Hi Estela,
My apologies for having taken so long to reply.
As if there were any need to advance proof of my “brain-shutdown,” I offer the fact that I did not see your reply, Estela, or Daniel’s, in response to my “call for neologisms” — not until today, that is. ¿Por qué? Why? ¿Quién sabe, kimo sabe? Who knows?
At any rate, thank you both for responding.
Estela, I like your neologism: “psychotrauma.” It readily encompasses the global situation, and fits so many different contemporary dilemmas. And when I look at your "new word," I do see the clinical aspect you mention. But I also see something poetic, buried in or behind both word-elements: Psyche, as you know, from the Greek for “butterfly” and “soul”; and Trauma, from the German for “dream.” It reminds me of Franz Lizst’s “Liebesträume” for piano. The German translation of liebestraum (singular), of course, is “dream-love,” or “dream of love.” Which further reminds me of the "sturm und drang" motifs in Romantic stories such as Wagner's opera, "Tristan und Isolde." The dual motifs of love and death practically define Romantic poetry. The black sail on the approaching ship, the mistaken signal, Tristan's death in mistaken despair, Isolde's tragic death next to him. The two trees that grow out of the grave, forever interwoven in love and death. Getting pretty Romantic, it seems. Love and death. Love in death. Love after death. Lots of room for poetry, for angling toward the “root level” as you felicitously put it.
I also like your notion of “secondary PTSD.” Secondary afflictions are no joke. Increasingly, I’m even wondering if there might be a “tertiary” PTSD, as in “Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” In other words, more and more we’re suffering stress over things before they’ve happened — I certainly am. I take it as perhaps some aspect of Russ’s “quantum scribe” ruminations.
I certainly agree with your description of the Duende experience found in the “shadow play of the light and the dark.” That necessary inclusion of darkness in our deepest formulations is implicit in what García Lorca said in his essay, “Play and Function of the Duende”:
“The duende only approaches when death is near.”
Thanks again, Estela.
Paco