Spring ramblings, big Red book, distant Vibes

[Ian Livingston]

Back around the 1920s or so, Nikos Kazantzakis, author of "The
Odyssey: A Modern Sequel," among other notable works, said he was
thankful to have been born into times of great change. I often reflect
on and echo the great man's sentiment. I bought the Red Book for my
artist girlfriend as a Christmas present (thank you, Henry M.!) and
very fondly look forward to seeing both at the end of May. I might
also have to stop in to Pacifica Graduate School in Santa Barbara,
where Jungian studies are serious stuff. Maybe these disturbing dreams
of a resurgence of innocence will find amelioration there.

On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 9:17 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> I’ve been looking at and reading in Carl Jung’s Red Book. Only for 2 weeks
> on loan from the library. One important element of  the process he went
> through in creating the book were premonitory dreams of  WW1 and the
> collapse into violence of European civilization. Somehow there was an
> element of relief to see that these dreams were not an indicator of personal
>  but rather collective madness. But the prescient imagery called him to go
> deeper, sensing that the journey could produce value, and understanding that
> what could be mined from his inner world would be greater than a merely
> individual insight.
>
>  The illustrations frequently circle around  Pynchon’s magenta-green theme.
> Green is hard to work with and many painters avoid it. This color
> combination adds to the hallucinatory quality, Pynchon evoking similar
> territory. My favorite image  from the Red
> Book(http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-red-book11-2010apr11,0,6550201.story
> ) is built around primaries but with a magenta core. It is a serpent rising
> in a triangular coil from a fiery red mountain-like shape, also triangular.
> A little over halfway up his open mouth is at the tip of the dark base that
> surrounds the red triangle and emerging into the blue is his magenta tongue
> which branches like a five pronged tree and is in fact sheathed in a thicker
> brown , like a tree.  Both visually and symbolically the whole thing rocks
> with that heat where life begins , where dark meets light and male meets
> female, earth and sky, fire and water, consciousness and form meeting
> unconscious desire and reshaping the universe.
>
> It is both aesthetically seductive, symbolically multivalent, and
> disturbingly raw and, let’s say, trans-human. Territory that neither Jung
> nor Pynchon shy away from but that is easily overwhelming and inclined to
> spin out of control.
>
> Actually Pynchon’s control of the uncontrollable can as be droll and
> hilarious as it is disturbing. I have been listening to ATD and had
> forgotten the scene where Scarsdale Vibe is in Venice to buy up Squarciones
> and goes down in a diving suit to see a miraculously preserved painting of
> the sack of Rome. Talk about a visit to the collective unconscious. It is a
> vision of the end of a former civilization and Vibe sees its genius. What he
> doesn’t see is his own coming end, as Traverses observe him  and Foley’s
> fingers toy with his air supply. Pynchon is observing in this scene from the
> life of Scarsdale Vibe the relationship of  the self (or the all important
> and eternal story of  me) to the subconscious, to art,  and ultimately to
> the other as  self. For Vibe the relationship is one of denial, of assessing
> value only in terms of ownership and return on investment.  This denial is
> the essence and source of the violence now expanding via the death of other
> life forms  on the planet.  WW1 marked a transition from thrones to nation
> states and captains of industry, WW2 from nation states to  global corporate
> interests. Is this progress? There is also something a little bit oily about
> Jung’s serpent .
>
> This sounds glum but I think big systems may have reached their limit, have
> sown the wind to reap the whirlwind and watch their house of paper blow
> away.  Spring keeps returning, and spirits must soar, and soaring find
> grace. I smell honey.
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."