An overly ordered mind would go mad trying to make sense of every thought, like a simulated AI would short circuit with floods of impressions it cannot contextualize.
What enables most humans to deal with ever turbulent feelings and thought processes; how does one edit out what is irrelevant?
I always liked to assume there is a core vibration each of us brings along, a theme around which passions assemble, and necessities, priorities, things that need doing to stay coherent and in rapport with our environment, family, friends, jobs, projects, and not least manage tasks that serve our survival in this ever more complex world.
Our culture rewards strongly defined social roles, though the drawback can be fossilized minds, made rigid, opinionated, avoiding doubt, and unable to imagine other points of views with a generous attitude. A strong definition of one’s place and function in the world could be likened to an instantly recognizable genre, with a predictable protagonist.
By comparison, be it a simplification, philosophers, artists and poets, dreamers, well, creative people with expansive interests, are a slippery lot. They don’t often fit a clear-cut social role, but tend to hang around in fringe positions, distanced from the gyre, observing and evaluating the system, the market place, and the wheels of politics with a wary eye.
From the fringe it is possible to gain a symbolic understanding of people and events, which can stimulate innovation and even visions that reveal deeper layers of the psyche.
These days people say, ‘I want a simple life,’ an option that is rapidly vanishing. More of us are pushed to the fringe, challenged to embrace the complexities of modern/digital life, having to struggle with doubt and inner conflict. This phenomenon may explain the desperate search for advice. Social platforms are brimming with quotes and aphorisms, which, unfortunately, only spark in a heart that is open at a personally timely moment. Otherwise these wisdom’s just float by like irritating advertising banners.
While pondering such thoughts recently, I was reminded of a book that came out in 1997, ‘The Soul’s Code,’ by James Hillman. He explores the guiding force in a person’s life, in various traditions called daimon, genius or guardian angel. He uses the term ‘acorn theory,’ based on the idea of an initial strong image we bring along that calls our destiny towards us. The book struck a deep chord at the time. I’ll read it again, to soothe my outrage with the world.
Hillman dared us to believe that we are each meant to be here; that we are needed by the world around us.
An interesting mind, as you’ll find in this longish interview. https://scott.london/interviews/hillman.html
One book of poems I have always at my bedside, for when I need to shift my thoughts, is Wislawa Szymborka’s New and Collected poems 1957 -1997, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavenagh, published by Faber and Faber 1999
through the poems like a clear spring.
A few days ago, waking at dawn, I had retained a dream vision:
Maybe the dimension of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall could suffice, but only a Turner price gets you there. In case you don’t know, the Turbine Hall is the place that allowed visitors to touch the sun, like my son did during an Olafur Eliasson’s weather project exhibition a few years ago.
Normally, a writer’s work is condensed and hidden between the neat covers of a book, or captured on e-book screens, one click by one click. The concept of spreading the pages out in real space fascinates me, and ideas keep tumbling in. Like making the text respond to the concentration of the reader, or the lack, in which case sentences would ripple, as if floating on water.
This time of year I like reading in the garden. Last week I forgot to take a book inside – ‘The Hand of Poetry,’ collected poems from Sanai, Attar, Rumi, Saadi and Hafiz, translated by Coleman/Barks, with introductions taken from talks by Inayat Khan. During a short but heavy shower that night, the book greedily feasted on rain. I found it blown up, like a balloon, to double its size.
and three times over. On the third day I hung the book by its spine on the washing line. Once dry, I managed to press the volume with a heavy vintage iron into reasonable shape again. The ordeal required my undivided attention. The re-read pages during those hours lodged themselves with refreshed presence in my heart. 
Meanwhile I enjoy some treasures close by …
This photo was recently taken by my son on a non-make-up day, after a delicious meal with one two glasses of wine. I softened the stark reality of my age with a slight photo shop treatment. It’s the best smile I can manage in this time of confusing tragic/comic politics, for which there is no solution but to pray that the majority of people, the psyche of the world, will be able to face and endure the shadow revelations of our age, and the usual opportunists of fear – without falling into despair …
I miss her. She was a deep thinking woman, a painter, psychotherapist and lover of poetry, especially Rumi, whose verses she recited often in her very deep and distinctive voice. She was an inspiration to many. For over ten year, up to 2004, we ran monthly seminars and additional workshops together, on themes like mythology, the power of the imagination, and the significance of dreams. I feel deep gratitude for her supportive friendship and feel strongly that her frequency lives on.
Course of Mirrors 