

Yes, I do feel this coming election is the most important in our country’s history. Part of the reason for feeling this is that the coming times will be the most challenging to humans in their entire history. I’m referring not only to the racial issues, the divided country issues, the inequality issues, and all the rest of the political, social, and economic issues but to the developing crises of climate change, societal collapse, and human extinction. Facing these congeries of issues will require the best efforts that humans can bring to these issues. People of high competence will be needed to face and deal with complexities beyond imagining.

The problem is that the alternate-reality virus is spreading unchecked and may well lead to the re-election of the most incompetent person ever to hold the office. Given the demands of the coming times, this election may lead to a catastrophic degree of human suffering (already underway) even before the events that are looming come about. Leaders will need to call on the best that humans are capable of to realize the best ways to live when life itself is threatened and becomes lost.

In six months, we will elect the next president of the United States. I believe this election is a “tipping point,” and is arguably the most important election in our country’s history. The BBC documentary, The Century of the Self, is a useful education in some of the background dynamics that have shaped our history to the present time. It is nearly 4 hours long but is well worth watching intently and contemplating the implications. From time to time I will post material that will be useful in preparing for the coming time point.

Here is the link:

The ancient Rule of Three enables an understanding of things more than when attention has a singular focus.

For example, right now, most everyone is focused on the pandemic caused by the Corona Virus. What else is going on synchronously? One thing is the financial fallout from the pandemic, which is causing economic harm on a large scale at all levels (countries, corporations, small businesses, individuals). Countries and central banks are scrambling to bring economic relief before the world-wide economy spirals into recession, or deeper into depression. As bracing as these realities are, my sense is they may pale in light of what I will call the “alternate reality” virus (ARV).

As background, I encourage you to read a sample of my work on this, in blog posts entitled, ”They Say, “Return to Normal?,” “Collapse,” “Mind Parasites.” and “The Meaning of Not Human.” You can access these pieces here:

http://ralockhart.com/WP/?s=virus

My work on the "Trump" pieces has followed from an overflow of inchoate intimations concerning the present state of the world and its future. At all levels, I see the regressive pull of the past, from wanting to return to some prior glory to trying to understand the present situation through the vehicles of past understanding. We cannot go back and we cannot understand the future while looking backward. We can only open ourselves to witnessing the full horror that is happening in and to the world, in and to human beings, in and to the rest of life on earth. There is an enormous fear of and loathing for the strange, for otherness, for difference, for incongruity, for disparity, for doubt—all those qualities that Keats pointed to as characterizing "negative capability." If we don't welcome these things, as Baucis and Philemon welcomed the "strangers who were gods," then we will experience the fate of the villagers who locked the doors, who sent the strangers away, who did not welcome the divine visitors? Their fate was to die in a great flood, leaving only the generous-hearted Baucis and Philemon alive. And, yes, I am aware of the irony of referring "back" to Baucis and Philemon. It's like the "hope" left in Pandora's box. My deeper intuition, however, is that hope is gone as well. "Something else" is in store. Of this, I am convinced.

Mental viruses such the ARV are contagious almost beyond comprehension, particularly with the mechanisms of the internet enabling the spread in unpredictable and unstoppable ways. There is no sure way to diagnose ARV, there is no way to stop it, and there is no treatment. Some regular features of ARV are the denial of reality, the denial of facts, denial of truth, certainty and conviction of the truth of conspiracies, a mounting degree of emotional intensity leading to absolute intolerance of anything and everything outside the bubble created by the ARV.

The ARV disables rational thought and excites emotional reactions beyond normal boundaries and advocates physical actions to force the alternate realities on everyone, including violence and willful law-breaking.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, embodies all of these features of the ARV and is a prime example of the disorder and destruction that follows from the combination of power and infection with ARV.

The ARV is a normal feature of human behavior, limited generally to a small percentage of the population. But ARV, like all viruses, mutates and has the potential of becoming more infectious leading to large numbers of carriers as well as those exhibiting full-blown symptoms of the ARV. One can be a carrier as well as suffering the consequences of infection without any realization of this. Generally, self-reflection is one of the first casualties of infection. Without self-reflection, consciousness becomes increasingly degraded and becomes a casualty of the infection. Impenetrable unconsciousness then becomes the dominant feature. When this is so, any form of rational argument or persuasion becomes ineffective.

Social attraction of those infected by ARV increases, so that further loss of individuality becomes another casualty. Groups ensure even further infection of ARV until mass-mindedness becomes complete. When mass-mindedness becomes coupled with power in the form of organization, money, politics, etc., the degree of collective damage that results can be extreme. This can become a factor in societal and cultural collapse.  

In Part Two, I will take up the issue of what can be done—if anything— to lessen the power of those infected with ARV and to limit the damage that is inevitable if ARV is unchecked.