Joseba Eskubi

The dream of this image as given to us is given as a premonitory dream.  And being some sort of foreboding, the fundamental fear of which I have spoken before takes the rudder helm fast in its hands again, til it is evacuated, thinned out and spread out over the painted surface. Once and again.  -Juan Mendizabal on Joseba Eskubi

union of the opposites

Last night, this beauty flew into my dreams, landed on my daughter's shoulder and told us he was hungry by attempting to peel our grapefruit with his beak.  He then waited patiently while we sliced him a piece of the juicy, pink fruit with a gigantic bread knife.  I was skeptical, sure that "owls don't like grapefruit", but he did and as he ate his feathers slowly turned snowy white and I boldly mediated a tense conversation and the child and the grandmother finally began to communicate.  Just like his feathers, everything was softened.

Psyche is Image

The scorpion wraps his tail around our only nutrients. The warriers are present in body alone.  They are so very weary of protecting the past from the future. The snake slithers before the guardian of the crypt, nearing the depths.  There is a shovel there, in case it is needed for digging or for defense. 

 Now there is a steep slope upward. The pigs have struggled to climb it, as they do not have bodies made for climbing.  The gorilla is at their back, he will reach the diamond first.  The ladder takes whomever climbs it up to the cosmos. Don't you want your head in the clouds?  To block all of this with the sweet, wet taste of mist in your eyes, on your tongue?

The kitten sleeps at the top of the slide, disrupting any swift, smooth decent.  The sword is at the back of the queen's skull, saluting the sun.  Two blades, one with reaper attending, wait nearby. There are messages in the water, if we can make it there.  Mama bear waits on the other side. She watches, radiating her strength, but she cannot assist. We might not make it far enough.  We might go too far, too fast.

We have spiraled back to the totem. The path is smooth and clear, if slightly uphill. Our leader is crystalline and never forgets. He ritualistically mourns the deaths of past lovers and we join him, trusting him through and through.  Baby, we are stronger now with the mother's protection from behind.  The piglets nudge each other forward. We have invited the masses to see our beautiful center.  Come.  Our spiral is endless.  We will never leave and thus, we will never arrive. 

*** *** ***

The human mind is inherently creative.  We can manifest this creativity however we choose.   Activities that allow the creative mind an outlet for expression, both constructive and destructive, allow the shadow to slowly seep into consciousness.  Until we allow the shadow to begin to reveal itself to us through active participation in creative activities, it has no means to let either its presence or purpose be known.   Without expressive capacity, it erupts and demands our attention, like a toddler denied the out-of-reach candy he so lustfully desires.  

But, in order to allow genuine expression of the shadow through creative outlet, we must acknowledge that we do not truly know ourselves.  We must let go of ourselves as we think we are and as we desire to be.  We must throw our masks into the fire and wait for the smoke to clear, revealing our true faces.  It is impossible to truly know oneself due to the dynamic, ever changing nature of being.   We cannot be psychically mature without awareness that parts of us will always be in the dark,  parts that we cannot see and do not realize exist.  The unknown is not separate from the known.   The mind has an evolutionary history.  Creativity is the archaeologic tool that digs us into the depths and reveals the content and structure of our own collective unconscious.  Within the collective unconscious is where our legacy and our individuality reside.  Creation, in all forms, leads us to our truest Self. 

The Furies

Beyond a certain point, there is no return.

This point has to be reached. 

-Kafka

When the Greek god Cronos flung the severed phallus of his father toward the sea, the Furies were born of the blood that fell to the earth.  The Furies embody the dark side of the binding power of Eros,  the madness of blood betrayed, the primal emotional cry when one's identity is denied.  These three whip-wielding sisters, winged with serpentine claws are the beastliest of predators when enraged. They emerge from their underground lair to punish the most heinous of crimes. Their names are Unceasing, Vengeance and Strange Dark Memory. 

Relentless, begrudging, insatiable and pitiless, they avenge all betrayals and sins against primal relationships with ruthless intensity.  They do not allow a single disregard of the humanity of others through envy or greed or insufficiencies of love to go unpunished.  Even inner struggles between independence and relationship provide fertile soil for the scathing marks of the Furies' claws.  Fury is a psychological reality, like madness and guilt, that cannot be denied.  They must be suffered through in order to reap the benefits of their deeper meanings.  The Furies know their way around the darkest parts of humanity.  They were born there and continue to thrive there as horrifying reflections of the darkest, meanest, most hateful nature that lives inside each of us.  The Furies painfully dismember all prior realities about who we thought we may be and force us toward the fertile magic of rebirth.   

Because of their destructive force, the Furies also offer correction and redirection toward wholeness... if we allow ourselves to embrace their work fearlessly. This is challenging because when the Furies are in action, they tear us apart so thoroughly that it becomes difficult to believe we will survive.  If we let them lead us to an underworld initiation, their darkness becomes communal and guilt no longer makes sense. 

We have been taught to deny the Furies, shrugging them off as "crimes of passion" or "temporary insanity" but like an earthquake pressing toward rupture, they continue to burst forth.  When we do not give them the credit they deserve, they bomb, chide and mutilate until they are sure that perpetrators of crimes of the heart know they are watching. The Furies cannot be subdued and it is a wise person who learns to befriend them, through right actions, empathetic approaches to relationship and a recognition of our own suffering souls. 

We all will have to go below, again and again.  It is the Furies who drag us down into darkness to set things right.