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Post by rosabelbelieve on May 29, 2008 16:12:42 GMT
That's a really good comparison, because GOoMH and the story of Io both feature transformations into livestock. After Io's transformation, she was continually stung by a maddening gadfly. And in GOoMY, the "mule braying sounds" at the end could suggest a maddening battle between ongoing transformations. Yes, I agree, that's a great observation.
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Post by tannis on May 30, 2008 3:08:31 GMT
Alchemical Secrets of The Lord of the RingsTrue adepts from the great esoteric traditions of humanity speak of the trap of personal power and the grasping nature of the individuated ego that desires its own dominion and therefore, immortality above all else. For as the adept, spoken of in the alchemical lore as the artist and imitator of Nature and the divine Great Work, rises in knowledge and aptitude, as he/she delves into the heart of nature and the elements, seeking the elusive prima materia, philosophers stone, and 'elixir of life', there is always the opportunity for a 'fall' or error. Too often, like the wizard Saruman in The Rings Trilogy, the aspiring adept becomes the victim of a type of mental distortion and disequilibria, which Tolkien describes as a perversion of their Art into Power. Seduced and perverted by his/her ever growing communion with 'forces' that promise endless treasures, extraordinary physical and psychic abilities, power over men and 'phenomena', and of course, immortality, the alchemist, having forsaken the essential interior or spiritually oriented aim of this Divine Art becomes ensnared in an ever-tightening net of darkness and delusion that is essentially antithetical to the ultimate goal of the Great Work... But for the true alchemical adept, turning lead into gold is merely a metaphor for the process by which the lead or prima materia of the psychophysical body is transformed into the pure gold of enlightenment, in which the adept comes into total alignment and harmony with the Divine. Genuine masters and adepts who, as a by-product of their devotion to Divine Principles and 'inner' spiritual work have acquired certain powers that we would call magical or miraculous, refrain from exhibiting these powers except under the most serious of circumstances. Why is it that Galadriel, Gandalf , Elrond, Aragorn and Faramir refuse to take up the Ring? Filled with wisdom, love, and virtue, they know in the depths of their beings that their task is to be of service to the continuance of the ever-unfolding vision and laws of the One True Creator. www.jayweidner.com/JayTolkien6.htm
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Post by tannis on May 31, 2008 8:29:37 GMT
SOLAR MONOTHEISM: Reaching Out for the Sun...Phoibos [Apollon], of you even the swan sings with clear voice to the beating of his wings, as he alights upon the bank by the eddying river Peneios; and of you the sweet-tongued minstrel, holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings both first and last. And so hail to you lord! I seek your favour with my song. ~ Homeric Hymn 21 to ApolloMan wearing Sun Mask in divination ceremonywww.cubby.net/missalette/missalette12/images/sun_mask.gifThe Black Sunwww.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2005/bigmarlan.jpgKate Bush - Delius (Song Of Summer)www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmADS0sFCGAThe cover to The Black Sun is so like the Kate and Paddy Bush 'Delius' video, and very much suggests solar worship. The Sun is prominently featured on the AERIAL cover. The back cover to TKI and NFE both feature sunset with moon; and LIONHEART features a solar lion moving its slow thighs...
This extract offers a brief history of Reaching out for the Star that explodes...Reaching out for the Star Reaching out for the Star that explodes Reaching out for Mama See how the flower leans instinctively Toward the light..."Su" comes from a Sanskrit root, meaning "to bring forth". The sun brings forth all. Monotheism is considered solar most of the time. Not always, but often, the sun's generating power is associated with masculine principles. The ancients watched the cyclical journey of the sun, the brightest star. The sun was born, died and reborn, inspiring the idea of an unconquerable God. The famous Mayan Calendar is a great example of ancient urban culture and its pre-urban relationship to the cycles of life as per the solar wheel. One big fiery day in the future, the sun will draw all back inside it. The sun is our oldest friend. All that we enjoy is made possible by the sun. Every plant stretches towards the sun. Sun worship is the most organic and universal form of meditation and focus. What greater symbol of unification is there than the disc of the sun? The sun's rays are represented in Egyptian plumes. Indeed, royalty started with clans that thought themselves the true representatives of The Sun for the people to worship. The crown and divine right stem from the halo of "the shining ones," the devas. The Sumerians called the sun Apsu, "The One Who Was There From the Beginning." The Sumerian Creation Myth is echoed in the Book of Genesis. Apsu created Mummu (Mercury) - the Sun's Messenger in both Sumerians and Greek tradition because it "runs" so quickly around the sun doing its bidding. The sun cult comes in and out of favor in true seasonal fashion. It would appear that certain people get picked by the sun to bring back the cult of solar monotheism every now and again, eg. Pharaoh Akhenaten and Emperor Constantine. Is it any wonder that the obelisk is a solar symbol? The obelisk is a monument to the erect phallus of Osiris, Egypt's God of Resurrection, the hapless victim of Seth and the consort of Isis. The world's central banks control the world's economies in much the same way the sun controls the earth. The eagle, a solar symbol from prehistory, is a typical banking gargoyle. One can find solar symbolism everywhere. Obelisks, eagles, snakes, veils, lions, crosses, swastikas, discs and globes, etc. seen in much Indo-European officialdom are ultimately solar symbols brought to us by various behind-the-scenes solar cults. However, when traced back further, these symbols are rooted in the mystery schools of the ancient land of the Black Earth, KMT, or the Khemet, what we call Egypt. In Ancient Greece, the sun god Helios travels the skies in a chariot going east to west. The Aryan archetype that Helios represents can be found in India via Surya and the elaborate sun cult that continues there. Helios was known as Sol to the Romans. The word "helium" comes from Helios. Helios was later merged with Apollo. The solar gods, the "bringers of light", can also bring hardship. Apollo, the chief god of the Trojans, is often identified with Helios and is called "god of light." In Homer's Iliad, he brings forth war and pestilence, causing trouble with his Cosmic Bow and Arrows, his plagues and other dark acts. All gods and angels have halos, rays of light glowing forth from their heads. The halo is the mark of the devas, or the "shining ones." Deva comes from the Sanskrit "div," meaning "to shine." From "div" we get divine, diva, day, Deus, Theos, deity, daemon, demon and even Zeus. Zeus is identified with Roman Jupiter. Both Zeus and Jupiter come from the Sanskrit Dyaus-Pitar, meaning "Shining Father". According to Nietzsche, Apollo is the lord of all things just, logical and symmetrical. His opposite is Dionysus, or Bacchus, associated with things lunar, the god of orgies, drink and drugs--the non-symmetrical--who rides the Cosmic Bull. That which is called Apollonian is that which is deemed forthright and disciplined. What is more forthright and disciplined than a strong military? A common characteristic of the sun worshippers is a belief in a strong military followed by an organized and "just" warfare. Athena was born from the head of Zeus in full armour. In the center of the aegis given to her by Zeus bears the screaming snake-haired gorgon Medusa. These combined elements and shapes indicate the terrifying aspect of things having to do with that big hissing fire disc, the sun. There is much about Athena that is emblematic of the just side of the sun. She's one of urban Europe's earliest representatives of female civic divinity. Her headgear, the spiky helmet/chakra/halo/crown, is at once terrifying, protective and awe-inspiring. Solar female symbolism also includes the mirror, and Athena's mirror happens to also be a shield that she lends to those in crisis. Athena is associated with the veil. The veil is the eclipse of the sun. Surya is still the solar god of India, praised heavily in religious texts and in daily life. Sitting in a chariot, Surya, the sun, is driven by 7 horses through the sky. This image is similar to Greece's Apollo/Helios and Syria's Elagabalus. Like Ancient Egypt's Aten, Surya is addressed with hymns of praise. The Gayatri Mantra is the most sacred of all the Vedic mantras. It essentially asks all spheres of life--earthly, atmospheric and celestial, sometimes called The Three Worlds--to concentrate upon and contemplate the sun as Savitri (literally "brilliance"), the Solar spirit of the Divine Creator, the Eye In the Sky and smokeless fire within the heart. One of the most fabulous sun temples on earth is found in Konarak, Orissa, India. There are colorful depictions of sensuality and ecstasy carved into the living rock. There is also the solar wheel, or Wheel of Fortune/Karma amidst the fun. Besides Surya, there is Vishnu, the Cosmic Sleeper, who is emanating just and logical solar ideals to aspire to in all-encompassing patterns within His Dream. Our word "wish" comes out of Vishnu. "Vish" means "to pervade." He pervades as does the sun and his beams of light are everywhere. Vishnu is identified in the Rg Veda, or "King" Veda, with the three daily phases of the sun. All the gods have cosmic vehicles to ride upon. Vishnu has Garuda, a glittering golden eagle. Riding a Cosmic Bull, Shiva can be considered as Bacchus/Dionysus, covered in the white ashes from the funeral fires, drinking from the skull bowl, smoking the ganja. Shiva, like Bacchus, is the noire aspect of the Divine. Shiva represents lunar time, has three eyes and the crescent moon is always above his head in depictions. Both Vishnu and Shiva are associated with cobras, or nagas--solar representatives of knowledge, eternity and purity. At the heart of certain royalty-affiliated elite societies, like Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, Knights of Malta and others, is the conviction that the worship of and the ritualized sacrifice to the Sun is actually the oldest form of religion. According to this line of tradition, the glorification of the sun is the most basic conception of God, or Supreme Source common to all the islands and continents. It's what we all have in common and thus the sun is to be known as Source and Best Friend. The commonality provided by our dependency on the Best Friend is the true meaning behind a belief in a "Brotherhood of Man". Both Akhenaten and Constantine brought much change to the lives of their respective subjects along with a concept of social cement and an enhanced state of fear. They both believed themselves divine representatives of God and they both ultimately believed the sun to be the True Living One God. Constantine's sun cult is to be found behind a veil called Christianity. Constantine gets the credit for making the Roman Empire a Christian one. Through Christianity, Constantine made the empire a subservient monotheistic being, or more accurately, a tritheistic being. Three is a magic number and there was a well-established world culture that included Holy Trinities. For example, the Egyptian Trinity is Isis-Osiris-Horus. Osiris is the Christ-like figure, sometimes called "God of Resurrection." Isis and Horus are akin to our Virgin and Child. The Ancient Roman (Capitoline) Trinity is Jupiter-Juno-Minerva, a transplant of the Mithraic Trinity. An Irish Trinity is Dagda-Lugh-Ogma, and an all-goddess Greek Trinity is Hera-Athena-Aphrodite. The more we look, the more we find a melding of the three most important Roman cults, namely the Cult of Mithra, the Cult of Sol Invictus and the Cult of Christianity, into a new synthesis which today we call Christianity, particularly The Holy Roman Catholic Church. The Constantinian plan for a unified empire required a very restrictive code of ethics. It was time to shape up and bring the sheep back in the pen. The emperor and his inner circle watched the Christian cult's absolute faith, its ecclesiastical nature, its self-importance, its self-loathing, its guilt, its self-discipline, its self-denial and its stubbornness. These were seen as useful qualities. The character of Christianity could be turned into a societal binding agent. It was so amazing how it all fit together. Despite being made up of very old ideas, epics and symbols, a whole new psychology of devotion was being created. However, if it was going to happen, Imperial Christianity had a big challenge. It had to swallow Mithra and Sol. Sol Invictus was a mirror image of the religion of Mithra. Mithra started in the Indo-Iranian ancient world. The Indian spiritual literature is called the Vedas and in Persia it is called the Avesta. Mitra is the Sanskrit root of the Persian name of solar god Mithra. Sol Invictus is traced back to Emesa; a city now called Homs in Western Syria. It was brought into Rome by an emperor named after the sun god, Elagabalus. He was called Marcus Aurelius Antoninus when he became emperor, and his reign, which ended when he was murdered, was short, from 218-222 AD. The Syrian emperor made Invincible Sun the official religion of the Roman Empire and it remained the Roman norm until the 4th Century. Aurelius was called High Priest of Elagabalus when he was but a teenager. He over-indulged and had no mind for the militaristic style of leadership expected from an emperor. Drunk with love for his sun god, he started acting in ways that were seen as very peculiar. Sol Invictus/Mithraism was big with the military and remained so despite the fact that the Roman aristocracy at the time hated the monotheistic cult and its god-king, the Syrian youth Aurelius. The disgraced boy emperor was murdered by Praetorian guards in a conspiracy cooked up by the three most influential women in his life -- his mother, grandmother and aunt. Caesar Alexander Severus, his popular cousin whom he adopted, was to be the next emperor of Rome. The similarly named Emperor Aurelian came to power in a coup d'Etat in 270 AD which overthrew Emperor Quintillus. What can be said about someone who comes to power in a coup d'Etat? Either they're in the military or they've got an extra special relationship with the military. It was the sun cult's popularity with the military that Aurelian knew to be his empire's fangs as well as its galvanizing agent. He set up the solar priesthood and erected a big solar temple in Rome along with a once-every-four-years solar festival. All of this influenced the unification of Roman society, leading to the emergence of Constantine, the father of legalized Christianity. Constantinian Christianity moved steadily down the more martial, well-established and well-lit path of Sol Invictus, "Sun Invincible." The Constantinian coinage was marked "Sol Invicto Comiti," or "Committed to Sol Invictus" (Apollo/Helios, Mithra, etc.). He, like many before him and after him, saw Christianity as yet another form of solar allegory. With its Holy Trinity, it can also be considered a tritheism as well as a monotheism. The transformation event happened in 325 AD and is known to us now as the Council of Nicea, Emperor Constantine's biggest achievement, out of which came the formalization of the New Testament, and the consolidation of financial, political and spiritual authority in the Vatican, always a power spot of sun worship and most recently a place of the Mithraic version of sun worship. In Mithraism, ceremonies were presided over by a "papa" (pope). The solar cult origins of the Vatican can be seen, most obviously, in the huge sun diagram with an obelisk in the center in St. Peter's Square. The Christian version of the Sabbath moved from the traditional Judaic Friday/Saturday (also the Sabbath day of Jesus) to Sunday, or Deis Solis, the holy Day of the Sun. December 25 was an important day all over Europe. In Rome, it was the day of Natilis Invictus, the Rebirth of the Invincible Sun. The sun was being "born" again after the shortest day of the year, December 24. Prior to December 25, the birth of Jesus Christ was typically celebrated on January 4. One of the most important additions was the concept of damnation after death for the non-believers. This is called Hell, a place where there exists fire pits solely for eternal punishment of souls considered unworthy of the association of God. If we are to consider human time on earth but a flicker in the eternal time of God, it seems strange that acts performed in this temporary material plane could be eternally punished. It works politically because it works on the psychology of fear. And it wasn't until Islam that the concept of a place for eternal damnation was put into the minds of Persians. The conversion process of the early Roman church was blunt--rape, robbery and murder--but effective. The tough love route is often used when the military and any given do-or-die belief in an Absolute are being worked in tandem by authorities. It could be argued that the ultimate goal wasn't salvation at all, in the scriptural Christian sense of the word. The ultimate goal was an ordered empire where people had no religious freedom, no privacy and a heightened sense of fear of a centralized governing body. Imperial Rome of Constantine and its accompanying restrictions ushered in a new dawn of the most centralized government humanity had experienced thus far. 312 AD was the year that Constantine, Pontifex Maximus of Sol Invictus, decided to call himself a "Christian" and thus Christianity was legal. After that, the pre-Christians and their traditions began to be restricted. As more Christians came into power, both Jews and Christian "heretics" became marginalized if not criminalized. Heretic is a word that comes from a verb meaning, "to choose." There was no more choice. By around 391 AD, non-Roman Christian ways of being became completely illegal. Catholics and Protestants alike refer to God's famous words whispered to Constantine or written in the sky in a dream, "In Hoc Signo Vinces," or "By This Sign You Will Conquer." This dream is considered the turning point when glorifying Europe's change from its savage pantheism to the religion of the Cross. Ancient Egyptians placed much importance on the cross in the form we have today as well as the loop cross, or Ankh. The cross, or the axis mundi, according to some schools, represented the Solar Eclipse. It is the meeting place between heaven and earth. Its origins are lost through tangled roots, into the various mystery schools of the ancient and pre-historic worlds. But it is argued that the Celtic Cross represents an ancient instrument which can tell the time, find latitude and longitude, measure the angles of the stars, predict the solstices and equinoxes and measure the precession of the equinoxes. The instrument can also find the ecliptic pole as well as the North and South poles, it can make maps and charts, design pyramids and henges and, when it is used in combination with these observatory sites, can record and predict the cycles of nature. www.viewzone.com/crichton.htmlChristianity's cross, as a war symbol, is Constantinian. The cross had been a well-established war symbol for Mithraic soldiers. Mithra is associated with the slaying of the Cosmic Bull. In Mithraic tradition, believers were given baptism and the cross was drawn upon their foreheads in ash, as is done in modern Catholicism the world over to this day. The cross was painted on the shields of Constantine's soldiers, most of which were of the Mithra/Sol Invictus sentiment. The discipline brought to the military by Aurelian was still very much alive and very much Mithraic. Constantine wasn't the first monotheistic High Priest god-king reformer of the sun cult aligned with the solar cross. The first likely recorded monotheist reformer was Akhenaten. The Aten is the pure "sun disc" aspect of the sun, meaning the light within the disc alone and without anything cumbersome like the personalities of gods or goddesses behind It, attached to It or being emblematic of It. It was God to Akhenaten, his True God. Ancient Egypt's Akhenaten (XVIII Dynasty, 1350 - 1334 BC) was the second son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. Akhenaten is famous for three things: the father-in-law of King Tut, the husband of Queen Nefertiti and the Father of Monotheism. Sometimes called Sun Son, Akhenaten and his monotheistic revolution, Atenism, had a little help from his family tree. Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father, had started a separate religion and priesthood solely for the Aten amidst all the pantheism. He ruled for 37 years, from 1386 -1349 BC, and is considered one of Egypt's most successful diplomats and empire builders. He was named after the decidedly solar deity, Amun, a name meaning "The Hidden." Like Vishnu, or Krishna, Amun, when depicted in human form, has bluish skin tone, sometimes rendered in lapis lazuli. Also, like Vishnu he is said to permeate everything. Incidentally, Amun is very much alive. Amun continues to live up to his name, remaining hidden from those who think themselves devout monotheists of today. Yes, it is this same Amen whom Christians and Muslims invoke at the end of their liturgies. "Amen" means "Amun is." There was also Hatshepsut, Akhenaten's grandmother who came to the throne in 1473 BC, a controversial rule spanning about 20 years. Inscriptions on the famous Obelisk of Hatshepsut, in the Temple of Karnak, praise the Aten and liken Egypt's luminous nature unto it. Akhenaten followed a now well established pattern of co-opting, annihilating and/or ignoring, and separating from the existing traditions. This instinct to cut or severe from what's gone before is a type of behavior necessary for any reformation, great or small. Like Prince Gautama, Akhenaten was a product of high society and privilege that saw as hypocritical and corrupt the ever-growing priesthood and he wanted it gone. His father, Amenhotep III, enacted reforms upon the Amun priesthood and Akhenaten enacted the destruction of it. Moses, the Lawgiver of the Israelites, made mandatory the devotion to the One God, Yahweh (YHWH), a manifestation of Elohim in the form of a thundercloud. YHWH is now officially called the Tetragrammaton, a Greek word that means four letters; the four letters being Yod-Hey-Vod-Hey. The Divine Thundercloud Yahweh shot the laws out of the sky in bolts of lightning and then burned them into stone tablets. The laws were brought about via the fire from heaven because Moses' people had reverted back to the worship of Baal, a form of the sun god as the Cosmic Bull in the Age of Taurus. Baal is yet another pagan sun deity represented by a particular style of cross. Strangely enough, the Pope wears the cross of Baal to this day in full view of the believers. The Buddha (literally "The Knower") lived the ahimsa (non-violence) ideal, an ideal already very present in the existing Vedic philosophies but it had been clouded over with so much goat, horse, bull and human sacrifice. The prince became a sadhu ("one who cuts"). He cut himself off from his privileged place in society as well as society in general. He cut himself from the gods, the sacrifices, the endless mythologies and stories in favor of the essence, the Dharma and the Middle Way. He referred to his cult "Arya Samaj," the society of the Aryans. This is not a brand new idea and there have been plenty of Arya Samajes before the Buddhist one. The Aryans represent solar ideals and this is true no matter what interpretation of Aryan society one is familiar with. "Aryan" is not a race but a title that is earned by conduct. It means "refined individual." As it was with Emperor Constantine, politics and religion were inseparable; their powers were consolidated and part of a larger philosophy of human life. As well as being king of the secular world, Akhenaten was also High Priest to his subjects. Thus, there was no other way to the Aten except through Akhenaten. This has a familiar ring for those of us in the Judeo-Christian tradition. He was the Intermediary, the god-king, and the first in Egypt to call himself Pharaoh. Pharaoh Akhenaten changed his name from Amenhotep IV, "Amun is satisfied", to Akhenaten, "Living Spirit of the Aten". Because of the pharaoh's devotion for the Aten, all depictions of the mysterious Theban god Amun, a name meaning "Hidden," were desecrated or destroyed, forbidden as graven images. Akhenaten set up his official residence and lakeside resort temple in what's now called Tel El-Amarna. He changed the existing name to Khut-en-Aten, meaning "Horizon of Aten." The Aten temple was shaped like a cross, the alchemical solar emblem. The royal artwork found from this period depicts The Aten with rays of light as arms ending in little mitten-like hands, each of them holding the Ankh (literally "Life"), the Egyptian loop cross amulet blessing the royal family. The Ankh is shaped like a key and can be considered the key to truth. It is emblematic of the goddess Maat, the Sanskrit cognate of which is Mata. Maat can be remembered as she of the one white, glowing ostrich feather of Truth rising from her headdress or standing alone. One esoteric meaning is that the Ankh represents the sexually united siblings Osiris and Isis, the harmonization of the opposites, the big Synthesis as Truth. Osiris and Isis are two of the children born out of the cosmic union of Nut (as sky goddess) and Geb (as earth god). Much has been made about what the experts call the Amarna Style of the royal art of Akhenaten. The royal couple, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, were shown in open embrace, taking tea in the garden with the children, enjoying the sun. This is a big break with tradition. It skipped even family portraiture and went right into candid camera, snapshots, life caught unawares. The Aten Age that Akhenaten hoped for would probably have included equality of the sexes. Akhenaten's rule was co-regency. This is something very different from the Constantinian realization of the sun cult and its society. Devas have consorts and this is obviously part of Akhenaten's understanding of truth when we observe the role Nefertiti played as queen. For instance, in Bengal, India, Kali worship is the norm, for it is Kali who controls Kala (Father Time, or Lord Shiva). Who wouldn't want to gain access to She who controls Time? When the rites to the sun were performed in public, it was Akhenaten and Nefertiti performing them together. This was a big break with the norm and looked upon as exceedingly strange. Akhenaten's devotion to Nefertiti (which means "The Beautiful One has Arrived") and his Supreme Lord Aten was a very controversial devotion that influenced his behavior, his decisions, and was the cause of his alienation. Another quirk of the Amarna Style has to do with the depictions of the mysterious pharaoh himself at his lakeside resort. Akhenaten is depicted in sculpture as having huge, birth-bearing hips, a womb-like belly, gigantic lips and narrow, pointy shoulders. Taken in all at once, he looks like an insect. He was an esotericist who ascribed symbolic meaning to everything. He lived in the Ancient World. The sun harmonizes the opposites. Akhenaten was trying to demonstrate this harmonizing in his role as High Priest of the sun. The Amarna Style demonstrates that the female and the male are made one by Aten. This isn't a new idea. All through the Egyptian pantheon one will find so many "contradictory" divine personalities. Many have human bodies, which are topped with various heads of animals, reptiles, insects and more. Divine animal-human combinations can be found, along with pyramids, in South America, India, China and Africa as well as in the Book of Revelations. The hermaphrodite or divine androgen is another well-established esoteric tradition. Solar Monotheism: The Sun Sons, High Priests in the City www.cubby.net/missalette/missalette12/solarmono.htmlsee more: Sources of Inspiration for the Delius (Song of Summer) Videokatebush.proboards6.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=neverforever&thread=1692&page=2Solar deityen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_deity
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Post by rosabelbelieve on May 31, 2008 18:11:46 GMT
^ Interesting piece... Aerial does indeed have very much to do with the sun, and is reminiscent of sun worship in the whole natural and spiritual feeling that pervades it.
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Post by tannis on Jul 22, 2008 20:25:07 GMT
Spinning puns and crosswords: KaTe's song titles are perfect! ... MOVING - a moving song about being moved... THE SAXOPHONE SONG - the sex-ophone song! STRANGE PHENOMENA - extra Sensory Perception (eSP) KITE - high on drugs? ... ;D THE MAN WITH THE CHILD IN HIS EYES - the man with the child in his sight! ... WUTHERING HEIGHTS - a novel song! ROOM FOR THE LIFE - the womb is the room for life... SYMPHONY IN BLUE - writing while under the influence of depression! OH ENGLAND MY LIONHEART - Oh, E...MY...LI... emily bronte? FULLHOUSE - a theatre filled to capacity... Wow! BLOW AWAY (FOR BILL) - thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise (for bill shakespeare) ... THERE GOES A TENNER - they blew it! RUNNING UP THAT HILL - ruth: be kind to my mistakes! THE FOG - James Herbert's horror story? BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN - Sat here with ourselves in between us...
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Post by tannis on Aug 20, 2008 8:12:39 GMT
Baring their soulsFrom Carole King to Tori Amos, confessional artists have sung with searing honesty about everything from divorce to menstruation. As Liz Phair's classic album Exile in Guyville is re-released, Laura Barton celebrates the women who shared their dreams and demons...Before them came Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Suzanne Vega, Carole King, Carly Simon, Dory Previn and Laura Nyro. These artists offered up emotional honesty and spoke of subjects not often addressed by mainstream popular culture - the wish to be viewed as something other than wives and mothers, of frustration, sexual desire, the pain of desertion, rape, abortion and motherhood, masturbation and menstruation. Of course, confessional songwriting has existed in some form for centuries, but it was the arrival of female singer-songwriters such as Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie in the 60s who paved the way directly for an artist like Phair. As Dr Peter Mills, senior lecturer in media and popular culture at Leeds Metropolitan University, says, these singers "located emotional responses that weren't being articulated by [songs like] Jimmy Mack". Crucially, they began to shift the focus away from songs about being boy-crazy or having traditional ambitions such as getting married, to exploring women's own emotional desires. Mills regards singer-songwriters of the early 70s such as Carole King and Carly Simon as a "bridge" between girl groups like the Supremes and the thrust of Phair's generation. "King grew up writing the boy-centric songs in the Brill Building [the New York office building famously used by music publishers and writers]," he explains, "but she also embodied the barefooted female singer-songwriter." Carly Simon, too, helped to alter the vocabulary of songwriting. "With the exception of You're So Vain, which is about the peacockery of maledom, her early records are very loving," says Mills, "but her songs were not especially saucer-eyed, they're very realistic and mature." The year of 1971 saw the release of three phenomenally important albums by female artists - Carole King's Tapestry (also re-released next month), Carly Simon's self-titled debut, and Dory Previn's Mythical Kings and Iguanas [and Joni Mitchell's Blue, June 1971]. All enjoyed considerable success, but while King and Simon are still feted today, Previn is strangely overlooked. Like King, Previn had trained as a lyricist, though she was employed to write film music rather than pop songs. When she embarked upon a career as a solo artist, beginning with On My Way to Where in 1970, she set out the stall of the confessional songwriting that we would see over the next four decades. Much of that first album dealt with her time in a psychiatric hospital and the breakdown of her marriage to the composer André Previn, but there were also references to her difficult relationship with her father and allusions to fantasies of incest. Mythical Kings and Iguanas dwelled less in the past, and focused on a woman's desire for a relationship, along with physical and emotional abuse and being involved with a younger man. "She hasn't quite had her time yet," Mills says of Previn. "The same could be said of Laura Nyro, and Judee Sill. The language they use doesn't have the rage of Alanis or Liz Phair or PJ Harvey, but there's still some of that matching of rage to articulacy, and that's unusual in pop." By contrast, the rise of confessional poetry came in the second half of the 20th century, and is exemplified by poets such as Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. The genre was defined by ML Rosenthal, in his 1959 essay Poetry as Confession which described it as verse that goes "beyond customary bounds of reticence or personal embarrassment". The troubadour tradition was as resolutely male as any other male lineage, and with its notions of chivalry and old-fashioned romance, it wasn't a relevant mode of expression for modern women writers. Confessional poetry was a more logical form for them to embrace, in part because it originated at a time of increasing female emancipation, and it tapped in to the idea that women, who had been voiceless for so long, had a story to tell, secrets to confess. On this basis, it is not surprising that female songwriters often plumped for a confessional approach too... The Guardian, Wednesday August 20 2008www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/20/popandrock.women?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfrontKate Bush - Running Up That Hill (Live)www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIOkzbR9MnA&feature=relatedJanis Ian - At Seventeenwww.youtube.com/watch?v=efHOIT1ROk8Carole King - Tapestrywww.youtube.com/watch?v=kZLAvCgV80sBroken Rainbow - Laura Nyrowww.youtube.com/watch?v=0XbEJoQqoYQDory Previn - Left Hand Lostwww.youtube.com/watch?v=U9df2o1qzKwJudee Sill Jesus was a cross makerwww.youtube.com/watch?v=dlT4oDbJzXgShare the End Art Slide Carly Simon, Anticipation, 1971.www.youtube.com/watch?v=s09i4I6QdS8Patti Smith - Horseswww.youtube.com/watch?v=HPvR7wNwRAoLuka - Suzanne Vegawww.youtube.com/watch?v=RZyxYL753w4Joni Mitchell-Jericho[/color][/b] www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgEiGJid9_U
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Post by tannis on Aug 30, 2008 11:11:11 GMT
The Woman in the Moon KB: "I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon..." PHOENIX: EARLY KATE BUSHgaffa.org/phoenix/index.htmlA long way up in light-years, Just a pinpoint in space, In a century of planetary storms, Stranded at the moonbase... Walking down the street, brushing arms, You're moonlight dancing... Soon it will be the phase of the moon When people tune in... Over the lights, under the moon. Over the lights, under the moon. Over the moon, over the moon! ... I'm hanging on the Old Goose Moon. You look like an angel, Sleeping it off at a station. Were you only passing through? ... You and me on the bobbing knee. Didn't we cry at that old mythology he'd read! I will come home again, but not until The sun and the moon meet on yon hill... They never go for walks. Maybe it's because The moon's not bright enough. There's light in love, you see... The night doesn't like it. Looks just like your face on the moon, to me... Oh and here comes the man with the stick He said he'd fish me out of the moon... On this Midsummer night Everyone is sleeping We go driving into the moonlight...John Carder Bush: "I am programmed in my emotional life by the first work of fantasy that got through to my heart. For me it was Barrie's bitter, sad condemnation of adulthood... For Cathy, I could guess that it was Oscar Wilde who first led her into that tricky land of tear puddles." (1986, Cathy).home.att.net/~james51453/cathy08.htmSALOME by Oscar WildeTHE YOUNG SYRIAN How beautiful is the Princess Salome to-night!
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS Look at the moon. How strange the moon seems! She is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman. One might fancy she was looking for dead things.
THE YOUNG SYRIAN She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. One might fancy she was dancing.
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS She is like a woman who is dead. She moves very slowly...
THE YOUNG SYRIAN How beautiful is the Princess Salome to-night!
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS You are always looking at her. You look at her too much. It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen.
THE YOUNG SYRIAN She is very beautiful to-night...
THE YOUNG SYRIAN How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver.
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS You must not look at her. You look too much at her...
THE YOUNG SYRIAN The Princess has hidden her face behind her fan! Her little white hands are fluttering like doves that fly to their dove-cots. They are like white butterflies. They are just like white butterflies.
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS What is that to you? Why do you look at her? You must not look at her . . . . Something terrible may happen...
THE YOUNG SYRIAN The Princess is getting up! She is leaving the table! She looks very troubled. Ah, she is coming this way. Yes, she is coming towards us. How pale she is! Never have I seen her so pale.
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS Do not look at her. I pray you not to look at her...
THE YOUNG SYRIAN She is like a dove that has strayed . . . . She is like a narcissus trembling in the wind . . . . She is like a silver flower. [Enter Salome.]The Woman in the Moon (From Salome), Aubrey Beardsley, 1894victorianweb.org/art/illustration/beardsley/2.htmlAubrey Beardsley's Illustrations for Salome, 1894www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/beardsley/works.htmlwww.vintageprints.ca/art_nouveau_7.htmThe moon, a recurring leitmotif in the drama, is one of the most important symbolical referents for Wilde, and for the characters themselves. In the opening scene, the Page of Herodias and the Young Syrian discuss its appearance in metaphorical, symbolic language: the Page, in an ominous anticipation of events to come, fears that the moon seems "like a woman rising from a tomb," "like a dead woman ... looking for dead things," while the Young Syrian, ever captivated by Salome, sees the moon instead as "a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver." Upon her entrance, Salome is relieved to see the serene night and the moon, which she describes as "cold and chaste," since "she has never defiled herself ... never abandoned herself to men." Then Herod, in yet another premonition of disaster, is distressed by the moon's appearance and claims that "she is like a mad woman .. seeking everywhere for lovers ... she reels through the clouds like a drunken woman." All of these metaphorical descriptions -- the legacy of Symbolist language -- serve to suggest, in images as well as words, the emotional state of each character, but they also reinforce the power of symbolism, its ability to connect and link the varied elements of the drama. The unity is destroyed, however, by the next statement about the moon, uttered by Herodias, the antithesis of symbolic power: exasperated, she insists that "the moon is like the moon, that is all!" Conrad duly notes this difference amongst the characters: For all their differences, there is an aesthetic conspiracy between Herod and Salome, who are united in opposition to Herodias, the dull enemy of imagination for whom the moon is merely the moon, and nothing more, whereas her husband and daughter know it to be a disturbing metaphor.www.nthuleen.com/papers/947paper.htmlAlla Nazimova in Salome [1923]www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm161GpE5UsExcerpt from the 1923 production of Oscar Wilde's "Salome" directed by Charles Bryant. Set and costume design by Natacha Rambova, from Aubrey Beardsley's original artwork...[/color] AERIAL: "Design by Kate and Peacock"
Peacock (From Malory, Morte d' Arthur), Aubrey Beardsley, 1893-1894 www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/beardsley/peacock1.gif
The Peacock Skirt (From Salome), Aubrey Beardsley, 1894www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/beardsley/3.html
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Post by tannis on Sept 3, 2008 16:42:55 GMT
KT's early work often plays with tragic themes - e.g. The Kick Inside, The Wedding List, The Infant Kiss.
John of Garland (12th c.) describes tragedy as a poem written in the grand style about shameful and wicked deeds, one that begins in joy and ends in grief. Sir Philip Sydney: Tragedy stirs "the affects of admiration and commiseration, teacheth the uncertainty of this world and upon how weak foundations the gilden roofs are builded." In both theory and practice, tragedy has tended to be a form of drama concerned with the fortunes and misfortunes, and, ultimately, the disasters, that befall human beings of title, power and position. What makes them tragic figures is that they have qualities of excellence, of nobleness, of passion; they have virtues and gifts that lift them above the ordinary run of mortal men and women. In tragedy these attributes are seen to be insufficient to save them from either self-destruction or from destruction brought upon them. And there is no hope for them. There is hope, perhaps, after the tragedy, but not during it. The overwhelming part about tragedy is the element of hopelessness, of inevitability. This aspect of tragedy is nowhere better expressed than by the Chorus at the beginning of Anouilh's play Antigone: “...the machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction. Death, treason, and sorrow are on the march and they move in the wake of storm, of tears, of stillness... Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless... In tragedy nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquillity. There is a sort of fellow-feeling among characters in a tragedy: he who kills is as innocent as he who gets killed: it is all a matter of what part you are playing. Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.”
Tragedy is the disaster which comes to those who represent and who symbolise, in a peculiarly intense form, those flaws and short-comings which are universal in a lesser form. Tragedy is a disaster that happens to other people; and the greater the person, so it seems, the more acute is their tragedy. In a way, also, tragedy is a kind of protest; it is a cry of terror or complaint or rage or anguish to and against whoever or whatever is responsible for 'this harsh rack', for suffering, for death. Be it God, Nature, Fate, circumstance, chance, or just something nameless. It is a 'cry' about the tragic situation in which the tragic hero or heroine find themselves. By participating vicariously in the grief, pain and fear of the tragic hero or heroine, the spectator, in Aristotle's words, experiences pity and fear and is purged.
A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Cuddon & Preston, (1998; pp. 927-928).
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Post by tannis on Sept 11, 2008 23:15:37 GMT
KATE BUSH on PUNK "I thought that the whole thing was really just like a game... It was all people acting and becoming roles and playing their roles..."COUNTDOWN INTERVIEWS 1979 PUNK www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI1XLTys44Q Kate Bush: 1:29-1:42KB: "I like the guts than men have in performing and singing --like the punks. Like the way Johnny Rotten would use his voice was so original, and you get very few females even having the guts to do that, because they unfortunately tend to get stereotyped if they make it..."
She mentioned the Boomtown Rats as "amazing" and was genuinely ecstatic when I told her of the Rats' fondness for her music. KB: "Do they? Really? Oh, I didn't think they'd be into me. Great! Fantastic! I wonder if really beautiful punk groups like that -- I think the Stranglers are really good, too, there are so many -- I wonder if they think I'm...not so much square, but whether they think... ah...square...Sort of oblong. I really admire those bands, and I really admired the Sex Pistols tremendously. I don't know if I liked them that much, but some of their songs were great. I admired them so much just for the freshness and the guts, although I did get a hypey vibe off it, and that they were in fact being pushed around, because it seemed more an image that was being forced upon them, from what people were expecting. I feel apart from those bands, because I feel I'm in a different area, but I really like to think that they get off on me like I do them. That's why I don't see them as contemporaries, because I'm apart. It's not a matter of being above or below them, but if it was, I think I'd be below them. I think they're on a new level, inasmuch as...it's hard to explain. They're definitely hitting people that need stimulation. They're hitting tired, bored people that want to pull their hair out and paint their face green. They're giving people the stimulation to do what they want, and I think I'm maybe just making people think about it, if I'm doing anything."
Do you see that as the main difference between your role and others'? KB: "Yeah. I'm probably, if anything, stimulating the emotional end, the intellect, and they're stimulating the guts, the body. They're getting the guts, jumping around. That's a much more direct way to hit people. A punch is more effective than a look. Teachers always give you looks."
Would you like to have that effect on people? KB: "I don't think I could becase..." She stumbles over the next bit. "...it's not what...I'm...here to...do. I really love rock'n'roll. I think it's an incredible force, but there's something about it that I don't get on with when I write it, maybe because I'm very concerned about melodies in my music, and generally I find rock'n'roll tend to neglect it a bit because it's got so much rhythm and voice that you don't need so much music. Some of the new wave, though, is so melodic. Like the Rich Kids {early EMI-produced new wave band led by Midge Ure}. I'm not really a rock'n'roll writer yet. I'd like to be, though, and I hope I'll become more that way orientated. Mind you, I identify with new wave music. We're both trying to stir something in the attitudes we've got, but I honestly don't know if I'm doing it. I guess I'm more interested in stirring people's intellects. It's longer lasting but not so much fun as new wave. The good thing about people like the Boomtown Rats is that not only is it really good, but it's really exciting and fun, and maybe my things are sometimes a bit too intricate to become fun. They're more picking pieces out and examining them. There's very little music on my album that will make you want to stamp your feet violently and hit your head against the wall. To actually understand what I'm about you have to hear the lyrics, which is a lot to expect; whereas in something like the Boomtown Rats, it's the complete energy that knocks you over."
Would it upset you if you missed the mark, and people totally misread what you're about? KB: "It's a lot, to expect people to sit down and read my lyrics, and I'd be amazed if many people did. Not many people read poetry, and it's a similar effort. No, it doesn't worry me that much if they don't. That's what I'd like them to do because that's why I do it. But really, I think I've had enough response from people to make me have done enough to fade away now. I've had much more of a chance than most people to get through with a message. From some of the letters I get, it seems that people have understood, and it seems to have helped them a bit. That's all I could wish for."
Melody Maker, "The Kick Outside", June 3, 1978gaffa.org/reaching/i78_mm2.html
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Post by tannis on Sept 17, 2008 3:40:44 GMT
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 85 Subject: Break-Through and Fred Vermorel Bios There are two Fred Vermorel bios, which are very different. There is "Kate Bush: Princess of Suburbia" and "The Secret History of Kate Bush". The first one is a parody of a National Enquirer style expose. It's complete with "proof" that Kate Bush was trying to control people's minds with Gurdjieffian hypnotism methods and ritual dancing and movement. [/li][li][/b] Vermorel seems to like Kate well-enough in this bio (though I guess he seems to think she's a somewhat amusing figure or something, and he has many nasty things to say about her family and friends), so I have no idea why he chose Kate as the subject of a parody on scandal sheets. I can't find "Princess of Suburbia" too reprehensible, though most KB fans seem to think it is, because it can't possibly be taken seriously -- it's more funny than anything else. I'm told that Kate was quite hurt by it, though. After "The Dreaming" came out, Vermorel seemed to totally change his mind about Kate. He decided that "The Dreaming" is the greatest work of art ever, and wrote "The Secret History of Kate Bush" [1983]. This one, instead of being a biography, is a hundred page long love-letter to Kate. Which makes it kind of ridiculous. I'm not sure where Fred is coming from on this one. Maybe it's not supposed to be taken seriously -- maybe it's supposed to be a parody of a hundred page long love-letter to Kate.... But he sure seems serious. This is chapter I: We recognized her as we always do stars. A face "clicks", happens, transfigures anonymity. As the eye jumps to a pretty face in a croud, the word "sex" on a page. So decisively it seems a star is born, But not out of labour. Rather as a flying saucer crash-landed on earth. Gleaming mysterious and seamless in its crater. Surrounded by excited cameramen and fenced off by stern authority. A worldwide object of speculation: Gee! Is there anyone -- anything -- inside? And is it friendly? So she burst through the telly in early '78. All wrists and lisp and dimples, all sweet and clever, all arms like water flowing over stones, as clean and delicious as a scoop of avocado pear. The suburbs breathed again. Fresh air after punk's foul blast. And very soon very famous. A hit, a gold, a number one. Introduced to gentry. An institution. Snap, crackle and pop. A campaign of champagne. Prizes, encore!, and: who the hell does she think she is? "The most photographed woman in Britain." Then she disappeared. And destroyed her talent. For two years worked to wreck her facility and build something more interesting in the ruins. As every artist has to. And has taken pop production its furthest yet. As frank as Cliff, as crisp as the Floyd, and as potent as the Pistols. And her work's now as sharp and inspired as David Hockney's (which it resembles). Only more important. For Hockney's art is defunct: fine art painting. But hers is the only art which really counts today. Not pop art, but the art of pop. A strange, could be dangerous art. Crazy Kate, pop witch. She exorcises our madness. Lives and projects myths she can't always control. Or understand. Also an unusual person with unusual reflexes -- a welcome antidote to most of us. How did she come about? I followed the fragile chances and distillation which produced her and her art and realized how nearly she never made it -- for which we'd be the poorer. And also followed her appearance through her folklore: Kate sphinx, Kate harlequin, Kate harlot... A history of our expectations and recognition. "Fear cautions me, 'Remain a stranger,' Yet longing urges, 'Do not wait.' Her eyes spell secrecy and danger, Yet they are my dark stars of fate." (Heine, "Katherine") [**]This is from page 61: I remember that first EMI poster which loomed from buses and tube stations to katenap my eye in '78 [***]. Grave, delicious Kate, plump owl in her tangled nest of puzzled hair with nipples blowing tiny kisses through a cotton vest. Kate and I joined in instant photolock. Kate Bush, bushy Kate laid out for me by the EMI artroom boys with a gourmet's delight like a table for guests. A strawberry tea spread, with eyes like doughnuts full of jam, and butter lips and full cream cheeks spread with a blunt knife by the vicar's wife... So I turn Kate's glossy pages, crackling and soapy to the touch, paper which seems limp and heavy and wet with realism, as if her image were oozing and perspiring into my fascinated inspection. Where she opens herself ultra-bright and ultra-sharp with what seems like almost effusive precision. A kind of alacrity. An implacably sunny and heartlessly optimistic photoworld where I can dwell for ever and ever with no problem or effort, and no hope of change or decay, over her lambent skin and sticky promise of her tropical lips. Kate Bush is our godess Frig. And like the Saxons we both revere and fear her. Shroud her in the mystery of her power and the power of her mystery. A fertility goddess for our Nature: the Economy. Mother Commodity. Kate Bush is the smile on the steel of EMI, the mating call of Thorn Industries, British capital on heat, the soft warm voice of mass media, the sweet breath of vinyl, the lovely face of bureaucracy, the seductive gaze of power. As every star is. And she also incarnates pure adventure, total freedom: the ad made flesh, Fabulously rich, we rumor: an idol in our world-wide superstitious cult of celebrity, which is the only religion we all truly believe in now -- even a pope has to be a celebrity before we take him seriously. The negative image of ourselves. Of our anonymity and powerlessness. Which her images dramatise and expiate. Kate Catharsis. No wonder EMI takes such care to show her with the same scrupulous art as Moscow depicts Karl Marx and Thorn industry its computers. Through hybrid images which hover just between photography and painting -- pictures which exist just beyond the camera's conventional vision but retain a ghostly residue of authority. The art of airbrush and stencil, soft pencil and rubber. The visual style proper to charismatic icons: celebrities are shown with its anonymous clarity, with the hard lustre of machinery and apothesis. They appear to shine, by virtue of apparently effortless and bland tonal transitions, sharp black and white highlights, and meticulously separated edges -- detail given with hypnotic brilliance which displays people as if they had suddenly loomed, ready-made and perfect, like smooth obelisks from a fog into which they might also disappear -- monumental and intangible. But I like her so much because she spoils it for them. She has Monroe's flawed and flagrant presence. No wet-shine, deep-frozen cover girl. No Beauty. Not Debbie Harry's vacuous nonentity -- no blank screen for wet consumer dreams. But a woman who besides posing looks like she might menstruate, or sign checks -- or punch my nose. A self-contained exuberance which cheerfully stains the most pompous male tableau with female energy and wit. And her favorite photolook is the gaze openly returned to a friend. Intimate, but not for sale. He ends the book with: Kate Bush: "I think everyone is emotional and I think a lot of people are afraid of being so. They feel that it's vulnerable. Myself I feel it's the key to everything and that the more you can find out about your emotions the better." Unusually sensuous, unusually generous. She wants to make us happy. Give us everything she has all at once. Superbly courageous, on a hire wire over ridicule, disdainful of her own safety, always ready to risk her talent and herself. She opens her heart with her mouth and throws herself at us with frightened urgency and that half anxious curl of her upper lip -- as if fearful of finding nothing on our side. And we would be most ungracious if she didn't. If we didn't respond to her warmth and vulnerability with some vulnerability ourselves. Kate Bush is a profoundly subversive artist. A 'Best of' Love-Hounds Collectiongaffa.org/dreaming/E3_books.html[/li][li] ~ Gurdjieff Movements & Kate Bush: Compare and Contrast...[/b] Gurdjieff Dancewww.youtube.com/watch?v=23HFQcEFYO8from Meetings with Remarkable Men (Peter Brook, 1979) 0:00-0:52...Kate Bush - Wowwww.youtube.com/watch?v=t7CTV-3In9w0:00-0:17... (there the comparison ends... )[/color] [**] ~ HEINE: They say that the Devil is a charming man...
"I call'd the devil, and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan; He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil; A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate, He talks quite glibly of church and state." ~ Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), Pictures of Travels--The Return Home.[***] ~ Gered Mankowitz discusses the "flagship image" he took of KaTe...
Kate Bush On "I Love 1978" www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQUECjS0rM Gered Mankowitz: 1:18-52... The face that launched a thousand ships...
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Post by tannis on Sept 17, 2008 21:27:38 GMT
In the beginning KaTe displayed a marked fascination for the psychology of people, even considering psychiatry as a career. She opted instead on musical therapy, observing the games people play and writing her songs based in that reality. In interview after interview, KaTe refers to emotions, motivations, conditioning, distortions, the subconscious, feminist issues, etc. So could her early reading have switched her on to a theoretical interest in psychology? When KaTe was very little she read a lot, and every book she's read, from Oscar Wilde's tragic fairytales to Stephen King's The Shining, has had a very big effect on her. In songs, she records being read Shakespeare and Gurdjieff; and Cloudbusting is known to have been inspired by case-study. And what's more, KaTe's songs certainly inspire others to read and study myth, magic, and books on the human mind. Here are some press cuttings alluding to that spark of Promethean fire...KATE BUSH: It's like two psychiatrists talking..."This is KaTe Bush again. I think maybe the reason I write songs is maybe I need to my express myself. That I need to be heard by people, maybe just to feel that I am someone for some reason. But I don't really think it matters why as long as what I'm doing has some purpose and if it, in any way, makes other people feel happy, which is all I'm into. I really hope that listen to the song will enjoy it and have fun... "I think life is all about your attitudes and how you actually see things. I was lucky enough to be born into a family that consists of very observant people. They're very aware of people's motivations and why they do things. I think I'm very lucky because a lot of that has rubbed off on me. Since I've been a kid, I've always been aware of observing people and trying to observe myself and why I do things. It's such an incredibly fascinating process the way people work, I can't help but be inspired by all that goes around me. It's just incredible..." "Self Portrait", The Kick Inside promo LP/cassette Interview, 1978 gaffa.org/reaching/im78_tki.html
"But I'm not going to fall into the trap of doing the whole female thing, being a sex object," she says. "I think a lot of woman are conditioned to want to look like that when they are young. But it's so dangerous to come on all sexual because straightaway you are label as a woman instead of an artist. I'm very interested, though, in people's emotions and their relationships. I'm intrigued by the way women use their power over men. They can use their bodies and they can use the obviously sexual way to get through but I just think that's wrong. That's relying on something that is fading and something that is purely material anyway - it's not really anything." Evening News, "Sexy Kate Sings Like An Angel", John Blake, Feb. 18, 1978 gaffa.org/reaching/i78_en.html
At one time, just before leaving school, there was an ambition to become either a psychiatrist or a social worker... "I guess it's the thinking bit, trying to communicate with people and help them out. The emotional aspect. It's so sad to see good, nice people emotionally disserved, screwed up when they could be so happy..." She agreed that the careers she fancied, psychiatry, social work or music, were in direct contrast. Music is completely self-indulgent and the other is almost charitable... "The reason I chose those sort of things is that they are, in a way, the things I do with music. When I write songs I really like to explore the mental area, the emotional values. Although in a way you can say that being a psychiatrist is more purposeful than writing music, in many ways it isn't because a lot of people take a great deal of comfort from music. I know I do. It makes you feel good. The really important thing about music is that all it is a vehicle for a message, what ever your message is. I'm probably a lot better at being a songwriter than I would be a psychiatrist, for instance. I might have people jumping out of windows now." She thinks, then that her music is a therapy? "Oh, yes, it's very much a therapeutic thing, not only for me. That's a really good word. It really is like a therapy. The message I would like people to receive is that if they hear it and accept it, that's fantastic. If they let it into their ears that is all I can ask for and if they think about it afterwards or during it, that is, even more fantastic. There are so many writers and so many messages, to be chosen out of all of them is something very special. The messages? Things that maybe could help people, like observing the situation where an emotional game is being played and maybe making people think about it again." It's very glamorous to make a statement like that but how true did she think it was? "It's easy to say everything. Really all I do when I write songs is try and write something that affects me: something that I feel does have a solution or something that is unexplored. It really is just self-expression, and although I know that a lot of people will just say it's a load of rubbish, I would like to think that there is a message and maybe people will hear it." Melody Maker, "Bush Baby", Harry Doherty, March 1978 gaffa.org/reaching/i78_mm1.html
"I think that I am probably female-oriented with my songs because I'm a female and have very female emotions but I do try to aim a lot of the psychology, if you like, at men." "Personal Call", BBC Radio 1, 1979 gaffa.org/reaching/ir79_pc.html
Kate Bush has just done the Daily Express. Now it's me...But no way does she just press her nose and gush out the conveyor-belt niceties. We talk for over 90 minutes, touching all manner of subjects in an enthusiastic flow. Quite deep at times--"It's like two psychiatrists talking," she said after. ZigZag, "Fire in the Bush", by Kris Needs, 1980(?) gaffa.org/reaching/i80_zz.html
Kate rightly points out, however, that her lyrics do go into the psychology of relationships, and analyse what lies under that superficial banner of "love", which--no matter how common a theme--is still very important to a lot of people. Smash Hits, "The Me Inside", Deanne Pearson, May 1980 gaffa.org/reaching/i80_sm.html
She still expresses it hesitantly, but with a passion: "It's so hard to look at people you love so much and see things which are screwing them up . . . reading things about Gurdjieff or the Bible give some comfort, they make you feel you can do something about it. The connection, getting through the barriers to people is the thing . . . continually swilling in ego isn't what I want to do. I want to be a perfect person. I think everyone does." ... "I don't know, your own sexuality is something very wavery, you rely on other people to prop it up for you. Maybe the female finds it harder than the male; worrying so much about how you look, age is such a problem . . . although males get in in much deeper areas, conditioned at school and by parents, treat women as 'wahayl', and never cry, and 'take your drink like a man'. "I have trouble with the domestic me. That's what I mean about lacking in the feminine areas. Marrying, having kids, washing and cooking. I mean, when I'm at home I love to cook and clean the place up. But work is a different me, work is a love and how could I do that and bring up a child? So many women with families find they have wasted their education and they can't go back. "So I won't have had being a mother and making a little home for my man to come back to. And I don't feel a need for that security now, but possibly I will." ... "Being brought up with two brothers I'd sit philosophising with them while my girlfriends wanted to talk about clothes and food. Maybe it's the male energy to be the hunter and I feel I have that in me." Sounds, "Labushka", Phil Sutcliffe, August 30, 1980 gaffa.org/reaching/i80_so.html
There's a depth of texture and complexity to your last two records that makes them bear up well under repeated listening. They reveal more every time you hear them. "That's lovely that you should say that. My favorite albums are the ones I love more and more with each listening. That would be absolutely dynamite if I felt that I was doing that for other people with my albums. Two of my ultimate favourite recordings are Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper." It's interesting you'd mention those particular Beatles albums, because it seems that The Dreaming and Never For Ever harken back to that time of the concept album and the idea of stepping into a different world when you're listening to a record. There is a fantasy element to your imagery. "I always tend to resent that. I always feel that the Tolkein, fantastical images seem to suggest that they're not based in reality, which I can't help but feel that a lot of my stuff is. Not all of it, but a majority is based in reality rather than fantasy. A lot of people say this, and I can't help but feel that the first two albums set that impression. You know, the feel of the production, the high voice, they sort of had a floating feel about them. But few of those songs weren't based in reality." You do make a lot of social statements in tunes like Pull Out the Pin and Breathing. "My motivations are not social or political. It's an emotional motivation, where I'm so moved by something that's happening that I have to write about it. Apart from a few artists, I think that's how most of us feel about it. We're not necessarily politically minded. Myself, I'm not all. I find politics extremely destructive. I see very few good, long term productive things being done by politics. It's one of those things that seems theoretically very sound, but practically, it must be an impossibility. I think that's just an emotional situation. Like nuclear war is a political thing, but it's also incredibly emotional, because it means we could all be blown up. And no one wants to be blown up. That's basic. The reason that you have to care about politics is because of how bad people are to each other... Breathing is about human beings killing themselves. I think that people smoking is one of those tiny things that says a lot about human beings. I mean, I smoke and I enjoy it, but we smoke and we know it's dangerous. Maybe there's some kind of strange subconscious desire to damage ourselves. It would seem so if you looked back through history, wouldn't it?" Totally Wired/Songwriter/Keyboard, John Diliberto, early 1985 gaffa.org/reaching/ir85_tw.html
The Kate Bush conversation is peppered with old-fashioned phrases that recall a period when self-awareness was de rigueur. And Kate admits she isn't impressed by pop's ever-changing moods: "I've never even seen a Madonna video and I don't like pop music much. Radio One infuriates me. I'd rather listen to the silly programmes on Radio Four, or to classical music like Delius, Bach and Satie." Nor is she convinced by the need for publicity. "It's promotion. But people ask questions you'd only answer under psycho-analysis" ... Monty Python man Terry Gilliam and comedian Robbie Coltrane are credited on her latest album Hounds of Love and she speaks of their work with affection. "Childish things amuse me, noises and silly faces. I adore Faulty Towers and The Young Ones, the psychology behind them is intriguing." "What Kate Did Next", 1985 gaffa.org/reaching/i85_what.html
Side One is entitled "Hounds Of Love," and Side Two "The Ninth Wave." The first side kicks off with the hit single Running Up That Hill and carries on with four more individual tunes, while "The Ninth Wave" is a concept side, it's seven songs combining to tell one story. "Even though the first side wasn't conceptual, all the songs are linked by the fact that they're about relationships of some kind. They're all love songs, really." The Georgia Straight, "HoL Has Her Running Up The Charts", Steve Newton gaffa.org/reaching/i85_gs.html
Wilhelm Reich: A controversial psychoanalyst who took Freudian orthodoxy to an extreme and theorized that all personality disorders arose from sexual repression. Reich's son Peter, nine years old at the time of his father's imprisonment, wrote as an adult the autobiographical memoir A Book Of Dreams, which recounts his memories of his father. This book inspired the song Cloudbusting. gaffa.org/diction/index.html
[The following group interview was conducted by Peter Swales for Musician magazine. Peter Swales, for those who are interested, is a friend of the Bush family, and he is the author of several papers on aspects of psycho-analysis.] But, you know, in one or two of the American reviews of The Dreaming, your music has been described as "schizophrenic", and to tell you the truth, I feel I can well understand why people have said that. You know I'm a historian concerned with Freud and psychoanalysis. And it seems to me that, in a manner of speaking, your music represents a virtual compendium of psychopathology; I mean to say, it is alternatively hysterical, melancholic, psychotic, paranoid, obsessional, and so on. And yet, in your case, such traits obviously proceed out of strength, not out of weakness, they represent roles which you're assuming, or states which you're simulating, for the sake of a given song. "Yes! Well, I think that's fabulous that you should say so. You see, while I'm maybe not scientifically interested like you, I am absolutely fascinated by the states that people throw and put on. And, you know, I think that that is the most fascinating thing there is to write about really, the way that people just distort things and the things they think and the things they do. And it's really fun for me if I can find an area of the personality that is slightly exaggerated or distorted and, if I feel I can identify with it enough, then try to cast a person as perfectly as I can in terms of that particular character trait, especially if I don't really show those kinds of things myself. Take anger for instance: it's really fun to write from the point of view of someone who's really angry, like in Get Out of My House on the last album. Because I very rarely show anger, although obviously I do sometimes feel it..." Musician (unedited), Peter Swales, Fall 1985 gaffa.org/reaching/i85_swa.html
"We seem to be very much in the era of reason, and I think science is the ultimate example of that. The other side is the instinctive [the Freudian id], which is not logical on any level." Melody Maker, "The Language of Love", Steve Sutherland, October 21, 1989 gaffa.org/reaching/i89_mm.html
"When I was little, I really wanted to be a psychiatrist. That's what I always said at school. I had this idea of helping people, I suppose, but I found the idea of people's inner psychology fascinating, particularly in my teens." Q, "Booze, Fags, Blokes And Me", December 1993 gaffa.org/reaching/i93_q.html
"Albums are like diaries," Bush says. "You go through phases, technically and emotionally, and they reflect the state that you're in at the time..." Rolling Stone, "Dear Diary: The Secret World of Kate Bush", David Sinclair, February 24, 1994 gaffa.org/reaching/i94_rs.html
During her teenage years, Kate considered changing direction to pursue a career in psychiatry. This was before receiving her break in the music industry, which came in mid-1975 when EMI began negotiations to sign her to their label. Around this time Kate wrote to an former school-friend saying: "I have set myself a definite ambition as a career. I want to sing, write songs and mime" ... During her youth Kate had an interest in Greek mythology. As mentioned earlier, she also gave serious consideration to a career in psychiatry. These things are not surprising given her Mercury in Virgo conjunct Pluto, and in sextile with Neptune. Traditionally, both Neptune and Pluto are associated with myths, psychology, and the 'transpersonal'. In fact, the written symbol denoting 'psychology' is the same as the written symbol used to denote 'Neptune'. Kate Bush: Any Day Now, Astrology for the 21st Century, September 22, 2005 gaffa.org/reaching/rev_misc.html
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Post by tannis on Dec 4, 2008 12:27:49 GMT
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 85 Subject: Kate Bush influences
Well here's a list of some of the musicians that I recall Kate saying have influenced her: David Bowie, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Killing Joke, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, The Beatles, Roy Harper, David Byrne, Brian Eno, Brian Ferry, Stevie Wonder, Captain Beefheart, Rolf Harris, early Roxy Music, Nat King Cole, Frank Zappa, Donovan, Steely Dan, Windom Hill, ECM, Eberheart Weber, Alan Stivel, A. L. (Bert) Loyd, Ewan MacCall, Delius, Eric Satie, Debussy, The Eagles, The TV National Iranian Chamber Orchestra, Pipers Rock, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Choir of King's College Chapel, The Bothie Band, Billy Holliday, Buddy Holly, Jules and The Polar Bears, Bob Marley, Patti Smith, .... She also claimed to be influenced by the energy, emotion, and newness (at the time) of Punk music. She says that her song "Sat in Your Lap" was inspired by seeing a Stevie Wonder concert. How "Sat in Your Lap" came out of that, I don't know... but art is strange! She once said that after hearing Pink Floyd's "The Wall" she nearly couldn't write music again, because she thought it said "everything there is to say". The song "The Dreaming" is clearly based on a Rolf Harris song from the sixties called "Sun Arise". She has also said that she loves backwards vocals. "We let the weirdness in"
A 'Best of' Love-Hounds Collectiongaffa.org/dreaming/E2_work1.htmlFollowing the path laid by Buffalo Springfiled, The Byrds, Poco, The Eagles and many other Country Rock bands in the 70's, Unicorn instilled its own British flair into some pretty inspired tunes and released 4 albums in The UK and 3 in the USA on Capitol Records with the help of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. In 1973, Kate records at Gilmour's home studio. The backing band is comprised of Gilmour himself on guitar, and Peter Perrier and Pat Martin of Unicorn on drums and bass, respectively. And like Unicorn, Kate's influences also include The Eagles and many others...
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Post by tannis on Feb 24, 2009 2:27:11 GMT
This chapter says...Chapter 14 - World of Shamanism:
Spiritual Emergency and Spiritual Emergence? New Views of Shamans' Health
...of external facts we have had enough and to spare, more than the squirrel like scholars will ever be able to piece together into a single whole, enough to keep the busy popularizers sprouting in bright-eyed knowledgeability the rest of their days; but of the inner facts—of what goes on at the center where the forces of our fate first announce themselves—we are still pretty much in ignorance.... ~ William Barrett (1962)
Despite decades of attempts to pigeonhole them, shamans simply do not slip neatly into traditional psychiatric categories. Much has been made of the initiation crisis, and yet what is most important is not the crisis itself but what comes out of it. For the shaman "is not only a sick man" said Eliade, "he is a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself."(Eliade, 1964) From this perspective "shamanism is not a disease but being healed from disease."(Ackerknecht, 1943)
In fact, shamans are often the most functional members of their community, and according to Eliade "show proof of a more than normal nervous constitution." They can display remarkable energy and stamina, unusual levels of concentration, high intelligence, leadership skills, and a grasp of complex myths and rituals. What can we make of this curious combination of initial disturbance and subsequent health? Are there any data and diagnoses that can encompass both the initial disturbance and the subsequent recovery?
DISTURBANCE AS DEVELOPMENT
The answer is clearly yes. Shamans are not alone in becoming better after a psychological disturbance. Over 2,000 years ago Socrates declared that "our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, provided the madness is given us by divine gift." (Lukoff, 1985) More recently the eminent psychiatrist Karl Menninger observed that "some patients have a mental illness and then they get weller! I mean they get better than they ever were....This is an extraordinary and little realized truth".
Fortunately, it is becoming better recognized. Responses to stress can span a spectrum from regression to growth. This spectrum extends from pathological regression (at the negative extreme) to resilience (continued normal functioning) and even to posttraumatic growth (also known as stress-related growth, positive adaptation, and thriving).
Likewise, some psychological disturbances can function as growth experiences that somehow result in greater psychological or spiritual wellbeing. These disturbances shed new light on shamanic initiation crises.
The general process is one of temporary psychological disturbance followed by resolution and repair to a new and higher level of functioning. What seemed at the time to be purely a crisis of disturbance and disease can now be seen as a stage of development and growth. Each of the many names given to such crises illuminates a different facet of the process. These names include "positive disintegration," "regenerative processes," "renewal," "creative illness" and "resilience."
Some psychological crises include mystical or transpersonal experiences. These have been described as "mystical experiences with psychotic features," "divine illnesses," "metanoiac voyages," "visionary states," "spiritual emergencies" and "transpersonal crises." What these names make clear is that psychological disturbances may sometimes be followed by significant growth. Consequently, we can now recognize some psychological disturbances as developmental crises.
Developmental Crises
Developmental crises are periods of psychological stress that accompany turning points in our lives. They may be marked by considerable psychological turmoil, sometimes even of life threatening proportions. These transitions can occur spontaneously, as in adolescent and mid-life crises, or can be induced by growth-accelerating techniques such as psychotherapy and meditation.
These crises occur because psychological growth rarely proceeds smoothly. Rather, growth is usually marked by transition periods of confusion and questioning, or in extreme cases, disorganization and despair. The twin lions that guard the gates of Eastern temples are said to represent confusion and paradox, and anyone who seeks wisdom must be willing to pass through both.
Even clarity can become a trap. We cling to an old familiar understanding of ourselves and the world because it saves us from having to face the ever-changing novelty and uncertainty of life. We cling to the familiar, not knowing that mystery is a necessary prelude to the dawning of wisdom. As Castaneda succinctly put it, clarity "dispels fear, but also blinds" and the person who holds fast to it no longer learns.
If these crises are successfully negotiated, then the turmoil may turn out to be the means by which constricting, outdated life patterns are cast off. Old beliefs and goals may be released, and new more life-affirming modes adopted. In short, psychological pain and confusion can be symptoms of either disease or development.
Developmental crises can occur spontaneously as a result of inner forces that compel growth whether the individual wants it or not. The mind is designed to grow, and the drive powering that growth has been variously described as an actualizing tendency (Carl Rogers), individuation urge (Carl Jung), holotropism (Stan Grof), equilibration (Jean Piaget) or eros (Ken Wilber). The result is a dynamic tension between these forces of growth and the seductiveness of stagnation, between the pull of transcendence and the inertia of the familiar. The Jungian psychiatrist, John Perry observed that: spirit [is] constantly striving for release from its entrapment in routine or conventional mental structures. Spiritual work is the attempt to liberate this dynamic energy, which must break free of its suffocation in old forms.... f this work of releasing spirit becomes imperative but is not undertaken voluntarily with knowledge of the goal and with considerable effort, then the psyche is apt to take over and overwhelm the conscious personality.... The individuating psyche abhors stasis as nature abhors a vacuum.
In other words, the psyche may be unwilling to risk the unhappiness that Abraham Maslow warned against when he said "if you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you will be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life." Rather than tolerate stagnation, the psyche may willfully create crises that force development.
Such is the case with shamans. Many are not at all pleased by the prospect of their new profession, and resist the initial signs with all their might. According to Devereux, "Among the Sedang Moi, a person who receives the 'call' may even drink his own urine, in the hope that this act will so depreciate him in the sight of his divine sponsors that they will take back the power they had given him."(Devereux, 2001) However, resistance is no easy matter, and many tribal myths hold that the person who resists the call will sicken, go mad, or die. When the forces of growth overwhelm the forces of inertia then a developmental transition or crisis occurs. The symptoms of this crisis vary depending upon the individual's personality and maturity, and can range from regressive pathology at one extreme to transpersonal or spiritual concerns at the other. These transpersonal crises, which are also called spiritual emergencies or spiritual emergences seem close to, and helpful in understanding, some shamanic initiation crises.
THE VARIETIES OF SPIRITUAL EMERGENCIES
Although they have been described for centuries as complications of spiritual practices, the careful study of spiritual emergencies has only just begun. Varieties particularly relevant to shamanism and its initiation crises include "mystical experiences with psychotic features," "shamanic journeys," "possession," "renewal," "kundalini" and "psychic opening."
Mystical experience with psychotic features and "psychotic disorder with mystical features" are terms used to describe psychoses in which significant mystical experiences occur. The episodes are usually short lived and have a better prognosis than other psychoses. This curious combination of mystical and psychotic is consistent with the bizarre behavior and mystical experiences of some shamanic crises.
Shamanic journey emergencies echo themes commonly encountered in both shamanic initiations and journeys. As Christina and Stan Grof observe: Transpersonal crises of this type bear a deep resemblance to what the anthropologists have described as the shamanic or initiatory illness….In the experiences of individuals whose transpersonal crises have strong shamanic features, there is great emphasis on physical suffering and encounter with death followed by rebirth and elements of ascent or magical flight. They also typically sense a special connection with the elements of nature and experience communication with animals or animal spirits. It is also not unusual to feel an upsurge of extraordinary powers and impulses to heal….Like the initiatory crisis, the transpersonal episodes of a shamanic type, if properly supported, can lead to good adjustment and superior functioning.
The striking similarity of these contemporary crises to classic shamanic experiences suggests that initiatory crises reflect a deep psychological process, not limited to particular cultures or times. This process seems capable of exploding from the depths of the psyche in contemporary Westerners surrounded by cars and computers as well as in ancient shamans in tepees and igloos. Clearly some deep, perhaps archetypal, pattern is being played out here, and the Grof's therefore conclude that "Individuals whose spiritual crises follows this pattern are thus involved in an ancient process that touches the deepest foundations of the psyche." We may therefore have much to learn from ancient shamanic wisdom about the appropriate handling of these crises.
Experiences of possession have been described throughout history and can constitute a major feature of shamanic crises. Individuals experience being taken over by inner forces or beings beyond their control. Sometimes these forces feel so alien and malevolent as to seem literally demonic, and victims may fear that they are engaged in a desperate battle for their life and sanity. So dramatic are these experiences that even some contemporary psychiatrists, most notably Scot Peck, have concluded that demonic forces are to blame.(Peck, 1983) However, most health professionals assume that possession is an expression of powerful psychological dynamics that can be treated therapeutically. Indeed, Christina and Stan Grof claim that "with good support, experiences of this kind can be extremely liberating and therapeutic."
John Perry described the renewal process as an experience of destruction followed by regeneration. Individuals undergoing it are overwhelmed by images in which they see both themselves and the world being destroyed. Yet this destruction is not the end but a prelude to rebirth and regeneration. Out of the images of ruin comes a sense of personal renewal and world regeneration. Images of death and rebirth are of course common in the shamanic crisis.
This renewal process may entail considerable stress and even reach psychotic proportions. Psychiatrists rarely distinguish this particular process from other psychoses and usually suppress them all with drugs. However John Perry claims: if a person undergoing this turmoil is given love, understanding and encouragement, the spiritual crisis soon resolves itself without the need for interruption by suppressive medication. The most fragmented "thought disorder" can become quite coherent and orderly within a short time if someone is present to respond to it with compassion. Such a relationship is far better than a tranquilizer in most instances.
The fundamental change in this "renewal process" is thought to be a dissolution of the old self-image and its replacement with a new more appropriate one.
Kundalini awakening has been most fully described in the yogic tradition of India, where kundalini is the creative energy of the universe. Humans partake of this energy, but it usually lies dormant and unrecognized. Under the prodding of spiritual practice, or occasionally spontaneously, the kundalini can be aroused and unleash enormous, even overwhelming, physical and psychological energy.
The result is a complex array of intense physical, psychological, and spiritual experiences that can be ecstatic or terrifying. These can manifest physically as tremors and spasms, or psychologically as intense emotions, agitation, energy, lights and vivid imagery. Kundalini could account for the unusual symptoms and intense agitation of some shamanic crises. Kundalini crises are now occurring more frequently in the West as more people begin intensive meditative and yogic practices.
The last type of spiritual emergency is that of psychic opening. Here individuals feel they have suddenly become capable, sometimes quite against their will, of one or more psychic abilities. These can include out-of-body experiences, visions, and mediumship or channeling—all common experiences among shamans. Such people may encounter significant difficulties, feel overwhelmed, and fear for their sanity. We will explore the question of the validity of psychic phenomena in a later chapter.
These are the forms of spiritual emergency most relevant to shamanic initiation crises. An important implication is that there may be several kinds of shamanic crises, and future descriptions and diagnoses will need to be more nuanced.
DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT
Clearly spiritual practices and awakenings (to use religious terms), can revive and exacerbate unresolved conflicts. This is not necessarily bad since the process can bring to the surface issues and difficulties requiring attention, and result in considerable healing and personality integration.
Two major of diagnostic errors can be made. One is reductionistic: to fail to recognize a spiritual emergency and reduce it to pure pathology. The other is "elevationistic:" to overlook a pathological process such as schizophrenia and elevate it to a spiritual emergency. The task is complicated by the existence of hybrid forms in which both mystical and pathological experiences coexist.
If correctly diagnosed and appropriately supported, then spiritual emergencies can be valuable growth experiences; hence their other name of "spiritual emergences." Several factors are helpful. The first is a trusting relationship where the patient feels cared for and safe. The second is a positive attitude in which the patient expects that the process will prove valuable and healing. Third, opening to and talking about the experience can be helpful, and can be facilitated by psychotherapy.
Shamans discovered these principles long ago. Their crises involve symptoms and behaviors that appear bizarre, even pathological. However, the outcome may be positive when the shaman-to-be is recognized as such by the tribe, and then receives culturally appropriate support, guidance, and "therapy." This support includes a relationship with an experienced shaman, a positive reinterpretation of the disturbance as part of a shamanic awakening, and practices that enable the novice to work with the emerging experiences. With this assistance, the initiate may not only recover but may emerge stronger and able to help others. In short, shamanic crises and contemporary spiritual emergencies seem to be related, difficult, but potentially valuable maturation crises. Shamanic cultures have long provided the types of support that contemporary therapists are now rediscovering.
from The World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition, Roger Walsh (2007)see more:www.katinkahesselink.net/other/shamanism.html
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Post by tannis on Feb 24, 2009 2:27:49 GMT
This chapter says...THE DIAGNOSIS OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES WITH PSYCHOTIC FEATURES (MEPF)
Psychotic and religious experiences have been associated since the earliest recorded history, and undoubtedly before. The Old Testament uses the same term, in reference to madness sent by God as a punishment for the disobedient, and to describe the behavior of prophets (Rosen, 1968). Socrates declared, "Our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, provided the madness is given us by divine gift" (Dodds, 1951, p. 61). However, not all self-reports of ecstatic divine unions indicate that the person is having a profound religious experience. The similarity between psychotic symptoms and aspects of mystical experiences has also received acknowledgment and discussion in the psychiatric literature (Arieti, 1976; Buckley, 1981; James, 1961).
This paper presents a model delineating the overlap between mystical experiences and psychotic states. The place of overlap contains two diagnostic categories, "Mystical Experiences with Psychotic Features," and "Psychotic Disorders with Mystical Features."
Many clinicians and researchers who work with psychotic individuals have developed categories for episodes with the potential for positive outcomes: problem-solving schizophrenics (Boisen, 1962); positive disintegration (Dabrowski, 1964); creative illness (Ellenberger, 1970); spiritual emergencies (Grof & Grof, 1985); metanoiac voyages (Laing, 1972); visionary states (Perry, 1977). Despite the consistency of these clinical observations, current psychiatric practice does not attempt to distinguish between psychotic episodes with growth potential and those which indicate a mental disorder.
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES
The American Heritage Dictionary notes that the word "mystical" comes from the Greek muestes initiated into secret rites. It is derived from muein, meaning to close the eyes or mouth, hence to keep a secret. The Indo-European root of these Greek terms is mu, which is imitative of inarticulate sounds. Given this etymology, it should come as no surprise that one of the main characteristics of the mystical experience noted by many scholars is its ineffability. For example, James (1961) noted that the mystical experience "defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words" (p. 300). Clearly there are bound to be difficulties in describing operationally an experience which defies description by words. Another important characteristic of the mystical experience is its ability to change the individual's life. Neumann (1964) stresses the "conformity in the psychological effect of mystical experience, in the transformation it induces in the personality" (p. 387). Among some suicidal individuals, the occurrence of mystical experiences seems to lessen the risk of suicide (Horton, 1973). Surveys have consistently found that over one-third of the people in the United States report intense religious experiences which "lifted them outside of themselves" (Hay and Morisy, 1978; also Greeley, 1974).
Most definitions of mysticism are couched in theological terminology. Underhill (1911) states "The aim of every mystic is union with God" (p. 96). Leuba (1929) defines mysticism more broadly as immediate contact or union of the self with the larger-than-self' called variously God, the Cosmos, the Absolute.
These five criteria (A-E), all of which must be present, constitute a template for "Mystical Experiences with Psychotic Features" (MEPF):
A. Ecstatic mood. The most consistent feature of the mystical experience is elevation of mood. Laski (1968) describes it as a state with "feelings of a new life, another world, joy, salvation, perfection, satisfaction, glory" (cited in Perry, 1974, p. 84). James (1961) also points to the "mystical feeling of enlargement, union and emancipation" (p. 334), and claims that "mystical states are more like states of feeling than like states of intellect" (p. 300).
B. Sense of newly-gained knowledge. Feelings of enhanced intellectual understanding and the belief that the mysteries of life have been revealed are commonly reported in mystical experiences (Leuba, 1929). James (1961) describes this phenomenon of newly-gained knowledge ("gnoesis"): They are states of insight into the depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance (p. 33). Jacob Boehme, a seventeenth-century shoemaker whose mystical experience ushered in a new vocation as a nature philosopher, reported: In one-quarter of an hour, l saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a university. For I saw and knew the being of all things (cited in Perry, 1974, p. 92).
C. Perceptual alterations. Mystical experiences consistently involve perceptual alterations ranging from heightened sensations to auditory and visual hallucinations. Boehme felt himself surrounded by light during his mystical experience.
D. Delusions Delusions (if present) have themes related to mythology. Electronic media have greatly increased the repertoire of cultural material available for incorporation into both mystical and psychotic experiences. Psychotic individuals who in the past might have claimed to be St. Luke, now claim to be Luke Skywalker. Carlos Castaneda's (1971) books have become a vital source for mystical as well as delusional material. However, Perry (1974) points out that below the surface level of specific identities and beliefs are thematic similarities in the accounts of patients whose psychotic episodes have good outcomes. Based on Perry's research and other accounts of patients with positive experiences, the following eight themes were identified as occurring commonly in MEPF: 1. Death: being dead, meeting the dead or meeting Death. 2. Rebirth: new identity, new name, resurrection, apotheosis to god, king or messiah 3. Journey: Sense of being on a journey or mission. 4. Encounters with Spirits: demonic forces and/or helping spirits. 5. Cosmic conflict: good/evil, communists/Americans, light/dark, male/female. 6. Magical powers: telepathy, clairvoyance, ability to read minds, move objects. 7. New society: radical change in society, religion, New Age, utopia, world peace. 8. Divine union: God as father, mother, child; Marriage to God, Christ, Virgin Mary, Radha or Krishna. These same themes are found in many transpersonal experiences. When the psychotic patient projects these inner mythic themes onto outer reality, such beliefs meet the psychiatric criteria for delusions. Unfortunately, most of these experiences get squashed out in the first hew days of treatment with medications. Unless the person is permitted to remain longer in an unmedicated psychotic state, the type of assessment suggested here is impossible.
E. No conceptual disorganization. Some psychotic persons have cognitive deficits which cause them difficulty with their basic thought processes. For example, a person with a schizophrenic disorder complained, "I get lost in the spaces between words in sentences. I can't concentrate, or I get off onto thinking about something else" (in Estroff, 1981, p. 223). Systematic comparisons of mystical experiences and schizophrenia have found that "Thought blocking and other disturbances in language and speech do not appear to accompany the mystical experience" (Buckley, 1981, p. 521). Therefore, the presence of conceptual disorganization, as evidenced by disruption in thought, incoherence and blocking, would preclude assigning a psychotic episode to the MEPF category. However, delusional metaphorical speech which may be difficult to understand, but is comprehensible, should not be considered conceptually disorganized.see more: "Mystical Experiences with Psychotic Features" (MEPF)www.spiritualcompetency.com/se/dxtx/diagnosticcriteria-mystical.html
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Post by tannis on Mar 27, 2009 0:27:26 GMT
SALOME To watch Welsh National Opera’s staging of Salome, twenty-one years to the day since it was first presented, is to appreciate it as a crucible for some formidable talents – not only in its striking fusion of Richard Strauss’s music with source material courtesy of Oscar Wilde’s scandalous 1892 play, but also in terms of the impressive opportunities it affords to incumbent WNO Music Director Lothar Koenigs and to soprano Erika Sunnegardh, making a striking UK debut in the title role. Her Salome is a gauche, gamine figure in a billowing white dress, with a more than passing resemblance to Kate Bush, throwing herself around the stage with a similar wild abandon. She is mesmerised by the imprisoned figure of Jokanaan (John The Baptist), a stocky barrel of a man who captivates her with his implacable convictions more than his looks. The pivotal Dance of the Seven Veils is rather chaste – worlds away from Maria Ewing’s legendary interpretation which ended with her completely naked. Sunnegardh’s dance is closer to Agnes de Mille’s Dream Ballet in Oklahoma, a visible expression of a woman with deeply conflicting sexual feelings. Here, Salome ricochets between Herod and the offstage Jokanaan – on one hand, a man who desires her and whom she rejects; on the other, a man she desires and who rejects her.www.whatsonstage.com/blogs/midlands/?p=397Ljuba Kazarnovskaya as Salome in "Dance of seven veils" www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xVI8EkxGaY&feature=related ~ The White Dress Version...
VICTORX : SALOME - R.STRAUSS - THE DANCE MARIA EWING www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFcoz20dsTk&feature=related ~ The Red Dress Version...
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