Queen of the Underworld

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Queen of the Underworld

I’ve been enjoying the extremely satisfying experience of my insides and outsides collaborating on the same project.

As I’ve droned on about at length elsewhere, I’ve been courting my unconscious, and in that service I’ve been thinking of my unconscious as personified by Persephone, Queen of the Underworld and the goddess of springtime, vegetation, and the cycle of life and death. The image above is the latest product of that suit.

I’ve long held that key decisions I’ve made while developing visual images were largely directed by unconscious dynamics. That instinct has transitioned into what feels like a pleasurable mental sensation. As if Persephone is responding to my attentions with abundant, increasingly robust input while I work, proposing prospects that might logically seem far afield from the matter at hand, yet stimulate arrangements of pixels that when implemented seem wonderfully right to me. And there is a feeling of tremendous satisfaction in rendering them.

And then there’s what happens when I stand back and consider an image I’ve rendered. For example, an association I especially enjoy about the image above is that Wikipedia informs me Persephone is holding a sistrum – a ritual rattle. A very long time ago … perhaps in my twenties … I recall visualizing an anxious “primitive” standing close to a small campfire holding a rattle. The fire, the human figure and what he’s holding is all that is visible. The rest is black nothing. I recall thinking, “Reason is a rattle we shake against the darkness.”

I think that memory crosses my mind at this time because I sense myself more and more willfully attempting not to work from a linear thread of reasoned intentionality. Instead, trying to organize pixels in expressions of associations. Then wondering wide eyed what potential meanings the image might suggest.

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Persephone

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her

The image above is a dramatization of an experience I had recently on the platform in one of the MUNI underground railway stations in downtown San Francisco. I’ve gone melodramatic in this instance to suggest the impact the experience had upon me. The sense of seeing something highly unusual and hopefully conveying even a touch of numinosity.

In the actual experience a number of other people were present on the platform. For me the figure represented here popped out of the overall scene. The feeling was sort of, “Ah, there you are.”

As I’ve droned on at length elsewhere, I think that our minds organize information by associations. And when any particular cluster of associations achieves a high level of density a personality is spontaneously formed that might be thought of as an avatar for that info bundle.

For a little over a year, gifted with the time retirement allows me to spending doing any darn thing I wish, I’ve been experimenting with lingering on the edge of sleep. One of the outcomes has been that that edge has expanded into a zone where I now have the pleasure of lounging, sometimes for hours, treated to a pageant of images and adventures. The sensation is like visual listening.

Initially, how I entered the edge of consciousness zone seemed random, but eventually I realized that I could not think my way there. Rather, if I hold a particularly compelling visual image in my thoughts, the thoughts stop and I become a largely uncritical observer of visual images. I say images (plural) because as my thoughts retreat what I see is an ever-morphing spectacle … as soon as any particular visual image achieves definition it becomes something else. I theorize that at such times I’m cruising the maze of associations.

One of the many cockamamy theories I’ve come to hold in response to my understanding of my own experiences is that consciousness is the mind’s learned ability to moment-to-moment willfully ignore a tremendous swarm of info, while grasping particular bits of info of current interest which it organizes into a linguistic string.

To return to the figure on the MUNI platform, a couple of months ago I took it into my head to try to willfully cultivate a visually compelling avatar that might serve as a door through which I could consistently and quickly enter the edge of consciousness zone. I decided that I’d prefer the avatar was female and extremely physically powerful. I had imagined that if I mentally cultivated the characteristics I was looking for, the avatar would sooner or later present herself in the edge of sleep zone. But it appears I had that sort of inside out since I encountered an actual person on the MUNI platform that fit the visual bill to a T.

Of course, one might contend that I could only have such an encounter in actuality because the figure was already present in my unconscious. I mean, how can there be a projection without a source image?

In any event, regarding the actual person, though I would have loved to take her picture, I did not approach her or take her pic on the sly, which I felt would have been very bad form. I think in psychological jargon, I had come upon a stranger who could carry for me the projection of the avatar I had been mentally attempting to cultivate. And having had the good fortune to recognize that what I was experiencing probably had nothing to do with whoever that person actually is, I did not burden her with “my stuff.”

The actual person, by the way, was tall, raven haired, wearing a formal black gown with ruffly sleeves. Since the sighting was mid-afternoon on a weekday, it occurred to me that she might actually be a he. Her outfit was stately, but also over-the-top flamboyant. And she moved at a pace, and with enough of a swish, to suggest she might be strutting “her stuff” a bit.

Another of my cockamamy theories is that the unconscious revels in acceptance of conflicting info, perhaps even spontaneously generating within itself the opposite of everything it encounters. If so, that may foster something like psychic equilibrium and allow us to think creatively, presenting alternatives to actuality. Consequently, one of the things I think we are obliged to do when we create linguistic strings that allow us to communicate with each other is to decide which of the opposites we’ll go with. In other words, it seems just right to me that the projection of psychological material I experienced would have a pre-differentiation, androgenous aspect.

And regarding the method I employed while courting the avatar, one of the things I did was compose and contemplate the following haikus. Each is a free-standing vignette rather than episodes in a single story.

a few seem favored
she does not explain herself
prayers are pointless

night’s spectral pageant
hallowed undertow of sleep
rapture in repose

her wild black stallion
runs free in the temenos
white star on his brow

no rest for the king
she declares the rites corrupt
he wanders with shades

her legion ravens
pepper the citadel sky
nothing moves unseen

I am not her friend
nonetheless she speaks through me
words she bids me voice

Regarding the last haiku immediately above, it occurred to me to say that it should not be taken literally. But upon reflection I hesitate to make so definitive a statement. If she has indeed become an active agent residing largely in my unconscious, then how can I know with certainty what she is up to. I mean, “They don’t call it the unconscious for nothing.” Which then begs the question, have I been courting her, or her me? Or possibly both? Perhaps the last haiku above is her best understanding of our relationship, or at least her understanding at the time I penned the poem. Or perhaps it might be pertinent to suggest that she and I are aspects of a single process that is working on something, the goal of which is not fully known to either of us.

An afterthought (8/8/25): I previously had an odd experience in the MUNI underground that you might find amusing. Perhaps it’s time for me to read up on the psychological implications of associations related to subterranean spaces.

Another afterthought (8/16/25): Early yesterday morning, while in the edge of consciousness zone I was exploring the possibility of thinking of the avatar of the edge as a Cassandra figure. I feel lots of empathy for her … blessed with foresight and cursed to never be believed. But as I thought the name Cassandra, the name Persephone was returned. I’m sure I had encountered that name previously, but I could not remember her story. So, hours later, after breakfast, I googled Persephone and learned that in Greek mythology she is primarily known as the Goddess of the Underworld and Queen of the Dead. The Goddess of the Underworld image feels so right as a personalization for the avatar of the edge since, in psychological circles, Underworld is often thought of as a representation of the unconscious. Consequently, I’ve renamed this post “Persephone” (I had originally named it simply “Her”).

Yet another afterthought (9/16/25): This week I happened upon a wonderfully interesting video called The Hermetic Jung from which I learned that the edge of sleep zone I’ve been so enjoying has a name … or two names rather: hypnagogia when you’re nodding off, and hypnopompia when you’re waking up).

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But wait!

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But wait!

The way the image above evolved was that I came upon a public domain photo of the façade of a New York apartment building. I thought it was wonderful and began playing with a copy, trying to equalize the saturation and draw out additional details. As I proceeded, I found the open window intriguing. Stories began to occur to me. The one I was most attracted to was of something having escaped into the sky. The eagle is from a stock photo I found on the web and purchased permission to use. That’s me reaching after the bird.

Any thoughts you might care to share on this piece would be most welcome.

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How long were we asleep?!

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Confusion at sunset

During a walk by the ocean, while thinking about some public domain material I’d come across recently on the web, a story idea came to mind. The image above is the outcome. The guys and the boat, and their reflection on the water, are from Heinrich Kuehn’s sepia-toned photo titled Venice, c. 1898. The sky and its reflection on the water are from a painting called Rhode Island Coast by William Trost Richards (b. 1833, d. 1905).

I’d be very grateful for any thoughts you might have about what I’ve done here, and how you feel about me standing on the shoulders of giants when I piece together elements of deceased masters’ works into a new image.

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Ask the big floating head

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Shaman

In mid-April when I posted the image above, I declared it “Untitled” and I resolved not to rattle on about it here, leaving all things related to interpretation to the viewer. But by mid-May my re-solve had dis-solved, and here the rattling begins.

I set out to try to impose my own features on a photo of a very old bronze bust. I was only partially successful, but I liked the “new” bust a lot, so I looked through pics I’d taken around town to see if I could find one that might serve as a container for the bust. I was gratified to find the pic I used as the background. Total coincidence that the light source, color tones and some of the general shapes of the background image align, at least to my eye, with some of the bust features. That’s how it happened, and I’m pleased with the composition, but no meaning or interpretation came to mind.

When I asked a dear pal what she thought the image might be about she responded, “It reminds me of older movies where there is a floating, magical bust proclaiming some kind of wisdom to protagonists who have journeyed at great peril to hear its proclamations.” I love, love, love that idea! It reminds me of Mad Magazine’s take on Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick,” which they rendered as “Morbid Dick” in the June 1956 issue. The Melville novel famously begins, “Call me Ishmael.” Mad rendered it as “Call me Fishmeal.” That recollection from my childhood still delights me and I’m moved to give my image above the Mad treatment.

Jason and the guys stand in glorious Technicolor and togas before the giant floating head which intones, “For a good time, sail to the edge of the world, and if you’re not dead when you arrive, pick up a goat skin souvenir.” In response the guys enthusiastically cheer, “Yup, yup, let’s go!” … “I’m all in!” … “Sounds like a plan”… and other hearty affirmations of their acceptance of the big head’s direction. Thereafter, in light of their extraordinary agreeability — no matter the potential dire consequences — the troop was known to all as “Jason and the Argue-Nots.”

Of course, any thoughts you might wish to share … sage, shrewd, snarky or otherwise … regarding the image or my remarks above would be MOST welcome.

Or on a possibly more-serious note, here is a haiku I composed in February 2016 that may … or may not … be relevant.

see the patina
of my aging flesh and know
all that I have seen

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Shaman

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Shaman

When I completed the Faun image presented in my previous post, I found myself at a loss regarding what to do next. It crossed my mind that it might be fun to try to represent a time before all human-crafted physical and mythic structures, and perhaps even suggest beauty entirely outside of time. The image above arose in my imagination and realizing it in pixels has been a joy.

As details of the composition formed in my thoughts, I wondered, “What’s the story here?” Perhaps that a beautiful, unselfconscious creature seeks communion with her world? But that’s just where the image takes me. I hope if you fall into it you’ll go some lovely place.

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Faun

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Faun

As I understand it, way back in the day the Roman’s thought that special places…stately groves, shimmering pools, intensely lovely country lanes…had personalities. Each had a spirit. A genius loci. My guess is that the cluster of mental material that accumulated in the minds of frequent visitors to such places caused place-specific personalities to form in their thoughts. That’s the sort of thing I’m playing at with the image above, which I think of as sort of a capriccio. A fantasy of a bygone place and time.

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Facade and Reflection

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Facade and Reflection

The façade pictured in the image above belongs to the second and third floor of a building on Grant Avenue in San Francisco which I photographed in February 2003. That façade is NOT an element of the lovely Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, at which I had the pleasure of helping to stage a conference in the 1980s.

A fun attraction of the Peabody continues to be the twice-daily march of the Peabody Ducks to and from a fountain in the center of the hotel’s main lobby. Another fun but lesser-known uniqueness of the hotel is the “Lead Duck” pin. If you are wondering what a pin made of lead and shaped like a duck could be about you are already leaning in the direction I hope this post will take you.

The pin is given to key folks who are participating in the staging of an event at the hotel. It lets the hotel staff know that the wearer is to be accorded special assistance if requested because they are an event lead…er. Pleasantly aware that “lead” has at least two meanings, and potential humor can arise from a meaning switch, when the hotel’s delightful convention manager presented me with my pin she declared me a “Lead Duck” – pronounced “led” as in the heavy, bluish-gray, soft, ductile metal. I remain very amused.

I love words that can mean more than one thing. From words soulful like tear, to words colorful (another word that also has a couple of meanings) like booty. Which brings me to façade and reflection and the image above.

I think of my own experience of my own experience as a layer-like zone vacillating in a conical space between unconsciousness and consciousness. Imagine on the left side of the screen an immense globe of swirling unconscious material, each mote of which is related to every other mote by a gazillion associative connections. On the right side of that globe imagine a conical space…a transition area the base of which projects from and interacts with the swirling unconscious stuff. And emerging to the right from the apex of the cone is a line of thoughts, formed when the unconscious stuff moves and is processed through the cone into a linguistic-like conscious thread that allows me to purchase a jar of pickles, open it, and tell you about it.

Regarding that conical space, I think of myself as sort of a band or layer that moves back and forth between the unconscious base and the conscious apex. Often hovering nearer the base than the apex. Especially lately since I’ve been willfully courting a state that, with increasing frequency, allows what I see there to linger as images that can be recalled. Images from a depth within the cone that precedes the point where one or another related meaning gets designated as the next bead in the linier conscious thread – from a depth at which differentiation between things has not yet occurred.

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Stewball

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Stewball

I often sing while cooking and doing the dishes. For three consecutive evenings in early April 2024 while preparing for and cleaning up after dinner I serenaded myself over and over with a song called “Stewball”. It’s about a race horse and not a particular edifying ditty, but it seemed to have taken hold of me,

I generally sing several songs during each dinner prep and dish-washing session, so by evening three, having sung nothing but “Stewball” I had to ask myself, “Why? Why? When there are so many songs you could be singing, why Stewball?” As I lay in bed that night waiting for sleep the question was still in my thoughts, and it seemed as if the melody was playing softly somewhere nearby.

The next day I rode the J Church MUNI line inbound to Downtown San Francsico. As we entered the underground segment of the journey, I noticed that a pleasant looking fellow with curly gray hair and wearing a well-worn flaxen coat was sitting near the rear door of the car softly playing sort of jazzy flamenco on a venerable guitar. I got up and sat near him explaining that I wanted to hear better. He smiled and played a little louder, meandering through several melodies and then…you guessed it…he began to sing “Stewball”. By the time he got to the last verse I was sufficiently recovered from my muddled thoughts to sing along.

The minstrel does not appear to be a phantom. I have bumped into him twice subsequent to the Stewball encounter, both times above ground and in broad daylight. His name is Jerry. He tells me that he often plays from 1 to 2 PM on weekends at Bird and Becket Books and Records in SF’s Glen Park neighborhood.

If you found what you just read more interesting and/or amusing than annoying I encourage you to check out my 2012 post The Rabbit of Synchronicity.

And for your listening pleasure, The Hollies give you Stewball.

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Dream 1/23/24

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Dreaming

The location is a drab, dimly lit, open office interior.  Everything wears a layer of rusty grime.  I can’t see them, but I know others are within earshot.   My boss, a sandy-haired man in his forties, wrinkled long-sleeve white shirt and khaki pants, is standing turned away from me, speaking calmly but loud enough to be heard by anyone on the floor that might choose to listen.   He is berating me.  Stating in well-chosen words that I am not capable of being on the same page with him because I am not smart enough to understand his ideas and what he is trying to do.

I’m sitting on the floor in a dark narrow hallway.  My assistant is sitting across from me saying he thinks my boss is fond of me and the harsh rebuke was for show to make people believe that I am not aligned with him…that he is trying to protect me because he knows his activities have gotten him into trouble and he does not want to drag me down with him.

My assistant reminds me that I was hired because I am a poor subject for hypnosis.  Because when hypnotized the eye of my awareness turns inward and I ignore the instructions the hypnotist gives.

I sense that I have a mental impairment.  Something that inclines me to prefer not to speak.

My assistant and I exit the building leaving tracks in newly fallen snow.  My assistant turns to the left and walks away leaving a trail of footprints behind him.

I see myself, viewed from above and behind my boss who is watching me from a window on the second floor.  I turn to my right and walk away leaving a trail of footprints, but there are no footprints in the snow in the direction my assistant departed.

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