Category: Spiritual

ummagumma II

Posted On by bertie

What is it exactly what I felt and why, when I made the album Ummagumma From Pink Floyd for the first time 55 years ago? What was that immediate profound fascination with that music? Below I'm going to try to make clear what made the unconscious recognition possible, using a chapter from the collected works of Carl Gustav Jung that I read this morning. At first, it is probably useful when I talk about the psychological approach of a work of art, in Jung's work it was literature. I took the liberty of using his approach to this music, as I think I recognize it in that music.

CG Jung distinguishes two methods of creation, the psychological and the visionary. For my story, which must remain very concise, only the visionary is enough, partly because I find what I am looking for. What strikes me directly is that the psychological explanation of, in this case the visionary art on the album Ummagumma, is a primal vision of chaos and darkness that would be incompatible with certain moral categories. These three categories are: standards, values and attitudes. Standards and values refer to behavior, while attitude pertains to the person acting.

Let me start with the latter. It probably pertains to an experience that seems incompatible with the personality or fiction of the composer's consciousness. The conflict leads to wanting to make it invisible, the displacement towards the unconscious of the experience in question. Furthermore, I am not going to go here because reducing the visionary experience to the personal experiences of the creators, the experience makes it something figuratively, a surrogate, loses the primal character and the primal vision becomes a symptom, a psychic neurosis of the maker, so to speak, and the chaos is reduced to a spiritual order. This statement will soon return within the limits of the ordered cosmos. That's not what I experienced when I was listening and a whole new world opened to me. The only order I could distinguish were the music notes played on the musical instruments.

The source of the shared experience here must be taken seriously though it seems that the mind will feel compelled to intervene in this obscure metaphysics to prevent the world from sinking into dark superstition. Maybe because I was so young and was completely open because of my fascination, the last thing happened to me. A listener who doesn't unknowingly identify himself with the atmosphere and message that is contained in these songs and doesn't understand this music is probably a rich fantasy, artist grilling or derailed poetic freedom. Maybe there was a more everyday love experience among the members of the band or one of them. The passion behind it is in any case palpable and leaves some less deep minds lost. The experience of the maker has become a real symbol, an expression for an unknown reality. It has become a fact, a psychic reality with as much value as a physical reality, for me anyway.

The feelings, the passion, of both the members of Pink Floyd, and mine lie within the consciousness, the object of the vision outside, which makes it mystical or magical. The band between the music and the band on the one hand and me on the other is for good forged, although the members of Pink Floyd will not have noticed any of that. The feeling that is summoned to me is that of things that are naturally secret. They're mysterious and creepy, an illusion because they're hidden by the ratio, the mind. They hide from such things out of fear of God.

The cosmos represents the consciousness, the sun and the faith of the day here, while the chaos stands for the nightly fear, the moon and the unconscious. This tension creates the question if there is anything alive on the other side. My soul was drawn out of the human, in the above human, which is also called the divine. This is, of course, a very strong and profound experience at the age of nine, the profound consequences of which at that time were completely inconceivable. Was it a trick of the unconscious to give me an omen in this threatening and ominous way that something will happen?

The laws, moral and practical, which man has invented to protect us from the madness of fear of metaphysics, the eternal fire of God, which may be too close here, fall out of here and do not last in this young mind of mine. The beauty of this darkness was to me so awesome and encompassing that it was like a revelation of a new unknown religion. This is what brought my fascination up from the deepest source of my being, my unconscious and his archetypes. The fascination lies in the experience and in the source and is still there, now almost 55 years later.

Every time the collective unconscious penetrates the experience and joins the time consciousness, a creative act has taken place that pertains to the whole period, it is a message to contemporaries.

ummagumma

Posted On by bertie

It's Christmas 1969 and I'm staying with my dad and his girlfriend for the first time. Saturday morning, ten o'clock and I discovered their record collection in the closet to the left of the sliding doors with glass. I am already a music lover myself, although I am just nine years old and my curiosity has been awakened. There is also a sound system on the board below. An amplifier in a red metal cabinet with a white aluminium front with lots of buttons and a Dual plate player. The amplifier my father's friend's cousin built for her, as I'll hear later. I can't wait to hear that play, I'm just used to the old radio with white plastic pickup in a big wooden dense console that my uncle made for my mother. I'm browsing one by one because of the many lp.

All classical music I notice disappointed. I discovered about four years ago the origin of pop music and I am only interested in it. So far I can only get through the pirate channels on the middle wave and a couple of singles, which my grandmother bought for me on the offer and "A Hard Days Night" from The Beatles, which I got through her from an unknown second cousin.

Suddenly I encounter a cover with a hypnotic photo with Droste effect, on which four men with very long hair, and I think aha, this is interesting! The band is Pink Floyd and the album Ummagumma. I'll ask if I can set it up. That's okay, and he's gonna be put on for me.

I'm going to sit in the old armchair, with a green with blue and purple striped cover over it, opposite the white with black speakers on top of both cabinets. It's that as a little boy I'm hiding deep in the big armchair, otherwise I would have fallen out! I am carried away in a panorama of ominous musical sounds. Dark vibrating basses, accompanied by heavy dark drums and very light fast taps on high heads. An electric guitar whines right through it and someone sings, screams an incomprehensible text. The whole thing is exciting and quite frightening, but beautiful, beautiful! It touches deep into my heart and soul.

This is a completely different world. This is my due, that's how I want to live, going through me. Then my dad's girlfriend comes into the room with a moaning vacuum cleaner. I object, but it shouldn't help, but I know what to do. The music I have listened to so far is no longer enough, I have found my passion. I'll write this right after Easter 2024. I still have that lp of my father, who has long passed away himself, and hardly a week goes by that I do not turn at least one side of this double lp and get caught in rapture. While I now own many hundreds of albums and CDs. I know there have been quite a few moments in my life, which have turned out to be a true revolution, a revelation, but this was, I think, the first, and as far as I am concerned, one of the most beloved and with the most profound consequences and the deepest effect. It turned my life upside down.

love

Posted On by bertie

As a man the love of women is as far as it deviates from such a different caliber, that I would like to ignore it here, you still have several choices in the Western world, to focus the love you have on different goals. Experience shows that loving multiple objects or subjects soon leads to unbridgeable tensions. On the one hand because passions often require an enormous amount of time, energy and concentration. On the other hand, because the object or object of love usually does not settle for a shared, let alone second place.

Then what are these choices? For the sake of completeness, let's start with the most superfictional like money, career and possessions to own it. However, a man can also be caught by an interest that sometimes results in passion for art, science, music or sport. This often leads to a somewhat monomanic attitude. However, a man can also be completely seized by the love of a woman or to God. This also shows that there are several possibilities. I would not like to speak directly of choices here, although ultimately it will be when the present love settles in the heart or brain of the man in question.

A man's love for a woman or man may be sexually motivated, or possess any other external reason. He may even decide to commit to that one woman in marriage forever or as long as possible. This love is one we could call worldly. On the internet I saw a definition of courteous love that described this as a characteristic. The courteous love is, in my opinion, a very different and rather a love that is best known here from the Middle Ages and then seemed to experience its heyday.

The courteous love of a man is, in my opinion, the love of a woman, I have never met man to man, or it must be the Greek eros rid of the more earthly experiences. It was the love of a knight for a often married damsel. The object of love is preferably somewhat or totally unreachable for one or more reasons. It, necessarily sometimes, renounces the sexual component of love, or at least coitus brings with it an increased, channeled and sublimated libido that eventually penetrates and or assimilates all levels at which this love takes place. Of course, this love knows many conventions, but what is most striking is its unselfishness, although I suspect there are limits to that. This love especially comes to us, ordinary mortals, in an inexhaustible amount of poetry, over many centuries. Known poets are of course William Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sydney, but honor there are too many to mention. Of course, the stories about Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet and Lancelot and Guinevere are well known. Dichten is of course the artistic expression of passion through love. See also, for example, the Song of Solomon and the Psalms of King David.

Love to God and His love usually seems to be on a very different level. It is a love that is spread worldwide, like all other forms, although many will think differently, because his or her God is the only one and cannot be shared with a people or religion with another name. On the other hand, the thought that God doesn't exist all over these days. Love to God is on the one hand the profane, that of the church or flock, and on the other hand the sacral of priests and the many other qualities of initiates. Known example of all sacrificing love to God is of course the Bible story of John the Baptist and his devotion, which is also love, to Jesus. This love is also accompanied by great sacrifices, although the sacrifice here is what it is all about and not the result of love as with, for example, courteous love. The sacrifice Jesus made is an example to which ultimate love can lead. I would like to leave it at that, but I hope to come back to this.

desire II

Posted On by bertie

Desire then, in my case is once again either the root of greed or its sprouting and sad often leads to frustrations and eventually anger. I mean this not in the light of the dualist moral split of Western thinking, but as an experience fact. I know both materialistic desires and spiritual/spiritual desires. It's secrets that lure.

It is the experience that something is missing. A thought, an object, an idea or object suddenly becomes extremely important and cannot and cannot be missed. I have to have it and I will have it right away. The wish must be fulfilled whether it is within reach or not, whatever. It's like there's a consciousness narrowing, like I'm going blind to everything else that is. Nothing is more important than the object, the person, or the idea of what the desire pertains to. Even the feeling plays a role. At first I was happy and satisfied, with the new insight that alras disappeared.

There are different desires. For example, there are sexual, material, spiritual and religious desires. Are they all from the same source, the same (un) displeasure or is there a difference between spiritual and material needs for example? I imagine spiritual desires come from the soul and sexual desires are more physically bound. That intense desire for that woman or man you once encountered is more a desire of the heart. Then where do material desires come from? That new jacket, which, perhaps, used shoes that look so shockingly cool or could be very nice, where did that apparent lack come from? A theory I heard today is that it's the search back to the mother's womb, for a sense of security.

According to the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, born before 1900, all desires can be traced to a life drive or a death drive. Carl Gustaf Jung, his disciple for a short time, thought there were four universal desires, linked to the different archetypes that form the structure of the collective unconscious result in different types with the same desire, but each with its own content.

There are the seekers for paradise, for the ultimate good and perfect life. For example, the sage thinks that this state can be achieved by reflecting on knowledge and finding a higher self through logos, or, as Alan Watts argues, going the way of the Tao, finding and becoming yourself. The rebel is a different kind of world improver, he or she believes in a form of struggle, revolution, overthrowing sacred houses. He or she kicks herself forward after his or her desire as it were. This is contrary to what is called the common man. His motto is known: just do it, then you act crazy enough. The group is the highest good, that is where he or she wants to belong. The artist seeks his salvation in creating an idea of control.

Is that it? Is not desire more than a form of control over something that is not (yet) there? Is the fulfillment of the wish and the temporary feeling of happiness that comes with it (only) having the idea of control? Only, I guess, what remains after control is a fact? There will be a new desire! Control is then a desire! The satisfaction of the somewhat older generations in particular, as it seems, is also temporary. Apparently there's another engine that keeps us yearning for new, different horizons.

pancreas

Posted On by bertie

Let's split this word up. It clearly falls apart in the words Pan and Trec. Pan translated from Latin means everything or everything encompassing and increase translated from Latin as creation. The words used separately mean from Latin translates: make a pan. But most famous is Pan probably from the Greek and Latin myths about him, see my earlier blog about Pan. Here, however, we can read pancreatic with some good will as to create all of them.

When I go one step further in my analogical thinking or so you want to create analytics, I get to Prometheus. I'll explain how I took that step. Prometheus steals the fire, the creation of the Gods of the Olympus of those same gods to give to the people. In some ancient Greek myths, Prometheus is even the creator of the first people. He created man from clay.

Stealing fire from the gods is, in my opinion, the same thing as creating, making something out of nothing. Fire used to arise from the beating of pebbles, which gave a spark by which persons who were in it could make fire. Fire is the light of the soul of man, the universal spark given us or not by God, or vice versa, the fire in man is his soul. But there's something else.

As punishment for his deed, the Gods, by mouth of Zeus, ensure that Prometheus is chained to a mountain in the Caucasus where the eagle Ethon comes to pick his liver from Prometheus' body and then eats it. In the night the liver grows again, after which the eagle returns in the morning to pick up the liver again and to eat it. This continues until Herakles ends as one of his twelve works, with the approval of Zeus, the eagle death and the eternal punishment. Is it a very big step to replace the liver with the pancreas, a similar organ?

Pancreatitis or pancreas inflammation (fire) can be caused by, among other things, excessive alcohol consumption (firewater). This inflammation can repeat which can lead to chronic pancreatic inflammation. It may also lead to pacreas carcinoma in some cases. Part of the pancreas is sometimes surgically removed. Life expectancy should not be overestimated. Unfortunately, the idea of creating everything will then be taken away from and eventually put out of the fire.

the soul

Posted On by bertie

Yesterday, following my blog, I had an email exchange with a friend about the soul. His argument was that the soul is rather a part of the light and is slightly different than the psyche at Jung, for example. With followers of the latter sometimes the idea is that the psyche and the soul are one and the same. I share that view, but I will examine it briefly here.

The psyche is distinguished in the anthroposophy in soul and spirit. The mind is the core of the personality that directs everything, the soul is the potential of feelings, emotions and desires, needs that work within us. In some philosophical and religious movements, the soul is the immortal in man, independent of the body and immortal. Etymologically, the word soul goes back to air in several languages, for example the Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . In Hebrew, that's the word "samah"

Today, the soul, as the immortal, unintelligible and immortal, is sometimes seen as consciousness, or vice versa. It is then that which determines our functioning to a great extent and of which one does not really know where it is in our body. In that sense consciousness is also what passes to the next world, the afterlife or whatever you think is after death. Interestingly, Buddhism denies the existence of a continuous soul. Everything is essentially without self, meditation is the way to get away from your core, in this case the less important self. In Hinduism, however, the soul, . .atman . . . . . . . This comes close to the idea that the soul is a vibration that goes back to where and is the same vibration after the body dies. Or the idea that the soul is a spark of the eternal great, Divine, light or is seen as the essence. The miracle of eternal beauty.

Psyche, the lover of Eros in Greek mythology, is so beautiful that no one dares marry her. On the other hand, much more is a concept, a technical term such as Freud, who used to use besides . Freud distinguished the id, the instinctive subconscious motives, the super-ego, the conscience, the internalization of standards and value of the environment and the ego that is conscious and serves as an intermediary between the two. The psyche is seen in psychology, her study more as the total of the conscious and unconscious. Jung uses the term Even with the central archetype, the structure of the personality, the totality of the conscious and unconscious and is autonomous, out of time and space. Jung calls it a "imago dei"

I am still inclined to see a great overlap between psyche and the more spiritual experience of the soul. Perhaps there is an essence in man, partly divine, partly determined by an intangible nucleus that gives us our more personal form. This would make the idea that God is outside and within us that we see God with the same eye as he sees us with. Even when you do not believe in divinity it is possible to see the soul as part of a greater whole, in the end nothing pertains to itself.

morpheus

Posted On by bertie

Three days ago I was talking about Thanatos. Thanatos has a not insignificant cousin, Morpheus, the son of his brother Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. Morf means form, think of amorph (without form) and is the Greek god of the dream. Actually, he shares that honor with three brothers, but since he has become the god of the dream, because he created only the most valued dreams of heroes and kings in human sleep in ancient times. That's why I'm only talking about Morpheus.

Morpheus lives in a dark cave, how else can it be and gives mind-expanding dreams. Not for nothing is there a medicine named after him with that (side) effect, namely morphine. Spirit-expanding dreams, also called Lucid dreams, are dreams in which you become aware in your dream that you dream. A synonym of Lucide is perceptive and that is exactly the state Frederick van Eeden referred to, the clear state in which you find yourself. Frederik van Eeden was a Dutch psychiatrist and writer around the penultimate turn of the century, who wrote, among other things, "The Little John," a beautiful 160-page story in which the eleven Windekind John guides around as in a dream. Like a dream, the book has multiple layers. Besides the fairy tale, which is presented as a reality for John, there is the story about the stages of human life and the quest for happiness. A book of Morpheus seems worthy to me and to compare it to a true dream.

There are people who are just dreamers of themselves, but you can also learn to dream. You don't need external hallucinogenic agents. A well-known opinion is as follows: You pay attention during the day whether you dream or not, in other words: wonder if the situation you are in is true. Conscious life, then. Otherwise, you often look at a clock. Keep a dream diary and think about what to dream about before falling asleep at night. Admittedly, it requires some training, energy and perseverance. It doesn't go on in the dream either. When you're in a match dream, you got to focus on something for the full hundred percent. Then what is the benefit of clear dreams?

When Morpheus visits your evening and dreams clearly you will experience a greater consciousness in the reality around you when you are awake. You become sharper, quieter, more perceptive and more present. More consciously. The little things are going to show you a lot more and you can enjoy them again, which only makes life more beautiful. By the way, during the dream it can be measured by scientists just like Mindfulness and meditation. There is a strong activity in the prefrontal cortex, where small changes are also taking place and the prefrontal cortex is also the place where the sensation seems to be happiness. Dreams his deception once sung a Dutchman, I dare to doubt that.

Death

Posted On by bertie

Thanatos, son of Nyx and Erebos, twin brother of Hypnos (sleep), is a figure from the Greek, especially Spartan myths. Being the personification of death he has never been very popular because he is also in ancient times poorly written and hated by the gods of the Greek Pantheon, Mount Olympus. In the god of the underworld, Hades, he must acknowledge his superior and unsurpassable competitor. His mother Nyx, the primal goddess of the night, had even the deep respect of the chief god of Greek mythology, Zeus. However, she too is not really honored in the many temples of ancient Greece. Thanatos' father was, according to some, Erebos, just like Nyx was born in Chaos. In any case, Nyx had a large offspring on her own, including: the guilt, the imminent disaster, the dreams, the revenge (Nemesis), the deception, the friendship and the old age. And so Thanatos. That's not nothing.

Chaos is nothing, that which the first gods prevent from. Chaos is a bottomless void in which everything falls inexhaustible, in all directions. Thanatos, death is his grandchild. What else can we tell about death, especially Thanatos? The word euthanasia comes from it, like Thanatophobia, a fear of death, especially to die and a fear of issues related to it. Death is seen by many as the total end, an unexperienceable nothing. A phobia means as much as the fear is not real and affects the daily life of the person suffering from it very much. So much so that panic arises when someone is in a cemetery related to a funeral, for example. The opposite is possible.

You also have people who long for death and see it as redemption from their suffering. Forever in deep sleep. This could be euthanasia in horrible physical suffering to call something. Sigmund Freud is often associated with the term death wish. When you type in the word death wish in your browser, you will immediately see a phone number to call to talk to someone about it. Many links below are about depression and yearning for an end. There is a distinction between a passive and an active death wish, which can lead to a recurring death wish also called suicidality. Just in case you recognize the phone number you can call: 0800-0113.

At Freud, death drive or thanatos is a pursuit of a stressless state. It is also a part of what the unconscious controls, in addition to the urge to live, eros, the primary urge to preserve and preserve the species. The desire to satisfy our needs, which cannot always succeed. Eventually, in the extreme, this is the cause of thanatos. The two urges are part of what Freud calls the Es, which is contrary to conscience, also called Über-ich baptized by Freud. In addition to thanatos and eros there is the libido, which his apprentice and later counterpart Carl Gustaf Jung understands much more widely as being all-embracing life energy with a tendency to both destructive and creative urges and a conscious or unconscious pursuit of individualization which means self-realization in the broadest sense of the word. Choosing the fullness of life.

through the valley

Posted On by bertie

The valley is a low between two or more mountains or higher parts. A valley can be a kind of oasis or a dark foggy plain. Usually it is experienced as the latter. That's what I'm going to talk about here. Going through a valley is often a metaphor for a difficult period. This can be emotional or mental, in your emotional life or in your mind. You feel depressed, depressed or even depressed. Either you get stuck in your dreams and ideas and you don't get out or you don't.

Psalm 23:4, verreweg de meest bekende psalm, veel gereciteerd op uitvaarten, vat het als volgt samen: “Zelfs al ga ik door een dal van diepe duisternis, ik vrees geen kwaad, want Gij zijt bij mij; uw stok en uw staf, die vertroosten mij.” Valt opvalt hier zijn de stok en de staf. De staf en de stok zijn symbolen van autoriteit, macht en waardigheid. Denk aan koningen en bijvoorbeeld herders die een kudde hoeden. In ruime zin zijn stokken en staven ook van vegetatieve oorsprong (denk aan takken) en als zodanig symbolen van de immanente kracht van de natuur. Je zou bovenstaande zin dus kunnen interpreteren als: al heb ik het moeilijk op mijn weg – door het dal – ik ben niet bang dat het verkeerd afloopt en heb hoop dat ik uit het dal zal komen door de natuur met zijn eeuwige, steeds weer herstellende cyclus als uitgangspunt. Denk hierbij aan bijvoorbeeld de vier jaargetijden.

In die zin is door een dal gaan iets nieuws leren en jezelf ontwikkelen, zodat je er beter uitkomt dan je de fase inging. Het afdalen kan op zich al stress of angst geven. Naar beneden gaan is mogelijk enger dan omhoog klimmen. Het afdalen op de fiets van een steile helling kan hard gaan en zeker wanneer er dan ook nog onoverzichtelijke bochten zijn, kan dit de nodige stress opleveren. Het klimmen in de pedalen is dan weer een stuk zwaarder, maar minder beangstigend. Een ander metafoor van het afdalen in een dal is die voor de afdaling in je onbewuste. Ook dit is niet zonder gevaar, al helemaal niet voor de daarin ongeoefende persoon. Er bestaat zelfs het gevaar dat je overspoelt raakt door de, tot dan toe, onbekende inhouden van dat onbewuste. Een geloof in een steunende, helpende kracht kan dan van onmisbare betekenis zijn. Dit hoeft niet de God uit het Oude Testament te zijn. Het kan van alles zijn. Van een professional of vriend(in) in je omgeving, een waardering voor natuurkrachten of een goed boek.

Door een dal gaan kan een hachelijke onderneming zijn voor een enkeling, maar ook een uitdaging met als resultaat een wijze les. Een leuke bezigheid wordt het alleen voor het geoefende individu, die min of meer weet wat hij doet. Uiteindelijk word je dan een geoefende wandelaar voor wie de weg interessanter is dan de uiteindelijke bestemming.

One crying in the desert

Posted On by bertie

One crying in the desert, you can probably fill an oasis in that same desert by now. The most famous example is of course that of John the Baptist, a prophet. The Bible pertains to the statement: "I am the voice of one who calls in the desert: Make the way of the Lord straight, as Isaiah the prophet has spoken." Isaiah (40:3) says it as follows: "A voice of crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord: make straight in the wilderness a job for our God!" Like there's a road in the desert, I guess. Or is it? It seems as if every hero of faith first spent in the wilderness, or the desert. Other well-known prophets and spiritual leaders were in this limited context for example Jesus and Moses.

A crying in the desert is someone who is not listened to by the people or to whom they will not listen. The path in the desert is then the spiritual development that so much preparation has to go before he can let others follow his path. Jesus and Moses have grown very big in that. But also Buddha and Lao Tze are no strangers in this place. Moses has led and raised a whole people in the desert, the ideas of Jesus have become a world religion of great magnitude with a big finger in the porridge in the western world. Whether this was ever the intention of that artisan's son is highly doubtful.

Every person who is enlightened knows about it, good followers are hard to find. It is clear that someone who is enlightened wants to shine in small or larger circles and does so by summing up his knowledge in words and perhaps a doctrine. That's where it goes wrong. Words are words, they have a lot of power but they remain spoken ideas. Being enlightened also has to do with feeling, feeling that something is, that something is right, an assumption of an enlightened idea to the idea itself, which completely crystallizes into you. It can sometimes be experienced as a real light in the person or around it. But turn that over. Most people don't understand or don't want to understand, which is the same thing already wanting to hear.

Ideas about a road often provoke resistance. There are all kinds of unimaginable consequences and there are all kinds of responsibilities, whether difficult or not. Also, sacred houses often fall down, or they even get blown over. Besides, I just wrote it: words are words. Words can be totally misunderstood or explained. This can be due to lack of knowledge or insight, because something is completely outside your perception or experience. Another possibility is that this happens with bad intentions to gain power, money or other benefits, such as satisfying sexual desires. In essence, every religion, cult, school or cult is a broth of an essentially profound experience of the ultimate truth.

Enlightened people see that truth but often remain crying in the desert. Making the right path has a lot of meaning to them and much clear or less clear consequences and hopefully gives them a better life, but whether that also applies to the people around them who need to hear their words remains a great question.