A layperson’s study of William Blake and other reflections….
“The darkness of our world
Is not knowing and understanding;
Light can only come, when we
Make it our business to find it.”
~ Socrates ca. 470-399 B.C.
“A vision of the Last Judgement. It is an endeavor to restore what the ancients call the Golden Age.”
The above image is the star goddess. She is part of the earth and the sky. She is like many images of justice, Aquarius and the golden stars of the night sky. I find she is an archaic image that echoes of a Golden Age. If you do much reading of myths or ancient stories, you’ll find the Golden Age mentioned there.
Astraea is the bright star that reveals our insight into the Golden Age. She is needed in helping to restore our “universal humanity.” Of brighter days ahead in the dark times we face.
As Virgil says,
“Astraea returns, returns old Saturn’s reign”
And maybe she does. Like a spiral the same and something different. The continuity of the stars and planets in the cosmos reflect in our watery psyche. If we become aware of this, very possibly, hopefully and surely, the two circles of psyche and cosmos meet within us. We will find the bright star there.
Albion William Blake
“In his late works, he embodied these and other ills in the nightmare ridden figure of the cosmic giant Albion, or universal humanity, who has fallen into deadly sleep of mundane existence. In humanity’s coma, the divine is a remote and forbidding sky-god: nature a sterile heap of atoms, lovers and family members, enemies; and one’s own innermost being, an unrecognized alien.”
~Blake’s Poetry & Designs ` A Norton Critical Edition.
Albion Rose!!
“Here Albion as shown as a joyful and vigorous young man freeing himself from the shackles of materialism. In Blake’s world view, Albion could still be saved by the triumph of individual liberty, imagination and spirituality over social, political and religious oppression.”
1880-william-blake-1757-1827-albion-rose.html
My visit to the Los Angeles Getty Museum to see William Blake~ A short Documentary by Hudley Flipside
Punk Rock Colleague & Historian and Professional Consultant
Hudley Flipside
“We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years; the older we become, the more our true natures emerge.”
~ James Hillman
I was filled with a huge amount of energy today. So, I decided to clean my office bookshelves. Ya know how things sometimes get put on the shelves. Precious items that get dirty and block the books. So today I put the precious items in a box and will put them away for a while. So, I can access my books more efficiently.
Oh, some are missing like the few I gave to a gal to look over before an interview. I never did the interview last year due to being sick. I was so sick after the California fires. I am going to have to ask for them back soon.
Then I saw one book American Hardcore a Tribal History by Steven Blush. Glory glory Feral House Press. Why I started my own publishing house.
I remember being on Stig Stench Radio with Blush and Edward Colver. It was fun but they did the talking and complained about stuff. Ed stating in the past how his Photos were used without being responsibly sourced. And those images sold for profit. I told them both about how I saw my photo not sourced in the above book correctly. For an author and publisher, we make a lot of mistakes.
The Black Flag at The Church, Summer 1979 appears on page 49 of his book. I requested photo credit, noting that my name is listed as the photographer in the original Flipside Fanzine issue, which serves as the source material. They both brushed me off.
I took a lot of images in Flipside Fanzine. Al is a great punk photographer, but he did not take that one. It is included in our Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Anniversary Issue a full-page image; ya I get full credit for that one a direct copy of the original image from Flipside Fanzine.
For Keith Morris’s 70th birthday I sent him a copy of the image along with others I took of him. Sweet and rebellious memories of when punk rock was just punk rock. I remember the term Hardcore when it became known and was coined. I still hate the term.
I really brought the image to the next level when I was asked for some images for the film 20th Century Women. I could have given them a lot of my photos but instead just gave him this one. It is nicely framed in the film, and I get full credit in the ending credits to the sound of the Buzzcocks.
It was one of those moments while sitting with my two sons to see the film where I felt acknowledged for my dedication and love of punk rock. I thought to myself,
“I showed them.”
Furthermore, Blush and Edward Colver most likely don’t even know about my film endeavor for full credit, who knows, but Keith was aware of the image and got recognition with the original Black Flag.
The film’s creator grew up in the punk scene and gets both the issue and women’s perspectives. Well, done, Mike Mills!
“Character is as unique as your fingerprint and as we age, it can often surface in interesting and unusual ways and at unexpected moments.”
Only the last few weeks a memory came forth. Days on the east coast living in Rochester New York. Taking the bus to see my patients as a Home Health Aide. Trained through the Red Cross.
There was a bus stop there where I would stop between buses. A coffee shop. It was small with a round platform. I would get a piece of pie and cup of coffee.
Here is where I met Betty MaCusic.
I was sitting alone and she sat next to me. Then she asked me a question,
“Are those Kachinas on your arm?”
They were two figures, tattoos, that do resemble Kachinas.
This is where a beautiful friendship grew over the years. Even until I moved back to California.
We talked about Native Americans, and the Medicine Wheel. A name came up that amazed her.
“Yes, I met Sun Bear. I went to a Medicine Wheel Gathering in the late 80s.”
I told her it was in northern California where I went for a week to a Medicine Wheel gathering. It was near the Russian River in Northern California. I was dropped off while the rest of the Flipside Crew went back to San Fransico for a show and distribution of our fanzine. Staying with Maximumrocknroll.
She told me her story. That her son and daughter-in-law were fans of Sun Bear. They did a recording for him of singing and drumming. They sent a tape to him. But they never got a reply. That saddened me. Later their marriage did not last and they divorced.
The probability of us meeting and talking about Sun Bear is a remarkable one. Now I realize that somehow, I was meant to assure them that the Medicine Wheel is real and part of our connection. I met her son but only briefly.
I don’t know where I found his original book published in the 1980s. But this is one that was published when I was in fact living in Rochester New York. Funny how I did not make this connection until recently.
It has been on my mind lately.
Sun Bear often said that “Shit Happens.”
He told me a story once where many people would call him and ask for help with their life problems. He would listen for a long time. Not sharing a word. Then he would break the conversation with these words,
“Go out into your garden. Dig a big deep hole. Throw some seeds into that deep hole. Then scream everything into the hole. Everything you just told me. Cover it up and see what grows.”
Then he would hang up.
It is amazing to think about how a book, place or person was found back in the middle of the 1980s. I guess following one’s intuition and going to the local bookstore was a way to find new things. I did a lot of correspondence back then. Writing, reading, and meeting people.
While I appreciate the ease of finding information today, I am surprised at my past experience of taking a bus to patients’ homes in Rochester and how I managed to find and attend appointments without even knowing the area. I was always on time.
“Wise One,” eponymous Mother Goddess of the Medes. Like Medusa and Metis, she was named from the Sanskrit concept of medha,”female wisdom.” (1.) She was a fount of the feminine art of healing, and her name was related to “medicine.”
(2.) She could restore the dead to life in her magic cauldron, as shown by the myth of Aeson, who was so restored. Pliny called Medea a Goddess whose magic arts could control the sun, moon, and stars. (3.)
She rode in a chariot drawn by serpents; it also had wings, to show that she ruled both earth and heaven. (4.)
According to Herodotus, Medea was the Great Goddess of all the Aryan tribes of Parthia. (5.) She was all-wise, and never died, but dwelt forever in heaven. (6.)
She seems to have been remembered in Ireland as the Goddess Medana, associated with a sacred tree and a regenerative well, whose waters were reputed to cure sore eyes. She was artificially canonized as a saint, and her Christian legend was copied from that of the equally bogus St. Lucy? (7.)
The classic story of Medea’s ill-starred marriage to Jason apparently was based on a captured idol of the Goddess. Her rites were imported into Greece but proved too sanguinary for Hellenic taste. {Play by Euripides.}
The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barara G. Walker. Pg. 628.
* Could Also so be Grave, Robert: The Greek Myths (2 Vols) New York: Penguin Books Inc. or Graves, Robert, and Patai, Raphael. Hebrew Myths, New York: Doubleday & Co.1964.
Punk Rock Colleague & Historian and Professional Consultant
Hudley Flipside
March 1 2025
LA Zine Fest
I was forced to come to this event by a fanatical fanzine person and his friend. Trust Fanzine and Razorcake. Jan Rohlk and Daryl Gussin were table sitting for fanatical music fanzines.
While engaging Facebook, some friends’ posts brought up the world of Fanzines. Last year in LA I went to a fanzine event. It was fun to see individuals sharing their passions again without big media involved.
Yet in the mid-1980s it was a way for a scene to plug into a culture that was deep and a constant variable of uniqueness. No politically correct or nice. Yet I found things that were endearing to me.
We listed the fanzines we got every two months or so.
I am so proud of our once-underground culture still. I miss the strong current of communication all by way of the POBox.
Before the computer and I know if you were there you know what I am talking about.
For me it was a constant kaleidoscope of reading and typing and going to the POBox to pick up the mail.
Now I feel out of step with our current world. Always an intensity that is so alarming. I am glad I have my little oasis to keep me grounded.
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine will always be moving around my psyche. Like riding my mustang on the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains or pushing my kids as young boys in the supermarket shopping cart.
Getting older is nice to reflect on deeds done and things created. Friends, family, and fans.
But as this song shares…. I feel out of step with the world too. As a young punk or an old one.
Three pages from Los Angles Flipside Fanzine # 38
These songs evoke memories of past debates among punks, highlighting their unique sacrifices and nonconformist identities.
It was my pleasure to see the conflict between bands. Their ideologies of freedom and sacrifice. About drink, drugs and tattoos and the stoic realities that left many of us punks to think for ourselves… ya that was a hell of a lot of fun for a nobody punk chick like me.
Waning moon glows I am the sound of the asphalt tires In the asphalt jungle I am the bees that hum The trees reach slightly Up into the universe I am the universe I am the sparkling star I sail around the crescent moon I am the dirt and the oil. I am the rocks of the Santa Monica mountains I am a pollutant. I inspire, I hope I am the worm reaching deep in the earth I am the shadow of lies from our politicians I am the love in my son’s heart In my family and cats’ hearts. My friends and music inspire me. I am the sound of nature And the sounds of humanity Of the universe UFOs and extraterrestrials.
I find myself passionately reflecting on certain projects from long ago, reminiscent of the vibrant local pub that has been gone for at least ten years. The gifts of our punk scene continue to resonate, echoing the raw energy and innovation they once radiated. What was once fresh and bold now carries years of rich history and nostalgia. Happy Holidays!
Dianne Chai
The Alley Cats
Photo by Hudley Flipside at the Whiskey A GO GO. 1980s
Tape Eleven 11/10/84
Tape Eleven 11/10/84.
THE 10% EXPERIENCE.
A KISS IN THE WIND.
Once at the local pub a woman in her twenties looked over at me. She was talking to a friend, and I heard her say,
“I don’t know what the big deal is. That magazine came out over thirty years ago?”
She then looked over at me again. I looked back at her. I raised my shoulders and rolled my eyes as if to say,
“I know what you mean.”
This pub, the Scotland Yard in Canoga Park California, is considered a music pub. The founder Patrick Fairley (rip) was in Marmalade a 1960s Scottish pop rock band.
Here is a legendary line of DJs who just happened to play 1980s punk rock.
Punk rock is a unique genre and like jazz we all rejoice in the impressive sound of its originators. Going to the pub is kind of like going to church. The sociology of religion states that 90% of people going to church do so for social reasons. Only 10% go to have a religious experience. A pub is the same way. When you add some great music and beer this is the place to be to do the 90% thing or the 10 % thing.
As the spirituals gave birth to the Blues and then Jazz, so does it inspire the music we listen to today?
I don’t go to church anymore, but I do go to pubs. For me it is a 10% experience.
In the 1700s pubs often held meetings under the convert of drunks but in reality, it was the beginning of revolution.
It was about individuals who came together, who opposed the Church of England and their government. They sang their pub songs or hymns around the fireplace and hidden in these songs were the lyrics and tunes that inspired the people.
Punk rock can be like going to church and it can be a 90% social thing. To me it has always been about the 10% punk rock experience.
It is inspirational, thrilling and has the ability to awaken one to wild possibilities of hope and creativity as any good ‘old jazz song does.
Sharing these tapes is like sharing an old jazz tune or inspirational religious experience. It has its place in the continuity of the punk rock experience of 1984.
Slam pits, drugs, loud music, police and gang violence—these are just some of the struggles punks face in a chaotic world. Bands express these issues through their music, while journalists report on them. The Wounded Punkx Project exists to support punks who have been affected.
Flipside Video was an out-of-control phenomenon. This is what I brought in from over the internet a few years ago. Videos without real narratives. I like to share real narratives. Some of you still have your originals. We at Flipside Video did a lot of work to bring this all together. Taping, editing, copying, designing art and video boxes and mail order. We did not make the big bucks, but it was the glowing truth behind DIY.
I am proud of what we accomplished. Now the patina shows … that is ok. We supported a scene we believed in. Right before technology hit the scene and changed the intimacy of what we as punks shared. That is what I hold onto that punk rock intimacy. I’ll say it again. That punk rock intimacy. I know a lot about that time and most of it is amplified in many of the original source materials we documented at Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.
Hecate (or, The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy) is a color print from around 1795 that depicts the witch Hecate, who gives a notable monologue questioning why she manipulated Macbeth.
Enitharmon is a significant female character in William Blake’s mythology, representing female domination and sexual restraints that limit artistic imagination. She is the emanation of Los, one of the Four Zoas, and is associated with spiritual beauty and poetic inspiration. Enitharmon is depicted as a complex figure, embodying both the allure and repression of female sexuality, and she plays a crucial role in Blake’s prophetic works, including “Europe: A Prophecy”
“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”
~ Boris Pasternak
I get saturated with reading at times in my life. I am full of the alchemy of going through it all in my mind, soul, and heart. It takes time and even years.
Reading again is overwhelming to me. Ya know when you go deep down into the narrative. All the stories, words and archetypes move through me. However, it was a wonderful experience.
Over the past few weeks, I have concentrated on two books: one is a recent addition to my collection, while the other is an older volume that remained untouched for some time.
They have no relationship with each other. Yet the one did get me thinking about the Shadow. Working with our shadows is the best thing we can do for us and our world collective shadow.
“At times, the conscious observer in us stands back and says, “there but for the grace of God go I.” Jung used to say that we can be grateful for our enemies, for their darkness allows us to escape our own.”
~ Owning Your Own Shadow, Understanding the dark side of the psyche. By Robert A. Johnson. Page 37
Yet what amazed me are three tests of a good writer. If they engage with them, I know that my teachers are presently around too.
William Blake, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and of course Dr. Jung. As Robert A Johnson refers to him. Out dear Carl Gustav Jung.
The first book was purchased a few months ago. It came up and I was pulled into buying it. I put it on a ledge near our internet modem. A few months it sat. Whispering to join in on the conversation. So, I did finally with joy. Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue. And like clockwork my three teachers above are mentioned with wonderful quotes of theirs in his book.
“The wonderful subtle color of the universe arises to clothe everything. This is captured in a phrase from William Blake; “Colours are the wounds of light.” Colors bring out the depth of secret presence at the heart of nature.”
John O’Donohue, Page 2 Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom
O’Donohue’s ideas made me think about light and shadow. Wondering and inspiring me to look up another book from years ago. There it was waiting patiently on my book shelve. I started reading it again. Recalling years ago when I read it and began distilling many things. And like clockwork one, two and three of my teachers are there with their insightful quotes.
I enjoy synchronicity reading; it’s delightful, though sometimes a bit overwhelming.
“No distance makes you ambivalent.
You come on wings, enchanted
In such hunger for light, you
Become the butterfly burnt to nothing.”
“Blessed Longing” by Goethe.
Here is the quote that brought me back to reading about the shadow from Robert A Johnson’s writing.
“The shadow also contains a great deal of energy, and it is the cornerstone of our vitality. A very cultured individual with an equally strong shadow has a great deal of power. William Blake spoke about the need to reconcile their two parts of the self. He said we should go to heaven for form and to hell for energy- and marry the two. When we can face our inner heaven and our inner hell, this is the highest form of creativity.”
Pg. 38
And another book sitting on my shelf comes to play a copy of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by Blake. Illustrated Throughout in Full Colour.
“When I came home: on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world, I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now perceived by the minds of men, & read by them on earth;”
“How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way.
Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?”
~ A Memorable Fancy, Plates 6-7, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
Today is Blake Off day. In celebration of William Blake’s Birthday.
“Introverted intuition perceives all the background processes of consciousness with almost the same distinctness as extroverted sensation senses outer objects. For intuition, there for, the unconscious images attain to the dignity of things or objects.”
Pg. 23 Chapter Two The Supreme Introvert. Blake A psychological study by W.P. Witcutt
“Each day, the dawn unveils the mystery of this universe. Dawn is the ultimate surprise; it awakens us to the immense “thereness” of nature. The wonderful subtle of the universe aries to cloth everything. This captured in a phrase from William Blake “Colours are the wounds of light.” Colors bring out the depth of secret presence at the heart of nature.”
Pg 2., Anam Cara, A book of Celtic Wisdom. By John O’Donohue.
A poetry class at university ended quickly for me when a professor called William Blake a weird mystic, Christian. I promptly dropped the course signing up for an extra curriculum course where I studied a real mystic, Christian. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. This professor did not seem to grasp that William Blake is so much more.
A good “anam cara” guided me beyond words to concepts and images that I could understand despite dyslexia, showing me that language can be learned. Blake also played a part in helping me develop my soul.
How can one weave such a man as he into one’s life? How did he find my mind where his images and words resounded so strongly in my soul? As a lone reader and self-educated he was my deep reference and confidence. Finding him in those places where one goes wondering for answers. Which Blake amplified for me in so many unimaginable ways. I could read him and comprehend him so clearly. A wonder to me for sure.
Some books that stand out on my book shelves!
We were living in Santa Cruz, California. A magic book store named LOGOS is one we did visit often. Along with The Poet and Patriot Pub. Hosting a nice pint of something we called Grease Lightning. A half of Guinness and a half of Anchor Steam beer. We powered them down ready for some enjoyable reading later. Or husband’s endless games of chess.
Another book : Park South Books John Calmann and Cooper Ltd. 1977.William Vaughan (Backcover).
I discovered William Blake’s Divine Comedy Illustrations Dover Publications 2008. in a world where Dante Alighieri’s words and Blake’s images vividly came to life. At a Van Nuys California used bookstore.
The next book by Canadian Scholar a book entitled Fearful Symmetry A Study of William Blake by Northrop Frye, Princeton University 1947. I was introduced to this book by one of my professors at California State University Northridge.
“Holly, I think you should read this book. He reminds me of your focus on symbols and archetypes. He was a professor of mine years ago.”
Imagine that my professor identified something in me that I could not. And so, my private life with Blake entered the big world of “Blakean” experts filled me by analytical minds.
Then to finish off this “Blake Off” essay is a book I found later, was it Van Nuys, California or down a few blocks a rare bookstore off Ventura Blvd. in the San Fernando Valley, CA? Amazing little gem.
“For the story was preserved as a family tradition by the real descendants of John O’Neil and Ellen Blake (the Carter Blakes), who told it to the poet Yeats. So it was that our William, who should have been born and brought up in some crumbling tower by the Atlantic shore and fed upon the tales of the ancient Ulster heroes, instead was reared in Golden Square. But anyone who saw the little boy might have guessed that he was really Liam O’Neil, with “his flame-like golden-red hair on end standing up all over his head.”
Blake a psychological study by W.P. Witcutt. Page 8.
I thought we would be driving up to San Francisco to see some of William Blake’s art at The William Blake Gallery located at the John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller. My pilgrimage to see Blake’s work has taken a big reprieve. Time to rethink this again.
