And now for a change of pace.  Here is a post from Merrilee that offers some astrological reflections on Fex & Coo and what has unfolded since October 11, 2010. Over the next while, I will follow this up with further astrological observations. Comments and questions are most welcomed! (ral)

Dear Paco and Russ,

Paco, I don’t really read charts, but consulting with my nephew and his wife (who were just here) gave me this rather free-flowing take on the chart you sent:

Pluto is in the 1st House along with Sag & Jupiter.  Sag & Jupiter bring inspiration to FEX & COO!  Catch people’s attention right away?!

And with Pluto in Capricorn in this house —  along with the North Node (what we’re here for; the lesson we’re here to learn) —  the reader is destined to make a descent and undergo a deep transformation.  So in FEX & COO, while Capricorn keeps us grounded, Pluto removes Cap's earthly bounds and lifts the veil on other realms.

In the 3rd House of the book we find Pisces, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune all in AQUARIUS!!  An extremely life-changing combo!!  Aquarius being the humanitarian with a perspective of the collective ... or the big picture.  Aquarius/Pisces takes Jupiter, Uranus, & Neptune — and the readers! — deep.

3rd House = not just family & home, but our inner life, mind & intellect.  This gathering in F & Coo’s chart has the power to transform the way we think.  It makes us answer anew the question: Who Are We?  Jupiter & Uranus aid the reader in bringing in the Age of Aquarius!

The Moon in Sag is on the Ascendent.  Does this mean emotions are stirred by the book?   Sag is the seeker, philosopher, artist, etc.   Again this book will take people deeper than they realize.

Do Libra & Virgo at the top bring balance to the intellect?

In the 11th House (our relationship to the collective?) the Sun, Mercury, & Saturn are conjunct in Libra.  Is the Sun the book itself?  And Mercury how it comes across to the audience?  Does Saturn hold the fears we face when we read it?  And is Libra our need to find balance in all this?  Balance between Fex & Coo?  Between Russ & Paco, and their deeper personas as Owl & Heron man?  Between the Unconscious characters of our musings and dreams — and our waking selves?

Mars & Venus are conjunct in Scorpio in the 12th House (unconscious).  In the book does Scorpio take us on ever deeper dives into the unconscious?

Bumbles Crosses the Line

Bumbles felt himself calm down a bit after his beer bath courtesy of CedrosCM. Jinney’s ministrations didn’t hurt either.  A few hours of celebration later he got up. “I’m going to call it a night blokes” he yelled as he stumbled towards the pub’s front door. “I’ll see’s you later, ta”. Bumbles made it to the door, opened it and froze. It was like something strange had passed through his body. He couldn’t tell if it was the beer, his supper of Buffalo chicken wings or a ghost. Maybe it was the cold night air he thought self soothingly. Confused by this conundrum, pondering “what” as deeply as he could, he began to step over the cill. This being an old English pub the cill had energy unto itself. It was if the cill reached up and gleefully tripped him. He tried to grab the door handle but it swung with him. With his immense girth underway a gentle recovery was not in the cards. Bumbles fell sideways in a gentle unrelenting pirouette landing face down in a thicket of brambles growing on the sidewall of the pub.

“Ow, shite. I’m going to kill you, you damn bushes” he screamed. The brambles were unperturbed. Thrashing in his attempts to free himself only made his pain worse so he stopped. Facedown in the thicket Bumbles realized he had well and truly bumbled this time. Any attempt to lift his head caused the thorns hooked in the skin of his face to cut deeper. “My face, it’s on fire” he sobbed.  “I’m going to die, bled to death by a bush”. Pull yourself together Garth (his true name) came the voice of his mother. Lying still he began to sort out a plan to get free, to LIVE. Wriggling his arms he found they were only lightly hooked. Moving eel like, he broke free of the thorns, slowly moving his hands up to his face.  Feeling around with his fingers Bumbles was able to unhook his skin from the crown of thorns ringing his face.

Lifting his head away from the thorns Bumbles noticed an odd disc like thing mixed in with the dirt and blood. Wrenching free he hauled his bulk up grabbing a handful of dirt and hopefully the disc with his left hand.  Finally released from his thorny prison he staggered to his feet only to hear Jinney say “Bumbles what an arse, you’ve destroyed my dessert bush”. Bleeding profusely from multiple lacerations he didn’t have the energy to bellow some profanity at her. Shaking his head Garth staggered down the street toward home, #10 Drowning Street. A block down the street he remembered the odd object he had tried to grab. Looking down he opened his hand. Mixed in with the dirt and clotted blood was an oddly shaped cobalt blue disc. Stuffing it all in his pocket he began to whistle. “Things might be looking up”, he thought. Little did he know…

Bumbles Interrupted

Bumbles put the blue-chip back in his pants pocket as he arrived at his front door. Pulling out his house keys he unlocked the apartment door. Something twigged in the back of his mind to “stay still”. Having had a bad experience with a threshold earlier, he instinctively waited. The interior of his apartment was dark. Listening for something bad Bumbles leaned into the house with his head. Nothing. Then, faintly, a clock ticking, and… a tap dripping- dripticking he mumbled. Laughing to himself he relaxed and stepped inside. Bumbles instantly regretted his decision when a deep monotone voice in the darkness, said, “legends are made from this”. Something clobbered him in the head. The last thing he saw were beautiful colored stars, then everything went black.

The first thing he remembered was a sensation of being kissed. He liked it and puckered his lips to kiss back. Instead of a better feeling something bit his lips and he snapped into full awareness. He could see that he was on his bed and his “pet” honey badger, Mike, was sitting on his chest. Mike snarled at Bumbles. Bumbles knew this was Mike’s signal for being fed or else. Attempting to get up was another matter though. Here goes Bumbles said as he pushed snarling Mike off his chest. Rolling on to one side he sat up on the side of the bed. His head was pounding. Remembering the monotone voice and his pain, he suddenly felt frightened. Who’s there he yelled? All he got back was another low snarl from Mike. Bumbles stumbled out of the bedroom to the kitchen with Mike snarling and nipping at his heels. Mike liked meat, meat, and more meat. Opening the fridge door he saw a raw chicken leg on a plate. Okay, that’ll do. He set it down on the floor. Mike jumped on the chicken leg, tearing at it and snarling.

Freed from his “pet”, Bumbles decided he needed to check the rest of the apartment. Maybe a kitchen knife from the butchers block for protection first. Feeling a bit safer Garth wandered slowly from room to room. Everything was as it was before his sojourn to the pub. Maybe Mike learned to speak human-nah, impossible. Sitting down on a kitchen chair, Bumbles watched the honey badger finish his messy meal. With two quick twitches of his tail in Bumbles direction Mike left the room.

Bumbles fingered the blue-chip in his pocket. What the hell was going on he wondered? Bumbles knew he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the block, but he could feel things, deep things. But not like a Nazi or fascist, like they thought he would become at the pub.

It was getting late he realized-time for bed. Although outwardly he looked a mess most of the time Garth was meticulous about his bedtime rituals-deep breathing exercises and meditation for one half hour, then his bathroom routine. He spent some time cleaning the cuts on his face and hands. Brambles he muttered.

Sighing, he lay down on the bed. Still apprehensive about the origin of the voice and the blow to his head, Bumbles listened for any audible twitch in his surround. Gradually, he drifted off to sleep. In the morning he woke to Mike licking his face. Off Mike he said, breakfast shortly. Mike rumbled off the bed and out. Bumbles lay still for a bit attempting to remember any dreams he had in the night. He always thought about Owl Man’s advice that dreams are about the future. All he could remember was a dark skinned man handing him a whole raw leg from an animal. The man said, “I hope you enjoy this.” It was beautiful looking meat with hints of white, scarlet and yellow. He’d mull the dream image over during the day. Bumbles got up, put on his tattered bathrobe and shambled out to the kitchen. Mike was sitting in front of the fridge. No meat, meat today Mike he said. Good old Purina vegetarian meat is on the menu this morning. Mike looked sad he thought. Bumbles poured out a ration of dog chow into Mike’s dog dish and added a bit of water then put it down for Mike who dove into it with relish. Well, maybe he was wrong, Bumbles thought.

After his own breakfast Garth did his morning ablutions, then his exercises while holding the images from his dream in his mind’s eye. Something came in a mere flicker- a dance, an indigenous dance around the fire, and then the words “back lit”.

Suddenly Bumbles froze. Where was the blue disc? He began to panic. In the bedroom he searched frantically through his clothes from the day before, nope. He tore the bed apart. Where is it he yelled? Lurching into the kitchen he noticed something by Mike’s dish. Yes, there it was. He felt overcome with relief. Stooping down, he picked it up and put it in his robe pocket. Garth felt calmer feeling its cold surface on his fingertips. Mike growled at the back door. Awakened from his trance Bumbles let the honey badger out after first checking to make sure Mike couldn’t get out of the yard, which he had done many times. Honey badgers are smart and a pain in the arse he chuckled to himself.

Garth decided to spend the rest of the day in the woods near his home doing forest bathing which he loved. Mike accompanied him on a leash which he didn’t like at all. Garth also made sure that his lucky blue disc was with him in his jacket pocket. Periodically he would touch the disc with his fingertips just for reassurance he said to himself. At one point Mike almost slipped out of his hated collar but Bumbles caught him in the act. Mike snarled and made biting feints as Bumbles tightened the collar. At the end of the day Garth felt more centered and grounded. Back home he fed Mike, let him out in the back yard and then cleaned up from his own supper.

After exercises and prepping for bed Bumbles fell asleep clutching the disc in his hand. If he had been awake Garth would have felt the disc heat up.

Bumbles snapped awake, what the hell? A bedroom wall was lit up with words like a poem or something. But it was the blasting music that freaked him out the most. He had heard this song in his youth but couldn’t place it. Here are the words:

Finished with my woman
'Cause she couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane
Because I am frowning all the time (come on out)

All day long I think of things
But nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind
If I don't find something to pacify

Can you help me?
Occupy my brain
Oh, yeah (let me see your hands)

I need someone to show me
The things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness
I must be blind

Alright, let me hear you, come on
Alright, show it then, come on
Louder, come on
You ain't fucking loud enough, come on
Come on
Now I've heard

Louder, come on, put your fucking balls into it

Alright

Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
And love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could, but it's too late

Thank you, good night
You are the fuckin' coolest, man
I love you all
We love you, good night, God bless you*

The music ended abruptly and Bumbles passed out from the shock. He had a fitful sleep and dreamt about a door, a black door with markings all over it. When he awakened Garth peeped through one eye expecting the words on the wall to be burned into the paint but nothing. Remembering his dream he pulled out his daily diary which he hadn’t written in for weeks.  Laying back on his pillow Bumbles, pen in hand, opened himself to the dream door. It looked like the one below. Words came:

How does the door experience?

Water lapping

Geese grassing

Sailors boating

Mountains eroding

For years the door

Sees

More

Hears

Holding out time

Changing

Ringing

Soft metallic

Heart

*If you want the full effect of Bumbles experience go to

Where is the blue disc he asked aloud? Fumbling around in the bed he found it down by his feet-cold.

Dear Russ, Paco, and John,

Russ, your penchant for whimsy, silliness, and all the other synonyms you unearthed—insofar as they lead to moments of innocent humor and joy—will always be welcome guests in this world we stand to inherit or bequeath.  [See Russ's post Whim, Wham, Whimsy]

In fact, I am grateful to have a comedy-mask to wear, in between my Saturnine stints of wearing a tragedy-mask while tracking vectors of doom-and-gloom. But even such a comic interest—if set against our many crises in social, political, and economic systems, our endless recourse to military “solutions,” our religious manias, guns, our terribly confused categories, our deep conflicts over self-governance, and so forth—comic interest, as I say, must work up a fine sweat to avoid brain-shutdown.

But that’s exactly what I’ve been experiencing recently, a kind of brain-shutdown in the face of crisis overload. I’m not proud of it, not bragging about it, but I’m sure I’m not alone. In fact, I would guess that a great many people, whether they realize it or not, are undergoing something similar. In my opinion, this is a new psychological syndrome for which we have no name.

This is not a scientific diagnosis, of course. I ran no studies, calculated no statistics, invoked no theory. Nor did I eschew feelings and intuitions, the way scientists often do (cf. James Hansen’s references to scientific reticence). Quite the contrary, I revel in those unorthodox functions. I feel that, believe it or not, they ground me.

At any rate, for several days I found myself shambling around like one of Stephen King’s zombies, my mind seemingly blank, unable to write, lurching hither and yon, preoccupied with peripheral matters, wondering what’s happening now, and so forth.

Without a name, our new syndrome—a word derived from the Greek compound for “running together”—is bound to sneak up from behind and catch us flat-footed. That may sound like hyperbole, but the “shutdown,” or whatever it was I underwent, really did occur. I thought I was immune to such conditions—but apparently not.

And if my appraisal was accurate, many people would be suffering a virtual derangement, some worse than mine, thanks to this widespread phenomenon. That does not bode well for our ability to come to terms with the Approaching Unprecedented.

In this context, a neologism—a newly coined word or expression—spontaneously occurred to me when I realized what was happening to me. It was unbidden, as we say.  The term was ecotastrophe. The word had a certain cachet attached to it, like a form of prestige. It even gave the appearance of having been torn apart and then stitched back together again as if it had gone through a battle. I’m not offering it as a blockbuster, exemplary coinage, just a simple sample of a complex process. It just came to me, with that creative autonomy of words which allows us to connect with the deeper agencies—the word wisdom—we all carry somewhere in our depths, whether we know it or not.

As a simple sample, ecotastrophe at least gets the ball rolling, like Jung’s spontaneous stone-carving of the bear rolling a ball, which he “saw” in the stone and executed in his garden—brought to life, we might say.

Jung has already trodden this unblazed, neologistic trail by coining the term “the Coming Guest,” which I take as his expression for the unknown “thing” that is happening to the world—a stunning choice, in my opinion.

And decades ago, Russ, you determined that, whatever else it may imply, the image of the Coming Guest resonates with the archetypal principle of Eros. That was forty years ago, and I see nothing since then to unwind that spool of yarn that you spun so skillfully. The need for more neologisms today is all the greater.

My call for neologisms is an invitation to our readers to carry out what amounts to their own active imagination in words, opening up to the psychic layers below consciousness. There we enter the train station, perhaps, where dreams come chugging in to greet us. There is where words well up, to take their place in the sun.

I don’t know if anything will come of this experiment, but I know how powerful words can be. So did the Greeks, who, long before the New Testament was written, understood that Logos and Sophia were virtually identical—both standing for the creative feminine wisdom-aspect of God.

So, dear readers: What shall we call this new, unprecedented syndrome? What neologisms come to your mind? Will you share them on our website?

Whim, Wham, Whimsy

Something done on a whim is considered capricious, without serious intent, or purpose. Much of Fex & Coo, Deathling Crown Lottery, the Cèilidh of Dreams, and Not in My Nightmare may be considered whimsical. There is much that is playful, fanciful, and humorous.

But let’s consider whimsy a bit deeper. Look at these synonyms:

unconventionality
 unorthodoxy 
singularity
 oddness
 queerness
 strangeness
 weirdness
 bizarreness
 quirkiness
 freakishness
extraordinariness
 peculiarity
irregularity
abnormality
 anomaly
 foible
idiosyncrasy
caprice
quirk

Without going into each of these words I want to claim them all as applicable in all their senses to what Paco and I have been doing in Fex & Coo. Notice the absence of rational, logical, reasonable, practical, useful, and other such terms. I feel like hugging the above synonyms for whimsy—much as I felt like hugging the unfinished statues of Michelangelo in the Academia in Florence. I was more taken with those figures struggling out of a stone than with the finished perfection of “the world’s greatest sculpture,” David.

So be it. The embrace of whimsy. 

Hi Russ,

You and Paco are a constant source of stimulation for me.  I met someone who said he was having some trouble with his memory.  And since you, me, and Paco are all getting up there, this poem irrupted.

The Door

He sat on the edge of the bed

waiting patiently for his memory to return.

He knew he’d find it again,

like the left shoe to

his dress-up brown wing-tips

that he liked to keep polished

more than any other pair.

They turned up again,

didn’t they.

Why not his memory?

How about the day he caught

his finger in the toaster

trying to fish out some burnt bread.

He remembered that alright!

Or last Thursday when someone introduced him

to someone who said he was supposed to know

but didn’t.

I am sure I never met that person before,

he remembered thinking.

I wouldn’t associate with someone who looked like that anyway.

Maybe he left his memory in his penny jar -

‘a penny for your thoughts’, he said out loud.

I’ve a penny but no thoughts.

What are they worth anyway if I can’t remember them?

Now let’s see, I’ve my

nice, polished brown wing-tip shoes on,

but where was I going?

He sat back down on the bed

to think it over.

He looked down at this shoes and asked them -

‘Do you know where we were going?’

Staring at them, he thought - I like my brown wing-tips

and don’t want to get them scuffed.

I think I’ll take them off.

Maybe they can find their way without me

if I put them by the door.

He looked at all the doors he had

and fell silent.

He looked down at his shoes and wondered

If they remembered which door to use.

His eyes drifted from the door to his shoes to his bed

and back.

And in that drifting,

he remembered what someone told him once:

that all you will ever need in this world

was a bed, a pair of shoes, and a door.

Dear Russ,

THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERY

I stopped watching television in 1998, when Seinfeld ended its nine-year run. 

In the fall of 2021, I had a dream in which I was watching a BBC crime show. When I worked on the dream, and looked at the offerings on BBC, I found myself attracted to a program called Vera. Vera began broadcasting in 2011 and continues to the present time. The series is based on the Vera novels by British author Ann Cleeves. As I began watching, I also began reading. Something about the crime genre hooked me and since then I have watched numerous other crime shows and read the novels or screenplays they were based on. 

This activity also brought to mind that as a kid I read a lot of mysteries and would also write my own stories and scripts.. When we got our first TV (1950), it also housed a record making turntable. The whole family participated in performing the scripts I wrote. I felt I was reconnecting with some important piece of myself left behind.

A subsequent dream pictured the title page of either a novel or screenplay entitled, Rule of 3. It also showed that this was an "Arlan Condon Mystery." Arlan Condon is one of the main figures in my novel, DREAMS: The Final Heresy (not yet finished). 

The majority of dreams this year have involved the mystery genre in various ways. some seemingly influenced by the books I've read or programs I have watched. But never in any sense just repetitions—always adding a twist or turn or phrase or simply a word. And others with content that is wholly new and different from anything I have read or watched but still enveloped within this realm of crime and mystery. I do not experience the insistence and persistence of this theme as evidence that I am not “getting” the message. Instead, it feels like an essential collaboration with “the other” prodding me with ideas and elements to take seriously in this task.

I am used to experiencing dreams as tasks and most of the things I have written or published have had their origin in dreams. Still, I am an old man now with much “on my plate” as they say. Lots of things to finish. At this rate I will run out of days before running out of things to finish. For some time I fought this “pressure.” No longer. I now consider it a bounty and I am learning to enjoy it. 

Dear Russ,