Vale, Sinéad!

Sorry, but I had to switch videos again! Just found: Sinéad & Roger Waters in a live performance of Water's "Mother" in Berlin. Note: this song is addictive. (I posted Water's newer, solo version here. It's odd, but I was a little snarky - okay, very snarky and I apologize - about Water's bad mother relationship at the time, but I notice I can sympathize with Sinéad's... Ah well, none of us aren't guilty of some sexism, right?)

Meanwhile, here's the missing video: My Lagan Love. Former previous tune: Moorlough Shore. Also, remember this collaboration?

***

This just found... on the lovely blog, Sophia's Mirror: Caoin na Sídhe - Keen of the Sídhe - A Tribute. Also, while there, read Emma's Invocation, from which the quote below was taken.

"We pray for all women who are suffering for their beliefs,

or because of the beliefs of others.

We pray for all women who are suffering for their ideals,

or for their dreams unable to be realized,

or for no other reason than that they are female.

We commend all these women to your grace, Blessed Shekinah,

may they find solace in the shadow of your shining wings."

***

"At the age of 15, her shoplifting and truancy led to her being placed for eighteen months in a Magdalene asylum called the Grianán Training Centre run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity. In some ways, she thrived there, especially in the development of her writing and music, but she also chafed under the imposed conformity. Unruly students there were sometimes sent to sleep in the adjoining nursing home, an experience of which she later commented, 'I have never - and probably will never - experience such panic and terror and agony over anything."

-Via the Wiki entry for Sinéad O'Connor.

I wasn't able to sleep at all last night. And, after I finally dealt with the morning routines and entered cyberspace I was immediately confronted with the news that Sinéad O'Connor has died...

Sinéad O'Connor was an artist's artist. Her intensity and her breathy voice with its dazzling range was sheer poetry and, for many of us, the first of its kind to emerge in the (late 20th Century) rock & roll world. Her technique gave international exposure to a lilting Celtic style -  as in the video above featuring the traditional song, Moorlough Shore - which would eventually become influential across many musical genres. Her popular hit "Nothing Compares 2 U" (originally written and performed by Prince) became solid gold in the music industry. (See the early live version below... impassioned to the degree of an alchemical combustion. Suggestion: watch it in full screen mode.)

I think she was a little scary to (even) me in those days. I sensed a sensitive woman whose calling in life, coupled with her spontaneous and quirky outspokenness, might bring her undeserved tragedy one day. And it did... the world, being what it was in those days... and, to some degree, still is. From the Guardian article:

"She became just as well known for her shaved head and outspoken views. Ripping up a picture of the pope created a huge backlash – there were death threats and radio boycotts. Frank Sinatra wished to “kick her ass”.

Many considered that O’Connor was vindicated by subsequent revelations about Vatican cover-ups of sex abuse scandals."

I think, like many an anguished artist, O'Connor had "the sight," but as in the lives of many artists around the world and across most periods of history, their vision is often confused with madness and cannot be tolerated within the context of the societal status quo then current.

Farewell, daughter of Brigid. Slán abhaile.

Sinéad & her son, Shawn

"But 56 is way, way too young to die. The millions who love you have been dreading this for, oh, three decades, even though you had a life force strong enough to power 50 lifetimes. I hovered for updates when you went missing in 2016; I read your aching, awful posts grieving your son Shane who died by suicide last year, only 17, the worst thing of all."

- From Michelle Griffin's touching tribute: "We needed you, Sinead, the crazy-brave anti-Barbie."

(If the singing bird has flown away, we've no one but ourselves to blame.)

"Coco is Dead" - The Language of a Bird

A Eurasian collared dove.

"That all my life I have listened to the calls

of mourning doves, have heard them hidden far back

under the eaves, or perched among sycamore branches—

their five still notes sometimes lost in the wind—

and not known how to answer: this I confess,

lying here now, on a summer morning, in a dark room

no less lit by the sound of their soft calling..."

- From the poem Mourning Doves by American poet, Jared Carter,

found along with the quote which follows (below), on this Mythic Living page.

"The mourning dove of North America is, as its name suggests, sometimes connected to the notion of the soul’s passing from this life to the next.  Thus, the appearance of the bird has been associated with visitation from the “other side”.  This is not a new metaphor, nor is it only North American. It is usually understood to be a reassuring representation that life goes on, albeit separated from the still-living."

(If there's one thing I've learned about Camus during the course of our dance is that the man is infectious. He makes a writer want - actually need - to write. So, to all of you who write - not necessarily to make a living, but because you need to bring some kind of order and meaning to your life - when blocked, read Camus. There's something to be said for a writer who - without saying so - encourages you to just open up and spit it out.

That being said, I think I can safely report: I've come back to this blog for a bit, and my heart seems to be in it. So, that's good. As to why I suddenly need to blog so much  - and I do not really consciously know - well, it's a slightly unsettling question... which need not be addressed presently. We'll just run with it.

Today's story is about a bird. A bird who can, potentially, talk. A bird who is hunted... perhaps haunted. A familiar bird to many humans as it has emigrated to numerous locations across the globe. It is a refugee, and, this is why it is, perhaps, more unbound than other species of birds. It might also be more intelligent than some of them... it has, after all, learned to adapt to many different countries and has seen many nationalities and races of people. It has heard snatches of human conversation in many diverse languages - gathering them into its memory banks - by, what we can assume to be, a brain's osmotic processes - as it sat quietly, sometimes invisibly, on its high perch overlooking its adopted land.

But, I wasn't aware of any of that when this story first began... a true story, regardless of my interpretation.

Above, inset right, the Watcher, a dove parked outside my bedroom window... as it often is every day.)

***

The star(s)s of my story - the Eurasian collared dove, is related to the mourning dove, unique birds when you think about it. On the eastern coast of the US the mourning dove (inset left & inset right below) is such a common sight and its song is so instantly identifiable, one never fully grasps it's oddness. It is considered a songbird but it's song is short, wistful and slightly melancholy, often described as "a lament". Think: graveyards, willow trees and grey gardens... (Listen to it here.)

But, NM is a different sort of place. It is not near the ocean - the land is trapped... and its ghosts know it. The birds, however, do not. Many of them migrate. Even seagulls, ocean birds who will find no large bodies of water here, fly into NM's dry interior. There is, no doubt, a scientific explanation for this, but, I'd rather imagine the seagulls can sense the ancient oceans which once flowed here thousands of years ago, and are following deeply embedded biological markers in the landscape and atmosphere.

Then again, there is something about birds which demands we endow them with magical powers... whether they possess them or not. However, we must consider: their bodies are flying vehicles. Can't touch that.

Anyway, the story begins in a vague sort of way... that is I began hearing some mysterious bird every morning when I woke up. It had a strange vocalization; not a song really. In an eerie way, it seemed to be saying something. Now, I could go into the general setting in which I live, but, for the sake of economy, I'll skip all that. The fact is, that I heard a bird calling outside of my window every day... and sometimes on the launchpad (my dedicated smoking room). And, it's "song" began to bother me. Abrasive, the bird's vocalizations were not patterns of musical notes. They uncannily resembled human speech, but I couldn't make it out.

Then, one day, it suddenly came to me that I could understand what the bird seemed to be saying. I cannot identify what had changed enabling this to happen. It just did. In fact, it seemed obvious; in it's weird, hollow, bird-voice - which seemed to originate somewhere in its belly - it seemed to be repeating the same phrase over and over again:

 "Coco is dead."

During this same period I had a weird bird encounter. What looked like a mourning dove flew onto the fence surrounding the launchpad (see: Dancing with the Ghost...). It startled me because it came quite close to my face, peering at me with one large dark eye. Then it lifted off and flew away. For anyone familiar with mourning doves, this was unusual; they're timid birds. But, I noticed the band around its neck, and wondered if it might be a slightly different variety of dove, maybe an exclusively southwestern variety. At this stage of the game, I didn't know.

Meanwhile, my bird with its grave announcement had somewhat changed its message. In fact, it was changing its message every other day. I now alternately heard: "Coco is dead," "Coco escaped," "Coco has escaped," and one day, "Coco is ALIVE! Sometimes different names replaced "Coco." There were three different names but I wrote down (and remember) only 2 of them: Yahghol and Jockarelle. (I've spelled them the way they sounded and  would be pronounced - in English - with the accent on the first syllable.) I think it was at this point that I finally took my experience more seriously. I was beginning to imagine I was listening to an official avian town crier...

"Looking into a Mirror Sideways"

Laurie Anderson, Absent in the Present: Looking into a Mirror Sideways, 1975 © Laurie Anderson

(I know it seems like I'm on a roll this week... and maybe I am... and maybe I'm not. This is my second attempt to put up this post. So, while it occurs to me that I may be slowly retrieving more of my voice after (its) long absence, it is equally as possible that I'm deluding myself...

Or, trying to communicate with a mirror bisecting my face.)

***

Laurie Anderson: "I think Donald Trump changed my relationship to reality more than virtual reality did. The second people started chanting “Lock her up,” my sense of reality shifted in a major way. I wish I had more distance and I wish I could just see, “This is really an insane person trying to get attention.” He’s very, very good at what he does. Sometimes I’m kind of lured into his world, even though I recognize it as one of attention-seeking and deeply, deeply disconnected from reality. I still get fooled by it. So, I try not to see it as a disintegrating phase, the last phase of our system. But I would have to say I’m more influenced by his vocabulary of fake news than I am by any art concept of what’s real and what’s not real, or what’s virtual and what’s not virtual, because those things I understand. I understand that art isn’t real, already. But I thought that the real world was real. Silly me, you know?"

- From a 2018 interview with Laurie Anderson found on this MIT page. Keep in mind, 2018 was a deep-shit pandemic year... illusions/delusions/fear were rife in those days... and, quite possibly, still are.

(Correction: the Pandemic - as we know it - wasn't in full swing until 2020. "Illusions/delusions/fear" were "rife" in 2018, but the doo-doo had yet to hit the fan. It merely nourished invasive weeds...) (re: the original green-blooded cast from A Little Shop of Horrors.)

“Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too.”

- Albert Camus, from The Stranger.

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

- Albert Camus.

***

This is, yet, another Addendum to the Camus post. It seems he and I continue to dance in the multiverse of the Absurd.

As it was, I just happened upon another artistic contribution by American artist & musician Laurie Anderson; one which seemed to reflect my ongoing Absurdist theme.

Regarding her 1975 photo (above), at a rapid glance, the little girl in the mirror looks like a googly-eyed monster... or the product of a very bad (chemical) trip. In reality, she's no more than a playful little kid who has learned a new trick, an illusion involving a mirror. She wasn't really a monster. But she surely loved appearing like one.

The illusion she created, however, is the central theme of this post. That is, when things start getting scary, wonky, weird, or a little out-or-sync we might ask ourselves: is this just some trick with mirrors?

Take loose cannon (and Republican pawn), Donald Trump, for instance... quite a lot of distortion there. Quite a lot of mirror tricks all the way around. One "sideways" mirror trick makes America appear like a divided nation. A similar mirror trick makes thieves look like clowns. Another mirror trick allows the most marginalized and ineffectual people to appear gargantuan and menacing. It's amazing what can be accomplished with a few strategically placed mirrors.

What's more amazing is that anyone is sane... 

"So, I try not to see it as a disintegrating phase, the last phase of our system."

Laurie Anderson may have been envisioning the future with that line... the pandemic and beyond. (See this related thought experiment.) However, "the last phase of our system" is (most likely) farther away than it appears in our present mirror. But, maybe I'm not looking in the right mirror.

Then again, maybe it's time that you and I dragged ourselves away from mirrors altogether... giving both ourselves & the mirrors a much-needed break (pun intended).

To the Moon, perhaps?

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

Statue of Marianne in the post office of the French Assemblée Nationale.

"Marianne is usually depicted as a beautiful young maiden and often leans on a fasces (a symbol of authority). She traditionally wears a red Phrygian cap (also named Liberty cap) ornate with a tricolour cockade (symbol of Freedom). The Phrygian cap refers to the pileus, the cap worn by emancipated slaves of Ancient Rome. In the 19th century, the Phrygian cap was thought to be too revolutionary and Marianne was sometimes crowned with a laurel wreath."

"The king came to Paris, leaving the queen in consternation for his return... the king's carriage was in the center, on each side of it the States general, in two ranks, afoot, at their head the Marquis de la Fayette as commander in chief, on horseback, and Bourgeois guards before and behind.

About 60,000 citizens of all forms and colours, armed with the muskets of the Bastille and Invalids as far as they would go, the rest with pistols, swords, pikes, pruning hooks, scythes &c. lined all the streets thro' which the procession passed, and, with the crowds of people in the streets, doors and windows, saluted them every where with cries of 'vive la nation.' But not a single 'vive Ie roy' was heard."

- A first-hand account of the French Revolution written by Thomas Jefferson, American minister to France, in 1789.

"Marianne has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty... As a national icon Marianne represents opposition to monarchy and the championship of freedom and democracy against all forms of oppression...

Historian Maurice Agulhon, who in several works set out on a detailed investigation to discover the origins of Marianne, suggests that it is the traditions and mentality of the French that led to the use of a woman to represent the Republic. A feminine allegory was also a manner to symbolize the breaking with the old monarchy headed by kings and promote modern republican ideology.

After a turbulent first decade in the 1870s, by the 1880s the republic was accepted by most people in France and as such, the French state did not need history to justify itself, using Marianne as the unifying symbol of the republic. The only historical event that was regularly honored in France was Bastille Day, as the storming of the Bastille in 1789 was the revolutionary occurrence that appealed to most of the French, and the rest of the events of the revolution were not officially honored in order to keep the memory of the revolution as harmonious as possible. It was the strategy of the republican leaders to use symbols and the memory of history in such a way to create as wide a national consensus as possible in favor of the republic, which was why Marianne became such a prominent symbol of the republic.

- Several other quotes taken from the Wiki entry for Marianne where the coin image (inset right) was found. The colorful image (inset left) above - an early French Republic Marianne was found here.

"Thousands of protesters stormed the streets of the French capital over the weekend, leaving torched cars, smashed windows and looted stores in their wake. Police said that 133 people were injured, including 23 police officers. Anger at rising fuel prices and France’s high cost of living has exacerbated fury at French president Emmanuel Macron, seen as a wealthy and aloof figure, oblivious to the struggles of ordinary citizens.

One of the most striking images of the destruction shows a smashed statue of Marianne inside the Arc de Triomphe. The icon of Marianne emerged during the French Revolution of 1789 as a personification of the values of liberty, equality and fraternity and in later years came to represent France itself. She appears on stamps and in popular culture, and most town halls across France hold statues dedicated to her, often remodeled on contemporary French female celebrities such as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve."

- Excerpt from a 2018 article from TIME magazine. Regarding the statue, not all portrayals of Marianne were demurely feminine. The Marianne smashed by the Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vests) was a detail of La Marseillaise, The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 sculpted by Francois Rude. It portrayed Marianne as a warrior - the winged goddess of Liberté rallying the French revolutionary forces onward. The image shown (inset right) is actually a charcoal drawing of the desecrated sculpture by American artist (and punk-rock musician) Robert Longo.

While I can understand the fervor, chaos, anger and dissatisfaction present in demonstrations of the political kind, I will never understand a resort to meaningless, pointless destruction... especially of historical artwork. Of course, certain acts of anti-art might be works of art in themselves... the "art" of ugliness, human decay, failure.

Art is not and never will be the enemy.

(Later note: Art cannot and never will be entirely destroyed. In this case, Marianne was transformed from a vengeful goddess into a distressed, 21st century Cyborg. BBC article.)

***

Despite being an American of Eastern European ancestry, I've always felt a certain amount of French nationalism... and I don't think I'm alone in this. Perhaps, it's Paris... which I tend to think of as the epicenter of the world's art and culture. Or, perhaps, it's the fact that both the States and France have "independence" days that fall in July. Then again, there's the Statue of Liberty which, while a strong American symbol, was made in France and was a gift from France... and is very possibly a close relative of Marianne.

When I think of America's gift to France, however, I think of singer, dancer, activist, (and member of the French Resistance) Josephine Baker (inset left)... although, in reality, it was actually Josephine who gifted herself to France (found here.):

“France made me what I am. I will be grateful forever. The people of Paris have given me everything… I am ready, captain, to give them my life. You can use me as you wish.”

"Baker became a French citizen in 1937, when she married industrialist Jean Lion... During World War II, she served as a member of the French Resistance, transmitting secret information to Allied Forces and hiding refugees in her Paris home. These efforts earned her the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor -two of France’s highest military honors...

Over the course of her career, Baker emerged as a vocal advocate for equality, refusing to perform in front of segregated audiences in the Jim Crow–era South and touring the United States to promote the civil rights movement. At the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, Baker was the sole female speaker to deliver an address alongside Martin Luther King..."

"I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents,” said Baker in her speech. “… But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee...”

“I am not a young woman now, friends. There is not too much fire burning inside me,” she said, “[but] before it goes out, I want you to use what is left to light the fire in you.”

"Baker’s career “skyrocketed” in France, in part because she had access to more opportunities abroad than she did in the segregated American South, notes NMAAHC.

'Josephine Baker embodies the [French] Republic of possibilities,” Kupferman tells the Times. 'How could a woman who came from a discriminated and very poor background achieve her destiny and become a world star? That was possible in France at a time when it was not in the United States.'”

- Several quotes which were found in the (2021) Smithsonian article: Performer Josephine Baker to Be First Black Woman Buried at Paris’ Panthéon. Apparently, there are 72 men buried at the Panthéon (amongst them, Victor Hugo and Voltaire) but only 5 women... and Josephine is the first woman of color. Also see: French writer Laurent Kupferman's Osez Joséphine Baker au Panthéon!

And, this is amongst a number of Josephine's "firsts." From the African Report we have:

"No one had ever seen a black woman adopt a white child before. Nor had anyone seen a black woman raise 12 children at a castle to become ‘soldiers of love’. Le Monde reported that Baker was 'the mother of a family of all colours' and described her as 'an anti-racial activist.' The children were 'brought up as brothers', although each 'maintained their country’s language, dress, customs and religions.'”

Which brings me to my bottom line (and well, you should've guessed that I'd have one).

In the light of the fact that statues of Marianne have been "remodeled" with the likenesses of celebrities like Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve, it only stands to reason that the first black Marianne should be... Josephine Baker!

(It was a long time coming!)

Vive Marianne!

Vive le 14 Juillet!

Pre-existing statues of Josephine Baker:

Richmond Barthé's bronze bust, circa1951

Memorial statue, sculptor unknown

The Master's House and The Tower Card

The Master's House

(In memory of A. Lorde)

The Master's house is in disrepair;

the seals have been broken.

Rats are in the walls.

Pigeons shit on the front stoop.

There's a hole in the roof

bats fly through...

Windows with glass teeth

where weeds wind through.

Echoes of screams

in the living room.

Grey ash fills the corners;

 all four:

riders on horseback,

all dead.

- 2023, DS 

- My poem owes a nod to Audre Lorde's 1984 essay: The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House. Another line from that article:

"Only within a patriarchal structure is maternity the only social power open to women."

- Image: Les Quatre Chevaliers de l'Apocalypse - ink on paper - 1937, André Fougeron. Tate Museum, UK.

***

“Empires and churches are born under the sun of death.”

- A line from Albert Camus', The Fall.

"Whereas the Death card is usually the card people are terrified of, out of all of the cards in the deck, The Tower is the one you really need to brace yourself for. The Tower Tarot card represents chaos and destruction. It is the Major Arcana card of sudden upheaval and unexpected change. This change usually is scary, life changing and often unavoidable. A negative Tower event can be akin to a bomb going off in your life. You don’t know how you will survive but somehow you will and later you will realize that while it was a tremendously difficult thing to go through and you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy, it has made you into the person you are. One positive aspect of The Tower is that the destruction it brings is usually directed at something that was built on a false beliefs and foundations or unrealistic goals and dreams. Also on the bright side, the destruction The Tower brings is always followed by renewal and creation."

- Excerpt from a tarot page found here.

"So what does it mean to call the tower card "The Foundation of Beauty?" Simply put, those possessing true inner beauty will reach the crown, Kether, and their spiritual goals. Here is the realm of creative fantasy, a place of refuge from the harsh "realities" of the earth sphere. Through the Tower, the seeker casts aside false ideas and thoughts about herself or her world. The seeker will discover her true path, the path leading to emotional and spiritual fulfillment. However, like the pictures on the Tower card, the way to the path can be violent and chaotic. Reed likens the experience of the Tower card to having the top of your head lifted and a lightning bolt striking through your brain and down to your toes. It is a searing light that burns into your deepest heart and shows you the imperfections there. It shows how much you have to learn, and by comparison, how little you have learned. It goes through your feet and makes a hole in the ground that you very much want to crawl into."

- Excerpt from this Llewellyn "Tower" page.

***

This post is, more or less, an addendum to my previous post: Dancing with the Ghost of Albert Camus wherein I describe my own "Tower moment" using the image above (inset right).

It is one of the earliest "Tower" cards - from The Tarot of Marseille deck - but, as we can see, it's actual name is "La Maison Dieu" or God House, which was, in the Middle Ages a hospital-monastery intended to accommodate pilgrims. (See this tarot forum page.) Perhaps the original symbolism of the card was, likewise, somewhat different.

Needless to say, there are towers... and, then, there are towers... and there are masters... and, then, there are masters.

Dancing With the Ghost of Albert Camus

Dancing with Ghosts - cell phone photo - 2023, DS.

“At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.”

- Albert Camus, The Stranger

(I am being inundated with politics these days... and politics is not my place. My place is culture. My place is my artist's meditative Zone... where politics with its conflict, chaos, ignorance, violence, tyranny, & lies are, in general, not welcome.

Unfortunately, politics are as inescapable as the current heat wave this summer.

 I am now staying in Albuquerque. It appears to be a strangely unpopulated place... or, rather, a thinly populated ghost town. There are rarely people on the streets unless they're homeless. And, yet, there are lines and lines of cars on its dusty roads... passing through? I don't know. I'm still a stranger in New Mexico... a refugee although I've lived here for 8 years. There are places in the world in which you can never be anything but a stranger, but, there are people who can never be anything but strangers, too.

On the other hand, 3 nights ago, the 4th of July (Independence Day), I couldn't get to any official pyrotechnic events, but the locals put on their own unofficial fireworks display - the People's Display - with some fairly sophisticated rockets... which lasted for hours. I watched from a window over the patio as they shot up across the horizon... and I felt quite patriotic; a feeling I rarely have...especially these days... that is, unless disgust and anger are symptoms of patriotism. Maybe, in a sense they are. It means you care. 

My current "backyard" - which really isn't mine - consists of a small fenced-in patio with very little green to be seen... but, upon closer inspection, enough green to support a small colony of grasshoppers! It's these little bits of natural life which anchor me to the corporeal world. Like the juvenile grasshopper - inset left - they bring me joy and, unlike everything else clamoring for my time and effort, they're refreshingly tangible and real. And, if you pay attention to them, they'll reward you in many ways. For instance, you can learn things. I learned that grasshoppers grow in a similar way to caterpillars. That is, they shed their skins to become much larger creatures... which somehow were illogically enfolded inside their former selves; a magic trick more interesting, more satisfying than you might imagine.

(7/24/23 Note: After a number of moults, the grasshopper became large, brown... and developed wings. While not as attractive as a butterfly it, too, transforms into a flying creature.)

In the photo, posted above, I am standing in the center of the patio on what is fondly referred to as the "launch pad." I appear to be dancing with myself. In reality I'm dancing with ghosts. Perhaps, I, too, have become a ghost... unconsciously haunting my own past...)

In this (brief) dream  I am in the house of my childhood... but, it is not not exactly the place I lived, for it has changed. Or, I should say, it has changed again. The first time it changed - in a long ago dream - a hidden room was revealed... positioned between my old bedroom and what was (in reality) a fairly unusual hallway featuring an array of closets, recesses, drawers and other enclosures. It was a phantom room but, in my sleeping mind, seemed both valid and logical.

I dreamt about this phantom room several times over the years. Its dimensions became an actual memory, as if it had always existed... somehow tucked away... enfolded in the recesses of a closet or at the bottom of a cluttered drawer.

In the latest dream, however, a screened-in porch had been added to the second floor of the family house...  in the front and, once again, where my bedroom was once located. It was accessed indoors from a newly created hallway... call it an Escher hallway, because it's position in the corporeal house was not (logically) possible. It was a phantom hallway... with another phantom construction nearby: the previously-mentioned "hidden room." I vaguely remember passing what may have been its potential doorway as I walked down the phantom hallway towards the phantom porch.

Now, the actual house was surrounded by tall trees: silver beech along the back, two enormous red maples in the front and a wall of massive pines. In the dream, they still existed. But, through the floor-to-ceiling screened apertures which composed the new porch, the trees were now fully visible, as if viewed from a treehouse.

The dream ended just as I entered the bright doorway and stepped into the screened enclosure. This, too, had a door, with stairs leading down to the ground below... a feature I may have consciously added in the process of waking up.

- From a note file created in May of this year. The addition of the porch was a fine dream-construction; an economical plan to let the outdoors in while also providing a third door - the house had two already - from which to escape. When I awoke from the dream, I felt refreshed. Perhaps, it was a metaphor for a new unconscious development and it felt like a positive one.

Which, is to say, it represented no part of my present-day physical reality but, rather, a vacation from it.

***

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”

- Albert Camus (1913-1960), Notebooks 1951-1959. Camus was a French-Algerian writer, journalist, playwright, and philosopher and is most often considered an Absurdist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957.

My first introduction to Camus was in my art school days. I read The Stranger and it depressed me. Maybe I glimpsed my own future. Recently I read an online article regarding absurdist philosophy and in it I rediscovered Camus. I spent that night reading pages and pages of his quotes which exhilarated me; astoundingly, I could relate to just about everything he said. Via the Wiki entry for Absurdism:

"Absurdists, following Camus' formulation, hesitantly allow the possibility for some meaning or value in life, but are neither as certain as existentialists are about the value of one's own constructed meaning nor as nihilists are about the total inability to create meaning. Absurdists following Camus also devalue or outright reject free will, encouraging merely that the individual live defiantly and authentically in spite of the psychological tension of the Absurd."

The odd thing is, while I feel sympathetic towards Absurdism, my personal experience would require something a bit beyond it... Uber-Absurdism? I'm not sure.

"The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point

where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold.

It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism." - Albert Camus