Calling for Neologisms by Paco Mitchell

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?

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Detective Work: CD-38, 4

In the spirit of detectives approaching a mystery, let’s gather some clues that drop from this latest episode of CD 38-Scene 4: 

Owl Man: Have no fear, my friends. The crows are seeding our future, and I believe it will have something to do with our modus operandi, our writing, our authoring, and our telling what needs telling. And that includes you, Chip. I can't be sure but that is my best sense. And now, I suggest we close our eyes and welcome whatever the crows have in mind for us as their gift from Dead Mountain, as they complete their fateful marching and return to their cloud.

Crows are of course oracles, birds of seers. Remember the crippled boy seer in Game of Thrones? He became a three-eyed crow and could overcome the arrow of linear time. The detective method I privilege here is based on noticing or being drawn to the anomaly and allowing connections to take place between anomalies. So, as soon as I read Owl Man’s enigmatic prophesying above, a memory guided me to another passage way back in Fex and Coo. But then a puff of wind drew me to another passage, several actually, occurring much earlier. So I had some busy moments gathering all these clues together:

Helen… resembled a prophetic bird/you’re looking down from above because you are birds/dive through the tunnel of the bird’s throat/we were surrounded by hundreds, even thousands, of birds/the birds were issuing a warning/they were saying that everything is melting, that we should be preparing for a phase of total liquifaction.

These few memory clues are echoes of a unrevealed mystery, much like—whoops, another one just flew in so I get out my detective’s magnifying glass (now called the “spotlight search function”). I remembered my work with Walter Benjamin who

gathered fragments to himself in such a way as to reveal the hidden thread linking them and placing them uniquely in this historical moment. In this way the shattered meaning underlying the fragmentation in our modern life could be revealed to the flâneur… (from my book Making New Worlds)

Benjamin seems to be a detective too! 

Drawing back for a moment, I survey the “crime” scene. These clues, being oracles, hint at a crime as yet in the future or AS A FUTURE, producing all these clues in our present, often appearing as anomalies in regularity. Something yet to happen has already left us clues, sensed by the birds, and other animals of course. And it constitutes a crime. The clues keep gathering, like birds—the conference of the birds, of course! But what crime is yet to be committed? Could it be in the nature of mystery itself to be a crime? I quickly consult my dictionary for another clue. “Against the law” leaps out. This clue must now join the others. So mystery breaks the Law! Laws describe the regularities of space-time. Vladimir Solovyov describes the fundamental law of our current space-time (materialism):

Impenetrability in time, by power of which every successive moment of existence does not preserve the preceding one within itself, but excludes it ....
Impenetrability in space, by power of which two parts of matter (two bodies) cannot at the same time occupy the one and same place. 

Anomalies are the statistical outliers, easy to ignore for the sake of regularity—that is, until they accumulate, or avalanche. They become our clues to the as-yet uncommitted crime.  Through them, mystery begins to reveal itself to the careful detective and to force itself on the unprepared. Mystery is against the Law and there is no going back…

The fundamental Law of our time, as described by Solovyov is the "cause" of the syntactical structure of our language and the root of all all our cultural practices, as well as the originator of our very self-definition. If it is successfully challenged by an accumulation of anomalies, then the entire Western culture goes under.

The Law of materialism is assailed on all sides by anomalies which are at the same time clues to the emerging Mystery.

See: The Coming Guest: Fountain Mouth

The birds prophesy “a phase of total liquefaction”. The ultimate Law breaker is upon us and...

WE ARE NOT READY!. 

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Whim, Wham, Whimsy

Whim, Wham, Whimsy

Something done on a whim is considered capricious, without serious intent, or purpose. Much of Fex & CooDeathling 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. 

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A Poem from Tony…

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.

 

 

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A Contribution from Merrilee…

Dear Russ,

How fascinating.  You must have had a wonderful childhood as part of a family willing to be characters in your scripts!  I think you were born with a natural link to mystery.
All life is a mystery and each individual life is a mystery.  Mystery means “initiate” in the secrets of this Universe.  But, then, the atoms of stars live in us — the Universe lives in us — and it seems we are the part of the Universe meant to solve the mystery of its existence and endless potential.
Life is all about mystery.  It baffles, perplexes, defies explanation — excites wonder, curiosity, surprise.  And constantly presents us with mysteries to solve!
 
SOLVE =  (lit. “to loosen, dissolve” i.e. find a solution to.
SOLUTION =  (lit. “to loosen, dissolve, solve”)
Mystery stories follow the clues (dropped by the writer) of a crime (murder/disappearance?) which turns the reader into a detective trying to solve that crime.
The reader then finds himself involved in intrigue, danger, suspense and fear as he encounters the writer's revelations, twists and turns, & cliff-hangers.  The reader has to follow the suspects, figure out their motives, ferret out hidden evidence, discover unseen patterns, look for essential details that can seem unimportant, decipher inference gaps — all the while sitting safely in a room reading.
The whole process, to me, sounds similar to how we approach our dreams.
 
Perhaps a good way to work with dreams is to see them as mystery stories, i.e. to try more of a “Fex & Coo” approach where we take on a character to the extent that we become it.
The sense of a mystery as something to be solved reminds me of alchemy's “Solutio”.  Does the alchemical process of Solutio reveal ways to approach these mysteries?
We usually think of mystery stories as something we solve with our intellect and minds, but solutio has to do with the element of water.  An invitation, perhaps, to allow our feelings to help us “solve” the mystery.  Thoughts can be stubborn, as hard as rocks, and must be melted if they are to enter the creative energy flow.  It’s in the flow that we begin to discover answers beyond words — and it's our more passionate involvement that activates the unconscious in a way that facilitates an actual encounter between our own ego’s Mr. Hyde and our shadow's Dr. Jekyl.
The question is: once we are hooked on the search to solve to the mystery, are we changed?  Is that what “Fex & Coo” is showing us?
Now is a chance for hard, dry thoughts — with their ready, stubborn answers that must fit into society’s norms to be taken seriously — to loosen & dissolve.  When we become the detective chasing the clues in our dreams and in films & TV series, do we also become more liquid, more fluid, more open to new revelations and even a larger personality?
Mystery also makes me think of the ancient Mystery schools scattered all over the Mediterrean.  Paul says, in I Cor. “This is how one should regard us as … stewards of the mysteries of God”.  (There is strong evidence Paul was a gnostic Xn).
When Pythagoras, after years of studying in an Osirian Egyptian temple, returns to Greece, he looks for a Greek god closest to Osiris and chooses Dionysus.  Each country had its own name for the dying and resurrecting god: Adonis, Attis, Mithras, and all were all born on Dec. 25. The sun descends southward until Dec. 21 or 22, the winter solstice, stops for three days, then starts moving northward again.  Dec. 25 was the birthday of the SUN/SON for the ancients.  What is translated as the “end of the world” in the New Testament is actually “end of the age”.
 Greek soter = savior, meaning healer or "one who makes whole".
 
“Repent" is the Greek metanoia = “to have a change of consciousness”
 
“Resurrect” is the Greek anastasia = “rise from sleep” — or become fully awake in the cosmic dream.
Gospel of Thomas:  “What you bring forth from within you will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”  The mysteries are within us all.
Arlan Condon is a therapist who has retired from working with people's psyches to run a bookstore.  All those books represent his considerable knowledge of the mysteries of life.  And in DREAMS: the Final Heresy (does this come as part of the Final Ragnarok dream?) Condon, who wants to be left alone to run his bookstor in peace & quiet, finds himself drawn into the dreams of others once more — into the MYSTERY of what is transpiring NOW in our world.  Is this the inspiration/motivation behind “Fex & Coo”?  Poor Condon isn’t allowed to simply retire and read about the mytersies of this life at the end of his days.
Just a few ponderings, Russ.

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A Contribution from Tony…

Hi Russ and Paco,
Well ’Not in My Nightmare’ has me its grip.  And what popped up in its wake was a favorite poem of mine by Robert Frost. A powerful ghost story, ’The Witch of Coos.’  Here it is.  I heard Frost read it once on a tape and it was magical.  Now that I’ve said that, it would be great for you both, as well and Heron Man and Owl Man, to speak their lines as well.  Cheers, Tony
The Witch of Coos
By Robert Frost
 
Circa 1922


I STAID the night for shelter at a farm

Behind the mountain, with a mother and son,
Two old-believers. They did all the talking.
 
The Mother
Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits
  She could call up to pass a winter evening,         5
  But won’t, should be burned at the stake or something.
  Summoning spirits isn’t “Button, button,
  Who’s got the button,” you’re to understand.
The Son
Mother can make a common table rear
  And kick with two legs like an army mule.         10
The Mother
And when I’ve done it, what good have I done?
  Rather than tip a table for you, let me
  Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me.
  He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him
  How that could be—I thought the dead were souls,         15
  He broke my trance. Don’t that make you suspicious
  That there’s something the dead are keeping back?
  Yes, there’s something the dead are keeping back.
The Son
You wouldn’t want to tell him what we have
  Up attic, mother?         20
The Mother
Bones—a skeleton.
The Son
But the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed
  Against the attic door: the door is nailed.
  It’s harmless. Mother hears it in the night
  Halting perplexed behind the barrier         25
  Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get
  Is back into the cellar where it came from.
The Mother
We’ll never let them, will we, son? We’ll never!
The Son
It left the cellar forty years ago
  And carried itself like a pile of dishes         30
  Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen,
  Another from the kitchen to the bedroom,
  Another from the bedroom to the attic,
  Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it.
  Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs.         35
  I was a baby: I don’t know where I was.
The Mother
The only fault my husband found with me—
  I went to sleep before I went to bed,
  Especially in winter when the bed
  Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow.         40
  The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs
  Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me,
  But left an open door to cool the room off
  So as to sort of turn me out of it.
  I was just coming to myself enough         45
  To wonder where the cold was coming from,
  When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom
  And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar.
  The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on
  When there was water in the cellar in spring         50
  Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone
  Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step,
  The way a man with one leg and a crutch,
  Or little child, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile:
  It wasn’t anyone who could be there.         55
  The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked
  And swollen tight and buried under snow.
  The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust
  And swollen tight and buried under snow.
  It was the bones. I knew them—and good reason.         60
  My first impulse was to get to the knob
  And hold the door. But the bones didn’t try
  The door; they halted helpless on the landing,
  Waiting for things to happen in their favor.
  The faintest restless rustling ran all through them.         65
  I never could have done the thing I did
  If the wish hadn’t been too strong in me
  To see how they were mounted for this walk.
  I had a vision of them put together
  Not like a man, but like a chandelier.         70
  So suddenly I flung the door wide on him.
  A moment he stood balancing with emotion,
  And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire
  Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth.
  Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.)         75
  Then he came at me with one hand outstretched,
  The way he did in life once; but this time
  I struck the hand off brittle on the floor,
  And fell back from him on the floor myself.
  The finger-pieces slid in all directions.         80
  (Where did I see one of those pieces lately?
  Hand me my button-box—it must be there.)
 
  I sat up on the floor and shouted, “Toffile,
  It’s coming up to you.” It had its choice
  Of the door to the cellar or the hall.         85
  It took the hall door for the novelty,
  And set off briskly for so slow a thing,
  Still going every which way in the joints, though,
  So that it looked like lightning or a scribble,
  From the slap I had just now given its hand.         90
  I listened till it almost climbed the stairs
  From the hall to the only finished bedroom,
  Before I got up to do anything;
  Then ran and shouted, “Shut the bedroom door,
  Toffile, for my sake!” “Company,” he said,         95
  “Don’t make me get up; I’m too warm in bed.”
  So lying forward weakly on the handrail
  I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light
  (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own
  I could see nothing. “Toffile, I don’t see it.         100
  It’s with us in the room, though. It’s the bones.”
  “What bones?” “The cellar bones—out of the grave.”
 
  That made him throw his bare legs out of bed
  And sit up by me and take hold of me.
  I wanted to put out the light and see         105
  If I could see it, or else mow the room,
  With our arms at the level of our knees,
  And bring the chalk-pile down. “I’ll tell you what—
  It’s looking for another door to try.
  The uncommonly deep snow has made him think         110
  Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy,
  He always used to sing along the tote-road.
  He’s after an open door to get out-doors.
  Let’s trap him with an open door up attic.”
  Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough,         115
  Almost the moment he was given an opening,
  The steps began to climb the attic stairs.
  I heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to hear them.
  “Quick!” I slammed to the door and held the knob.
  “Toffile, get nails.” I made him nail the door shut,         120
  And push the headboard of the bed against it.
 
  Then we asked was there anything
  Up attic that we’d ever want again.
  The attic was less to us than the cellar.
  If the bones liked the attic, let them like it,         125
  Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes
  Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed
  Behind the door and headboard of the bed,
  Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers,
  With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter,         130
  That’s what I sit up in the dark to say—
  To no one any more since Toffile died.
  Let them stay in the attic since they went there.
  I promised Toffile to be cruel to them
  For helping them be cruel once to him.         135
The Son
We think they had a grave down in the cellar.
The Mother
We know they had a grave down in the cellar.
The Son
We never could find out whose bones they were.
The Mother
Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once.
  They were a man’s his father killed for me.         140
  I mean a man he killed instead of me.
  The least I could do was help dig their grave.
  We were about it one night in the cellar.
  Son knows the story: but ’twas not for him
  To tell the truth, suppose the time had come.         145
  Son looks surprised to see me end a lie
  We’d kept up all these years between ourselves
  So as to have it ready for outsiders.
  But tonight I don’t care enough to lie—
  I don’t remember why I ever cared.         150
  Toffile, if he were here, I don’t believe
  Could tell you why he ever cared himself….
 
  She hadn’t found the finger-bone she wanted
  Among the buttons poured out in her lap.
 
  I verified the name next morning: Toffile.         155
  The rural letter-box said Toffile Barre.

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COD 36-2: Love and Space-Time

Full Disclosure: I have an abiding and increasing passion towards the mystery of love/desire and its relation to space-time. This passion orients me to COD in a particular manner.

In Episode 26, we learned that Xhactu is about to reveal the mystery of love to us humans. In previous episodes we had ventured into the mysteries of quantum reality, space-time, and so on. He begins by imparting some wisdom concerning desire:

Desire is bound to locality. And for this reason, desire itself, and its object are more and more bound to locality of time and space, Desire does not move out into the universe, but it is as if the universe concentrates itself in locality. This is why desire can drive one mad, no matter what kind of creature one may be.

("We can witness this truth in real time in the Depp/Heard trial that is currently running"—unbidden insertion!)

At the point that Xhactu is about to release his wisdom about love to us, the Universal Translator breaks down and we lose the pearls. I was bereft. But my imagination had been fired up by this absence and continued down the path of inquiry to connect love and space-time. Then the “Ask Xhactu” column appeared unexpectedly and … what? A question from "me" appeared there, much to my surprise. This surprise has the same quality in dreams at times when I am surprised by questions I asked in a dream or that another dreamer tells me about (i.e. “my” asking a question in their dream).

Here, “my” question is “what is the nature of love” and Xhactu answers:

—Dear John: Love is what you inferior Earthlings call “mush puppies.” We superior inter-galactics call “love” the Super-Glue of Everything (i.e., the gravitational field of dark matter)

Once again the connection between love and space-time is pressed upon me. Amazing! Now I felt I was on the scent of something important and therefore promptly forgot the whole matter—i.e. until this issue of COD 36-Scene2:

HERON MAN
Something's not right, Owl.

OWL MAN
Of course not, Heron. If everything was all right, time would just stop. You know as well as I do that it is something not right that keeps the next happening, thus the so-called flow of time in the direction of time's arrow. It's not really a flow but a jumping from next to next like steppingstones.

Another pearl was freely cast before this swine! I went right on reading ahead, desiring to get to the horror, as if nothing had happened but then I got pulled up. What WAS said back there on the stairs! I slowed down. My psyche was speaking to me… Psyche (Xhactu?) had once again connected desire, love, and space-time.

How can this be?

“Something not right” must have something to do with desire being bound to locality and forever seeking to extinguish itself in an object imagined as out of reach, in the future, over there on the next stepping stone. And so we jump from stepping stone to stepping stone, seeking the next happening, finding ourselves unexpectedly on another stepping stone but needing to making up stories about how we arrived there, based on our current understanding of there being an arrow of time.

("Once again, witness Depp and Heard on their current stepping stone in court"—another unbidden insertion!)

But now the $60 000 question: what happens if “everything was all right”, i.e. desire’s quest is stilled? The $60 000 answer given us is: “time would just stop”. What would one experience then? So, three questions now: how does desire get stilled? And what would the experience of space-time be then? And lastly how does love figure in this mystery?

If this, my story, appeals to you, fellow readers, you might story a response or maybe ask Xhactu!

Cheers, John

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The Mystery of Mystery

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. 

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More on auditory dreams from Merrilee

Dear Russ,

I appreciated your piece on auditory dreams.  I’ve had them too over the years though not as many as you (by the way I’ll be 80 this year).
One night in my late 40s a voice declared with God-like authority:  "SEVEN RULES ALL YOU DO!”  I’ve taken that as a powerful mantra and worked with it ever since.
And I certainly know what you mean by entering a liminal space when I’m writing.  In that space I often hear the voices of characters in the book, and they do speak with spontaneity & autonomy, i.e. on their own accord & with their own agenda for the the story.  In writing the second book more than one character informed me that Colum had to die.  I fought tooth & nail over that one!  Colum was meant to be the protagonist in all three books, but the Queen, Colum's mother, and a woman seer all seemed to know better — and in the end he dies.
Sometimes a voice will speak a whole line of dialogue.  It comes out of nowhere and surprises me with its content.  What the voice says often turns scene in an intriguing new direction.
You speak, too, of spider as the root of "spontaneous." It’s interesting that in Book II the Queen of the Cave shape-shifts into a spider.  Now and then, she spins a web for all the women (plus Colum) to dance on.  And, I must say, balancing on a web that is in constant motion is no easy feat!
Finally, I agree that the ego is resistant to such a voice — which means writing is a perfect way to practice loosening the ego’s control on one’s life.
Merrilee

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Estela dreams of Xhactu and a question arises…

“DEAR XHACTU”

An Exciting New Advice Column

(Sponsored by Owl & Heron Press)

Send in your burning questions, which Xhactu will answer—maybe.

1. Dear Xhactu: You appeared in a dream and the question that occurred to me was: Is there a cosmic or universal library, and if so, how can it be accessed? (Estela)

—Dear Earthling Estela:

Your question is dear to my “heart,” if we can call it that. Personally, I would prefer to use the galac-speak term for heart—WWQMPFOPPE*<>—which as you can see is vastly superior to, and more illuminating than, your Earth-speak term.

But I suppose we’re stuck with Earth-speak.

Anyway, yes, of course there is a cosmic “library” as you call it—not one, but many, many, many, many, many of them, in fact. The last estimate by the Intergalactic Council put the figure at about 1038 power, and counting. If you really want to count the so-called “libraries,” let alone to read any of the so-called “books,” you need to achieve fluency in what your so-called scientists call the “quantum realm.” (It embarrasses me to use Earth-speak in reply to your question.) Quantum computing, as it were, gives you three pathways into real intergalactic knowledge and wisdom: (1) the first lies with your so-called “animals,” most of whom are actually space-travelers marooned on your idiotic planet millions of your “years” ago (the animals are actually more inter-galactically-oriented than any of your two-legged Earthlings); (2) the second pathway requires learning the string-knot techniques of the quipu, an Inca term acquired during one of the first Inter-Galactic Exoplanet Exchange Festivals. You can still see the landing fields where the space-ships gathered in what you call the Atacama Desert in “Chile”; (3) the third and most direct pathway, of course, is to descend to the bottom of a “black hole,” where your so-called scientists are finally discovering that “Time stops” altogether. There you can read anything you want, to your “heart’s” content.

Of course, that takes some training. But perhaps the one called “Owl Man” could take you on a wormhole journey to the nearest “blackie,” as your “Queenie” called them, and you could practice the training. She was very nice to me, by the way, at that Ceilidh of Dreams.”

I’m sorry I had to resort to inferior Earth-speak to answer your so-called “question,” but isn’t that just the way the cookie crumbles?

Too bad my space-ship is still caught in that ZQPD#^X “loss of narrative thrust” (pardon my galac-speak language!). I think you’d like it, especially the Probing Facilities, of which I am very proud.

Your friend, Xhactu

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