| aphrodite's garden volume 2 part 6 - 1986 january-february | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
12 January I thought to say I'd give legal custody if he gives up emotional claim - from there it went to money. If I could get out of the romance, a mass of explanation webbery dissolves.
13 This no-moon what happened. Michael hot and obsessed. I take on the Father. Very anxious. Sexual dream 8th. Decide about show. Wrestle with M. Crying in meditation. I start looking at T and C. 9th read about multiples. Dream about women's house. Michael's dream about fertile pit. Yelling at me in morning. Big dinner. Freaks. 10th morning sez he's understanding. I push him about Beverly, not wanting him, looking. Go nuts in Horney and conflict. 11th violence and scared. 12th I call it off, he's very sad. 13th looks worn out and magnetic fit. I buy a shirt, imagine good clothes and freedom. Beginning of ov probably.
"a beautiful intelligent rownd grief stricken insane lesbian praryfarming mennonites daughter" Chickens by their legs into a closed machine, come out naked human beings I'm crying for. Shingle sawyers without fingers bawling in the tavern after work. 14 Bawling songs last night. Rhoda tells me they're moving to Montreal. I tell her off. puer a provisional life 15 Battle of the mailbox abruptly won. M is looking a reproachful corpse and gives me the creeps. Big loud energy showing off to D, sitting loudly and importantly. L sez in this small town no giving is pure because it is being watched. Somewhere at a gathering T and R and others, tall men writers or lecturers, real men they're friendly with. We're somewhere after, the two of them are in the world talking. I suddenly ask R, who's beside me, Why were you like that in those days? She says quite steady and equal that it was a trouble between the two of them. I'm sitting with my legs along Max. One of the men talking to me or next to me about something interesting in the world. Jam gets up from nearby and faces me personally from a little distance, saying something I wish I remembered: about looking at me as a mirror? Something about how she was going to reconstitute herself. Speaking briefly to RM seeing his subtle nasty manoeuvering to make sure he'd be the one to say he was busy.
[with Joyce] The dark woman. One voice two lines. "Such lovely angles." The hands. Wherever there's intensity the open heart, she says. Fluttered. I can't defend myself. She said: You set things up to confirm your story. Telling the story of trying It. The look on his face. What's it like. I show her. Delight seeing her turn her head laughing. Going on laughing. 16
Oberon is me. Ammi Michael wails MY HEART MY HEART clawing at it. I fell in love and I want a lover and I thought I had it. The way his waa leaves me cold. Frightened. I know a tone to stop him. MICHAEL! You hog the heart position. 17 Why a Buddhist wedding and long engagement.
Von Franz personal exploration of the uncon "so dangerous and frightening" Material from the unc produced in a situation where the c mind didn't follow a definite program but only searched Depression is eclipse of consciousness! When you dig into depressive states you find either creative contents or a wild unsacrificed desire. Projection into a material is what's unsacrificed. To save the life-giving fantasy of Self while getting out of the unworkable misunderstanding of it.
Elle est là. First calling Carolyn's, frightened by there being a voice, ---'s, then hearing the number, not hers. Covering receiver because of the mad voice singing with the radio. HUH-LOW. Grief struck, dark. Alone in the broad base. Ashamed to have intruded. Stream or vapor always carried the idea of psyche. A statue with a tablet on its knee. The arrow is projectile and through projection energy gets pointed. Mercury and Hermes. If I find myself in a projection situation that is by arrangement of the Self.
Drivenness. The wingless bird. The red sulfur. The basic dependence there is. Ambition. Fantasize. Ask them what they want. Find what it's driving for, that is cooking the red sulfur. But it is not only psychological: I want the real thing, recognition, a career. A drive to be special. That is individuation - but the residual desire for real power: that is up to the individual, whether it is weak or strong to take it on.
The upper way of contacting the BIG FEEL in fantasy or the inferior world - it needs quite a lot to be able to really listen. Usually the answer is paradoxical: from 2 hands. This is the double play of the one.
The only way the Self can manifest is through conflict. To meet one's eternal and insoluable conflict is the end of ego which says either/or. When the Self appears it is the end of talking. If you let yourself be torn in the conflict you change from the deepest root. You're then never too sure of yourself. Justice = a conflict accepted. Moon for woman is vegetative, instinctive life-basis. The sun in general represents "a male principle" of collective consciousness, as language does. It is the tendency of the school years, their function, to do that. "That light within which we all swim." The conflict then is with reality or uncon. 2 suns are two principles of collective consc. When we've got part way the problem of not dropping back into certainty, as for instance preaching! If you codify you stop. The conflict is eternal and must be sustained. To throw everything over. If a highly focused c is driven - that's dark sun. If anyone is predictable, they're still collective. With the individualized, a unique person at every moment. Centering around an unpredictable source of life and doesn't feel unique but human. Mingles content. The conjoin happens at dark moon.
The rainbow giant angel fallen in a tight backyard. What's annunciation for ego is for angel a fall. When healing is very close, that's the time to watch for suicide, not in depression. Saying goodbye to a neurotic attitude is very sad to some kind of infantility or animus. A final attack so bad it looks like being back at the beginning. A blind spot: "I assumed." But then to get spontaneity without forgetting.
The baby is crawling. You're back. I go on my knees with quiet love because you're sad - Michael worn out with pain, taking him through. "What does M say?" "Nothing." "Ellie is looking at Michael, what does she see?" "A nothing, there's nobody there." "What does Michael feel about that?" (Something about what he thinks.) "But what does he feel?" "Michael knows something about Ellie that she doesn't know, what is it?" "She's afraid." "Ellie what are you afraid of?"
"Pain." M: "Bliss." "What does E think of that?" "She doesn't trust it." "Ellie why don't you trust him?" "Because he doesn't stay in himself. It sounds like something she's heard before. Religion." "Who does he remind you of?" "Roy." "Who else?" "My father - Ellie's father." "In what way?" "He used to talk that way sometimes, without understanding much." (Silence. Baby.) "You want to stop?" "You do it seems." - What of it. The dark woman is his mentality, aggression, self defense. When he was being me he had the look I've sometimes seen: someone else. I was in a fit. 3 days postmenstrual and one day past full moon. Mon 20 I was loving until 29th. He and Beverley. I began to hate T! If T is younger self then it's envying the real join of heart and mind. I started studying again. He's doing good drawings. A battle about coil, decide on Joyce.
21st Warring on M. I'm trying to nail something shut in both. So furious I'm on the street a crazy woman talking loud blowing puffs of exasperation. Shabby coat split, wellingtons. Accused and accusing, yelling at Joyce too. The way the war is posed is not right. Detested limp little thing. When there has been a near death one wants no more illusions. There is a great silence.
Friday 24 Near the Eton Street time. While Laiwan was here I made a rubbing of the running goddess, which became a terra cotta birdhead goddess with a black bird either ascending or descending from/toward her head, arms like stubs. M said he saw a Chinese landscape, tree and fog. I said a heavy woman with wings clipped, an eagle. He said he saw it first but didn't like it. I agreed it was brutal. Threw it away. Today find it in the chapter on the magician.
- [When] trying to be good, ask what rule afraid of, what punishment, by whom. - He doesn't want to know he's after his completeness. (Kw) knows how to act in complex circumstance, forceful but warm, "positive male power". Will, long term intent, intuition. 25 The flare of fire in the solar when I say yes, her. Not yet. 26 Oh distinguished him. Sat up suffering in bed. At the sink bent toward the mirror. Live round bum, spindle legs. Sunday morning Welcome Café with our canary. There in his similar cap, eyelids half down, is Terry after the night shift. The sunrise this morning was like a Maxfield Parish, a California orange crate picture, bright turquoise and pink and orange-yellow light. Beam at pale pretty Michael and ham-hand black Terry, around the circle. Yest at the Tak Kee, spring fire, fire. Laiwan says English is too padded, Mandarin a pile of pebbles. Syllable permutation chart. I say if anyone tells you you should be
different, be careful. - Evil Trudy is trying to get her to give up succeeding. When we are leaving what happens. I say, It did me good to have you at my house, it firmed me up in some way. She, Then let's see each other more often. I have a jolt. And can't reply and leave abruptly. Mystified still. 27 Walker. Salt. 28 The inner one sulking. Wanted to explode 4 miles up like the Challenger. Should I call Jam? It jumps. Yes! Yes! Delay. Cowboy boots. Sulkily wanting money clothes. Dreams. There was one I wanted to recall. Textures. A big baby standing at the crib rail crying. I pick him up but the other little one is still crying, where is he. A voice says Go to him. I wake and look at the time, get Rowen out. The voice - was it Trudy's, was it actual or telepathic. Jam in the previous dream. Something. 29 [with Joyce] "I'm sulking." "I'm glad you know that." What would -? To do something with that writing. Sound like poetry, dropping your words, hypnotic. Hypnotizing yourself? "How did it sound to you?" "Someone told me it sounded sad and my feelings were hurt, because it seemed rapturous to me." "All the people I don't want to be. Then I can't be any of the other things." "I'm here to tell you that isn't true!" "Watch for whenever you feel freedom." "Not underground: into hiding. I work to get you to take care what you say." Images and glamour. Religion. About union, she says. But it's stupid unition. Awareness. To get unhypnotized.
I wanted to know what I was being used for. The deva, the feminine, the magnetic field around the head. - Retell the story? 30 India without my green pack. Passport, sleeping bag, clothes. The others in the group have theirs. Bunking. Someone said to be looking after looking for it but I search again through the piles and ranks of other people's. Finding
their things. In the baggage area a striped cover I know. Jam's. Tug on it, it's tugged back like snail into shell. Little Jam showing her face from inside the bag. Yellow green bruise on her face. Looking at each other. I see her nose is bitten off. Her pretty nose is gone. I'll still love her. Looking for a bed. Everybody else has one. Beds like tables. They want to put me near the dishwashing machinery. New baby, it's too noisy. Help myself to someone's bed further off. Am I alright? Can tell by taking blood pressure. He doesn't have the bulb thing at the end. Someone else.
1131 Howe. Meg balancing in her brushed hair pulling a long strand from the back for my blue and red and tall cowboy boots. Book trader who had The dispossessed. Brownie and latté at Vegetable Patch, in the hedge and hearing waves. "Said Rhoda, my hopeless desire to be Susan, to be Jinnie." 1931. Freedom. Laughing with Michael, imagining writing The waves. Rowen's unrecognizable so unusual look at times below my arm studying me. Because my touch makes him quiet and centered. I knew it. Cheryl, "It was home."
31st The sun this morning. The waves. Michael is on the sidewalk under his window lifting an Indian woman. "I have something to confess." In his fine clothes. Going elated to do chores at pink carpet Filmmakers. Fantasies of impressive address stamping. Speeding in books. The baby speaking as they get to the top of the stairs. Conversation so dumb and he sitting worming in his nose. 1st February Downtown café, noticing a video screen where the lemonade machine was. The image is soft tactile blue silver maybe handprint and foot print blurring off like face on xerox glass, something written or said, "... is light."
The way it's beautiful and sublime is like Rhoda, she's had her work taken in here. Coming from the side I see her too crouched under it. Crowd of people standing round her. At her slit of window staring like a prisoner. I hold the baby at mine to hurt her. Feeling her reading [Woolf's] Rhoda terrified when she's made to die. Wanting to write her too. Candlemass. Emptied the white room for work with light grain. Colors and bed and baby into the clean blue. Front room a bigger floor and austerer kitchen table. "I know why you're looking like that." Kind salad and tea. Liking strong grey light on his greens in the father chair, crooked face, baby a brown bug jumping in the door frame.
3rd Last night Maxine booming on Co-op [Radio] downstairs. Looking at this page a drier mind seeing the nicey one. Thinking of writing about Peter Epp. In the jumper stopping to listen to jumping sound of the house. Dark morning.
Peter Epp, ---- Eisen, Elf and Michael traveling What are you being used for with Michael and Rowen. He's in the corridor sobbing, I want to laugh, I laugh and sit looking out the open window with the baby on the arm of the chair. His drawing of the pork woman and little tortured man. Why has spite grown so strong it doesn't lose a chance to kill. The harpie. 4th Diana, Hinda Avery's face in the room. 5th "You get a littlebit hurt and it makes you stupid. Your eyes aren't intelligent."
I'm there dogged like with her downstairs, I won't give anything to you. What brought it to close - public shame - Bev - T with J - about not building the bed - smoking - disappointment - oh the one I'm with isn't a fine one - UBC - how has this mind got hobbled to - after Mary - J's letter - sickness imag - she didn't want me - outburst with J - RM - after banging foolishly - pushing him away more - dream of leaving Frank - clingy - only him instead of her. The white-haired woman sage. I go near her (lying down on a stretcher), speak to her simply as an equal. "It's the difficulty of finding a whole system." Not exactly that. "A system that works for everything." Then she's in a roomful of potentates who want to exclude me but she wants me there. I first saw her from above in an open cubicle getting off the toilet. I like it that she's not secretive. Her body little and dumpy like Mary's.
Agronomics, distribution and management of land, scientific management of field crops, World Seed Bank Imagining. Synthesis. Standing on fields among other peoples. Standing behind a lectern at the UN in boots and a skirt. Working neatly invisibly against corporate interest. Space colonies. Knowing all the plants. Walking on field tracks seeing new kinds of what I know. The Buddha vow. Steiner and Findhorn. Writing in the evenings. Letters from Jam. Being able to be open heart. That beautiful agronomist. Alone in an evening light in a small hotel in Africa. A master of natural philosophy. One of the people who take care of the whole. My hormonal life being over. Studying at Oxford. Big time plant woman. Can a way open to that.
UBC plant science, plant physiology, agronomy. BSci Ag. Adv degrees. The last wave. Creepy him. You stupid old machine, get out of here and die. This bike taken too. This morning I said, I'm mad at you, you talk about being in love and you're always trying to make me different. That started a giant wave. Weakness bully seizes my time with wailing roaring huddling. I go dead cold like looking at a squashed worm. You're totally identified with your emotion, all you care
about is your emotion. And then the key turns. Alright now you aren't human to me any more, now I begin to take stock and manage. The painter who screamed with dreams. Creeps, lies. Yest a hip roof barn. Clearing it out, throw stones overboard that had been in the spaces between 2x4 studs. Oh-oh, it was the weight that balanced it and now it's falling sideways. We're on the roof and ride it gently down. Fallen apart we can use it for lots else.
7th On the sidewalk in my bride dress and veil walking fast on Hastings toward the wedding. A bright fly street presence in my black sneakers. Turn up the country road. The story is that my friends are in the country ostensibly getting flowers and food, but in fact trying to fix it up with my old friend so I won't mistakenly marry this young man with black hair who's standing there in a suit. The bride's wish for the ceremony is that he should run up waving, or -----. All gathered at the table. Jam there in the corner. A sunbeam strikes her figured bowl with a dazzle rebounded onto me. The brides at the head of the table start to laugh and she too, admitting, but when I put my arms around her she's stiff still. Wake there, sleep again, dawn pink and dream 2 aerogrammes at the top of the stairs. Begin to read. Her curvy writing. Old and young black man at the table of white woman and man. Holding my breath. The white man says, What is a dream? Black young man translating but answers this himself, tilting the lamp, moving his hand between it and the white man: A dream is a shadow. Ie a code placed between an energy and a sentence. An image and a thing: what's the difference. "When my brother needs me he sends me a message in a dream, or in my body," showing a twitch in the forearm, but he's making it between his thumb and forefinger. Left forearm. The stunning image of Elise standing by Ammi, high-bred fine oval, girl bow. Unprepared for it to be real: race and class hatred, delight, astonishment at these children's grown doing, dismay at what this saying makes me. - At the thought of dying into usefulness I'm raring and jumping. We visit his friend. She has a corner of mountains. When I've told my complaints there she sits, there he, there I and the baby, in peace.
|