I’ve been thinking about the concept known as Rebis. In the Alchemical Tradition that word denotes the culmination of the “Great Work” … which includes the union of opposites. I don’t think there’s much chance of Rebis being achieved in actuality. And in the arena of the mind, I think it’s a wonderfully worthwhile project, but one that probably always proceeds one step forward and two steps back. I say this because the union-of-opposites-like enterprise I’m preoccupied with these days is the collaboration of my conscious and unconscious faculties. And my experience so far is that the unconscious is vast, and by comparison consciousness is miniscule. Like the difference in scale between the earth and the entire rest of the universe.
An idea I’ve been toying with is that what I’m consciously aware of expands in response to experiences in actuality and as a consequence of contributions shared by my unconscious faculties, either while on the edge of sleep or as ideas that present themselves to me while I’m awake. Such day-time gifting usually takes place during moments when I’m not actively responding to a pressing need in actuality, or on those occasions when I’m engaged in some manual task like putting leaves on the tree in the image above. While performing almost automatic, largely repetitive actions with my hands, unsought ideas present themselves that often feel wildly out of left field and at the same time also wonderfully pertinent.
Shortly after I first began noodling over Rebis several weeks ago I happened upon a particularly wonderful Tarot deck called Visconti Sforza. I do not read Tarot cards myself, but I’m always grateful for the ideas that cross my mind when I look at them. While looking at the Visconti Sforza deck the “Rebis Card” above began to take shape in my thoughts.
Wolf, Raven and … Ankh?
One of my current conceits is that, to the extent the needs of actuality permit, I am living an allegorical life. And to that end I willfully foster an active and uncritical collaboration between my conscious and unconscious faculties.
The image above is the most recent product of that collaboration. This exercise was kicked off by my attraction to a 1926 public domain photo by Eugène Atget called “St. Cloud” that provides the setting. Upon reflection it seemed to me that a wolf should be standing at the top of the near stairs. I found a stock photo of a wolf that had the right attitude, and I purchased a license to use it. Once the wolf was in place it seemed to me that he was looking at a raven in flight. Again, I found and licensed a stock photo that seemed properly expressive. But what was the handsome bird after or attracted to?
It seemed to me that what was emerging was an allegorical image, but I had, and still have, no idea what abstract concept might be proposed by the literal composition. That set me thinking that the raven might have its eye on an allegorical object, and the ankh crossed my mind.
I like the way the Egyptian “key of life” symbol looks in the composition very much, but even though I don’t know what the overarching allegory is about, the conscious side of the collaboration feels the ankh isn’t the most appropriate object to be lying on the bottom step. I mean, wolves and ravens are quintessential Northern Europe totems, are they not?
I hope if you find the image of interest and a story occurs to you, that you’ll share it with me.
High Retreat
From time to time over several months, I dreamt an image very much like the one above. And subsequently on the edge of sleep, I began willfully visualizing myself there. Sometimes by the water. Sometimes walking among the trees. Sometimes within the structure high on the craggy peak, which I explore, or from which I simply look out the windows.
The image above is not an exact replica of the place I dreamt, but all the key features that were present are represented, and it captures the sense of scope and feeling of the original vista. The image above has since eclipsed the original in my thoughts, and offers itself as a highly accessible site for edge of sleep exploration.
Update 1/12/26: In my imagination on the edge of sleep I’ve built a small dock on the near side of the lake. That gets me out over the water, but not too close, as there are lots of large, strange beings, some perhaps uncordial, just below the surface. (I hope I can loosen up around that wariness as I acclimate.) And I’ve constructed a comfy wooden lounge-like deck chair where I sit on the dock under an awning, smoking a maduro-wrapped cigar, sipping a canned margarita, and admiring the view. I imagine when the weather turns, I may prefer to be in the structure on the craggy height … but maybe not. There are no shutters on the windows, so the wind and rain would certainly get in. The place could get super nippy and the wet stone floors would probably be pretty slippery. At the same time I’m not sure I’d want to install shutters since I like the way the place looks now very much. Of course, that may change.
Wild in the Temenos
The fantasy I associate with the image above is that I’m the personification of a people. We looked at the world and drew conclusions about how it works. The conclusions that aligned with our desires were refined and codified, and a physical structure was erected, expressing our orthodoxy in columns, arches, and domes.
But one night I dreamt that a great dark horse with a white star on its brow was running wild in the orthodoxy structure. And when I awoke, I was in a vast meadow. Waist-high tawny grass and the boughs of distance trees swayed and churned. The breeze chill on my face was sweet autumn scents and the stench of rotting flesh from an open trench that ran zig-zig to the horizon. There was the buzz of flies and bees, the caw of crows, the laughter of children and the howling of beasts. Shadows of clouds moved hugely over me, alternately cast by swaths of great white formations in an azure sky, then walls of black thunderheads. Light and dark. Light and dark. The earth beneath my feet cried out and there was a sensation in my being like the opening of a door. A wave of unorthodox conclusions about how the world works poured in.
Themis
The word liminal has been much in my thoughts. Dr. Google tells me it means, “occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” In my most recent previous post I considered Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, who spends part of the year here and part of the year in the other place. And my understanding of my own situation as that of someone perpetually here and in another place, though directly conscious of the goings on in the other place only while on the edge of sleep … and then only through a marvelous lens of fantastic images.
I had read that because she simultaneously and perpetually knows what’s on both sides of the door, Persephone’s aunt Themis knows how it all fits together. As a consequence, because she knows the complete back story, Themis can sponsor oracles. She knows when something is right, and she knows when something is not as it should be.
Themis is also the mother of the Moirai (the Fates), of whom Wikipedia says, “The role of the Moirai was to ensure that every being, mortal and divine, lived out their destiny as it was assigned to them by the laws of the universe.” I think of them as the personifications of “what happens” — independent of ambition, hope, rationalization, best and worst intentions, and all other thoughts, isms or actions one might engage. They are how the cookie crumbles.
The other day I asked a pal what ideas she thought a parent might share with a child to help them face an environment and civilization that we’ve wrecked beyond repair. She proposed the phrase, “Life is not fair.” Upon reflection, I find that I’m entirely on board with that idea. The Fates come to mind, and it occurs to me that if a child asks, “But what do I do?! What do I do?!” I’d be inclined to suggest, “Be kind when you can. And be as happy as you can as long as you can.”
In the image above I’ve imagined Themis offering for our consideration thoughts from the Quran rendered in cuneiform that read:
When the heavens have
been rent asunder
And the stars have
been set to flight
When the seas have
been comingled
And the graves have
been upturned
A soul will know
what it has
sent forward
And what it has
held back
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.
For an account of an exchange with Google’s AI regarding statistically induced hallucinations related to my comment above about “reason”… click
Persephone
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).
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.
How long were we asleep?!
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.
Ask the big floating head
In mid-April 2025 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