California Yucca picture taken in the San Fernando Valley, 2009
“She would be my teacher, helping me to learn to shatter the mirrors of self-importance and to laugh at the expectations or projections that others send my way. It was OK to be me once more.”
~ South Shield, Sacred Path Cards, Jamie Sams, 1990.
I finally caught up with my long time punk comrade. Another show to play for him. We smiled at each other. I just had an ice-cold shot of vodka. The cold filled my belly. Even in a sleeping dream I could feel it. I also felt the warmth of the alcohol in my blood. I turned my head to order another. One for him and one for myself. I looked back and he was gone. OH, that depressed feeling when I lose a friend.
So many scenes have come and gone in my life. They happened and are now gone. They are tight and inspirational and then become a memory. Over and over again this change happens. I have enjoyed the tight times of intensity. A community of friends doing things together with a similar passion. I have experienced that nothing lasts forever. A new scene always comes again. Especially, when I take a risk by stepping out of my comfort zone.
Coyote tells me, as the trickster he/she is, to balance “sacredness and irreverence.” I can hop on my ego and ride it like a balloon, letting it go up into the sky. I can pull it back down with my human string. I will pop the crazy yellow balloon and laugh like a child.
“… this is an important point about symbols: they do not refer to historical events; they refer through historical events to spiritual or psychological principles and powers that are of yesterday, today and tomorrow, and that are everywhere.” Page 53 Goddesses, Mysteries of the Feminine Divine~ Joseph Campbell.
Countless times I have seen the diadem.
Molybdenum…
To Venus
I read a book yesterday, and ancient one. Written by the Egyptians and Greeks and then translated by a Arab. Now in English by way of a flip book on a website. The Book of Crates tells about Venus wearing a diadem of white pearls. So since reading this quote I have noticed diadems everywhere.
First on the beginning of a Colombo show last night. This morning on Facebook where a friend posted an image of a tattoo of a diadem on a girl’s hip. It goes on from there. It would be too much to say it is another countless synchronicity that moves through my life. It has no literal meaning; none at all. Yet, it have the profoundness meaning to me.
In this world of bad politics and crumbling symbols that shine nothing from within, it is nice to know that some symbols talk to us from long ago… countless yesterdays… when the imagination ascended to beauty and the common people enjoyed a good conscience.
“…The sun, on the other hand, is never shadowed except in eclipse, and so does not carry its death within it; thus it represents consciousness disengaged from the field of time and space….” Page. 52 Goddesses, Mysteries of the Feminine Divine~ Joseph Campbell.
I have taken my pearl watercolor and moved the painting into the living room near to the right of my hearth. Today I was reading some interesting words that brought to life this image. It is amazing to me that sometimes one is inspired to create an image from a narrative and finds this image in another narrative. They built upon each other bringing both narratives together with even greater meaning because both are weaving together. Forming an alchemical experience in me. As well as all of us… a path to peace maybe?
‘This is a more ambiguous but possibly more productive way of looking at matter and may be applied to Taurus and the second house. Following this thread is unquestionably like plunging into a labyrinth for what eventually emerges is that the second house has nothing to do with objects at all. The “pearl of great price” appears to lie at the heart of the labyrinth, but the persistence of a Taurean is required to reach it. The placement to find this central and unalterable value whose definition cannot be properly articulated but whose reality, to the man who has subjectively experienced it, is not to be questioned.’
Pg. 40 – 41. Saturn A New Look at an Old Devil / Liz Green.
The Pearl by Hudley
Original post.
Now having passed over this lake in this way, we first went through a narrow arm, into the right seas, where all the sirens, nymphs, and sea-goddesses were waiting for us; wherefore they immediately dispatched a sea nymph to us to deliver their present and offering of honor to the Wedding. It was a costly, great, set, round and oriental pearl, the like of which has never been seen, neither in our world nor yet in the new world.
~ Pg. 62 The Fifth Day the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz
A watercolor inspired by a strange story. Haunting me in a symbolic world. As a woman I tend to go wandering for things to help my psyche. A feminine soul to be precise. So often in this world today everything is based on the male soul or male journey.
Even in my beloved Red Book by Carl Jung I always remember to participate as a stranger in his world; it is a journey of a male. I must hold the hand of my own animus too when I take these symbolic journeys. I feel it is important for women to know this and do this.
“Animus is the archetype of reason and spirit in women. This is the male aspect of the female psyche, as the anima is the female aspect of male psyche.”
While reading from The Red Book a few days ago I came across the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. I know the book and have studied it. Yes, I understand what Jung is saying but it does not appeal to my sensibility. So, I went looking, is there an Imitation of the Goddess?
I have come to see that the journey of Christ is a patriarchal one. I respect this yet have reached a point where I must refrain from this. What came to my mind today is this small watercolor I did years ago. The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz has a wonderful image that I grasped and is very friendly to my female sensibility,
“where all the sirens, nymphs, and sea-goddesses were waiting for us.”
Which is why I often capture art before I fully understand its meaning. Today I do. I hope I can inspire other females to take such a journey like mine and help their psyches!
A feminine soul to be precise. I know this story holds both something for animus and anima. It indeed symbolically speaks of a wedding or bringing together of both the animus and anima within each of us. It is bringing together opposites.
The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz begins with a lovely image. A star above two figures; a male ~ the sun and a female ~ the moon. This may be uniting both together with the bird of peace, the place where one may find the Holy Grail.
I believe it to be found within our individual hearts. It is another lovely image to ponder.
Coniunctio
Reflection/ Notes
Jung’s alchemical studies were derived, in part, from the works of Gerhard Dorn, a 16th-century alchemist. In “The Conjunction,” Jung Wrote, “Dorn’s caelum, which corresponds to the stone, was on the one hand a liquid (blue) that could be poured out of a bottle and on the other the Microcosm itself.
For the psychologist it is the self-man as he is, and the indescribable and superempirical totality of the same man.” (CW 14:765) In Jung’s same essay published in Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung describes caelum as a heavenly substance containing all distinct forms and simultaneously the ultimate universal form; it symbolized a prefiguration of the soul. Jung also associated caelum with the blue center of Eastern mandalas. (CW 14:757)
The caelum and its function in alchemy, as inviting as they are, provide an avenue for further study. Jung further contended in the same essay, “Man himself is partly empirical, partly transcendental; he too is a (stone that is no stone). A “stone that is not stone” reflects Jung’s earlier experience with active imagination (also called trancing), where he (Jung) is sitting on me (stone).
From this perspective the pearl held within the black stone as the archetypal equivalent of a “stone that is not stone.” The human parallel implies that consciousness lies within the human body and that ‘the human heart is more than a blood pump.’ Like the pearl encased in stone, the heart is at the center of consciousness, which emanates from the divine.
~ Unveiling Sophia/ Heart Wisdom In An Age Of Technology by Anne Elizabeth Taylor
“Learning from ones mistakes” and the “uncomfortable truth” just about sums up Mercury Rx here. Those aspected by this will find they are constantly faced with intellectual opposition and therefore will have to develop witty deflective responses and a thick skin to criticism at this time. However this enables much wisdom to be gathered because every theory will be put through the wringer in debates. Ideas will have to be validated the scientific way, so generally the mass media will not get away with misleading reporting or unsubstantiated statements.
“To develop witty deflective responses and a thick skin to criticism at this time.”
Husband has some vacation time. He spent all day researching all the places we could go. Las Vegas, Sacramento, Death Valley or maybe Yosemite Park.
“I just don’t know,” I said.
This morning I told him that there is no where you can take me that will make me happier than I am right here. My trees in the garden or the lavender near the miniature lemon tree. Also the things I seek these days are internal joys. Noting compares with the challenges of my mind. Maybe a rough something like kayaking or a path into the mountains near by. Yet still I am happy here, right here. I have so much to amuse me. Chores and responsibilities are my contract and contrast to a willing imagination.
Now that Mercury Rx is happening I feel an interesting shadow coming forth. Husband can run, play chess and maybe we can share a pint or see a band together? It is best to enjoy our time together here.
Experience the first bubblegum comic that will blow your socks off… and they’re coming to your local area before we soar into a brighter future with the Mothman!!
I never saw a Purple Cow, I never hope to see one, But I can tell you, anyhow, I’d rather see than be one!
by Gelett Burgess Other poems of BURGESS (14)
I remember her old hands, and the way she had to slide down the stairs at my parent’s home. My mother kept a special dresser drawer of pictures and things from the past where a few of my grandmother’s poems rested.
I wish I asked more questions and paid more attention to stories told about her. I do remember her gaze at me when I was around her as a child. I felt her need to be by me and to hold me. I feel that now too. I like that!!
Margarete Louise Hudson
She reminds me of a character from the 1945 film Mildred Pierce. NO she was not involved in a murder because she was much more inventive and practical and was married to the same man all her life. Her time was the 1930s and 1940s. My grandmother was an epicurean entrepreneur.
A genius at what she did. All her wealth she moved into purchasing land in the San Fernando Valley. She owned horse stables in the Santa Monica Mountains too. She invested in her four children’s’ future. Helping them all to reach for their dreams.
By the time I came around most of her financial wealth and creative spark was gone due to the usual metamorphose of change, age and a new generation.
I awoke this morning thinking about my grandmother on my paternal side. She was quite the gal. She drove all the way out from Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian, with her family, and invested in the Santa Monica Pier.
She had food-stands on or near the pier where she sold different items such as pineapple and cold water taffy. I heard a story once sharing that she got her hand caught in a taffy stretching machine.
She eventually owned and managed The Purple Cow a popular restaurant on the Santa Monica pier.
Was it 8 years ago, around this time, that M.r. Fuck came to play? Yes… it was…. this is a happy Mr. Fuck day. And we are, here at Flopside comics, ` as we wait for the rain in southern California. I think, well I know, that Flopside Comics suck. People look the other way and are embarrassed for us here. M.R. fuck does not care about bat man, super man or robin (or flesh Gordon) or any of those mighty men… but instead hangs out with the unspeakable and undesirable! Assholes seeking assholes while demanding to be, “More than an asshole!”
The true feeling of real beauty within must always be focused upon !
Logan’s Run had a profound influence on me at 17. Imagining a place where people were killed off at the age of 30 frightened me. Also having all the plastic surgery you needed to be as beautiful as possible was weird. At 17 becoming 30 seemed like the end of time itself. I also remember thinking about turning 18 seemed beyond belief. My friends and I sat in a circle,while smoking, and looked up at the stars. The night was a time to talk about these things. Later as a young punk I really did not think I would live past 21.
Mojave Desert spring equinox wild flower March 20 2016
Now in May I will be turning 58. I am projecting celebration turning 60 in two years as a happy accomplishment. Life is very precious. So many of my close friends are gone as well as my parents. I have learned that letting go of life is a natural process as we get older. I hold onto my experiences, friendships and books a little less each year. Nature is my special key of hopeful continuity of life. The dependability of the sun and stars is great comfort to me. Yes music, poems and art embellish a long life too.For me, as a crone, letting go is the key of life as I get older. It has become easier to let go.
Besides sooner or later we all will be ash in the wind. It is only a matter of time.
The story of Persephone eating pomegranate seeds was related like a fairy tale in place of the original myth; Ovid speaks once of three, once of seven, pomegranate seeds and related that the tree grew in the garden of the king of the underworld.
Pg.134, A Hermetical Essay on the Mysteries, Eleusis ~ Carl Kerenyl
Dandelions in my garden By Hudley March 2016
Last autumn I cleared a patch of earth until it was hard dirt. It stayed this way through the California drought of 2015-16. I was feeling like the dirt; barren, hopeless, and death lingered by grief as a dark hopeless shadow. The underworld loomed close. It was winter. I then focused on my studies of the Eleusinian mysteries, Persephone’s mythology and now Aeschylus’s play Prometheus Bound. Through years of study the time was just right for profound understanding to came quickly.
“ambrosia” and “ichor” and “moly”… in my garden. ` x Prometheus Bound
Now this patch of earth is a glorious shameless orgy of life. The simple saying “life, death and rebirth” shines in my soul. Nature shows us the holy grail within: as Persephone reaching for the dead symbolizing the bridge of rebirth, and as Prometheus bringer of fire gifting humanity the dreams of “dim hopes.”
“For [Aleister] Crowley, who was a painter himself, the artist ranked above the magician on the totem pole of illuminism, and he considered poetry and art as precious tools for transmutimg one’s innermost psychic visions…”
Pg. 92 Wormwood Star, Spencer Kansa
Cats and me …always !! 1970s
Magic is fleeting as is a synchronicity. In contrast to this is the focus upon something that is fleeting. Art and poetry often catch the essence of a fleeting beauty, feeling or moment. The continuity of fleeting moments seem like a continuous projection of a single life. As a kid I use to draw little images in the corner of a large pad of paper. Flipping through the fleeting images we have animation. For me, life is animation for our growing soul.
William Blake Image form The William Blake Tarot Cards. ~ Ed Buryn
I captured this very small image on a William Blake Tarot Card. I enlarged the image on my iPhone camera. I have a magnifying glass to look over all of his images. There is always something on the cards hiding. This is on the card entitled “EXPERIENCE.”
It is inevitable that I will accumulate experience by living my life. Moving forward even if only sitting in a chair. I value experience over anything.
I have learned that part of growing as a human being is living with paradox, polarity and something more.
That is why I love Blake, he gives me something more. A vast view of life where opposites blend. I then understand my own limitations. There is an inevitable message Blake puts into his work. If I look close enough I joyfully grasp his messages.
“The urge to cure the incurable keeps us from recognizing the essence of our limitations, and the limits that come with the psychopathic essence of personality.”
~ Praxis Pg. 167, The Dream and the Underworld – James Hillman
An inevitable experience was hearing this song played on the Drive In Speaker between movies in the 1970’s. Glad I found it.
“I am a product of Los Angeles Country,” says Mr. Fuck.
“Been around. I was left on the doorstep of a record store head-shop in the San Fernando Valley. I teethed on vinyl and breathed in herbs with my milk as a babe.”
SOng ONe
SOng Two
“My best girl Lame Faced Doll says she loves the streets at night in the city of Los Angeles. She takes the metro, bus and walks miles into the high flying sun of mystery. She listens to the music where ever she finds it,” says the brave man Mr. Fuck.
Cameron, West Angel, n.d., Graphite, ink and gold paint on paper, 23 3⁄4 x 36 3⁄4 inches. Courtesy of the Cameron Parsons Foundation, Santa Monica. Photo Credit: Alan Shaffer
“What inspires you is not my concern,” says Mr. Shit.
“Take me to any room and it is a holiday room…what is your concern is not mine.”
SoNg ThrEe
“Boredom and politics… anything but Boredom and politics..
This is dedicated to the man at the art store that threw his cigarette butt down on the asphalt and then picked it back up later and continued smoking it. Repetition always and Recycle everything…” Mr. Shit agrees with Mr. Fuck on this… they are comrades to the end.
I learned the advantage of being a four-legged chicken and I also learned to appreciate the New Wave phenomenon for what it achieved. Also I was enlightened over the meaning and sound of “New Wave’s Secret Percussive Weapon.”
New Wave Chicken is an interesting Fanzine about chickens, music, and memories. It also contains current events such as the Skate-Til-U-Die event from Richmond, Ca to San José~ 2016 May 14th, 15th, and 16th.
In this ‘Zine several writers share their memories of precise moments in their lives when music changed everything. New Wave music in particular.
I read New Wave Chicken fast. It went down greedily and passionately. I wanted to spend my time with this new fanzine friend. It pushes you to an Altered state of consciousness which fanzines should do.
Steve Hart is the publicist of New Wave Chicken, and he is coming out with another soon. He asked me to author a story in his ‘zine and of course I did. We go way back as friends from the 1980’s punk scene when fanzines linked a music scene and friends together.
I was looking for a poem and watercolor image from about 20 something years ago. I was scanning through boxes, books and plastic boxes for a rose and an owl image. I looked in my black portfolio art books too. I think I am going to have to go through the big plastic boxes in my art closet. The ones that are stacked one on top of the other.
Yet, today while so many fucking planets are descending at the same time with the sun my energy is at an all-time low. Later, as the full moon and Jupiter dance their cosmic tango to the mid-heaven tonight, I will be feeling much better. I will look for my art creation later. I did come upon something else. A watercolor I did for a patient years ago.
Her name is Ann. She was once a psychiatric nurse. I attended to her needs when she was an Alzheimer’s patient living in a home in the Santa Cruz Mountains called The Mansion. As an all-round aide, entertainment person and house keeper; I had several patients to attend to. Ann was one of my favorites. She kept to herself and was very clean and tidy. I use to take my patients / friends on long walks or van rides around the mountains or along the beach. Ann would often hold my hand and smile. Just as a mom would hold her daughter’s hand.
One day I sneezed and she handed me a tissue and said,
“Will this do?”
I looked and saw a five-dollar bill. I told Ann to keep it. I had a tissue in my pocket.
I also arranged for art classes for those who wanted to be creative. It was difficult to keep my friends focused. We had lots of fun. At one of these classes I water-colored red roses for Ann.
Once another patient fell down and hurt herself. Ann went from being her usual tame self to a professional nurse. Ann handled the situation as a charming and caring nurse. When the emergency was under control Ann walked away with her usual soft tennis shoe walk. Not a care in the world.
Today The Seminary of Praying Mantis has just published the first book (chapbook) of poetry.
A great accomplishment for me today. My first published book of poetry. DIY of highest degree with all the respect due to the many others who share their passion. It is just a hell of a happy day… just one step… of making my dreams come true.
Bronze coin naming Pythagoras, and showing him placing a wand against a celestial globe, were issued on the island of Samos during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.
Found a good book that I have been looking for, a book that balances out my oldest son’s intense math and youngest son’s second semester of geometry. PYTHAGORAS, His Life and Teachings by Thomas Stanley. The Preface is by the esoteric genius Manly P. Hall.
I was looking up images of PYTHAGORAS on-line when the book came to my attention. I almost gave up looking for it. Written by Thomas Stanley who lived in the 16th century. An intelligent and privileged individual; that this book survived into the 21 century is a mystery, considering the vast rogue wave of change that the world went through at that time.
On Amazon for a few bucks a wonder can be found. As the Pleiades in the night sky, one never knows where true beauties are hiding, yet at the right time and place; just the right time and place , it appears.
The Ceramicus in Athens, Greece, there stands a monument popularly believed to be the Tomb of Pythagoras. A white limestone shaft is supported by a platform of four receding squares. The monument has been the subject of considerable speculation by those concerned with Pythagorean symbolism.
Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist
1984 to 2016…and beyond…LOL
“Hudley.”
“We were mocking the mockery before these guys and the Chili Peppers (who happened to be on the back page of Flipside # 43 that we were on the cover of)! Where do you think they got the idea?”
~ Eric VonArab is with Louie Garcia.
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Back Cover Issue 43. August 1984
Life is a type of cosmic mockery.
The creative impulse seems unique and fresh but often is another mockery of sorts. Walking around the mall yesterday with my youngest son I see fashion has now taken that mockery place for me.
A full circle of fashion that copies my youthful generation. What we purchased at thrift stores; straight legs and big shirts and boots; or fancy dresses from my mother’s youthful generation. Sequin dresses low in the front with a jeweled brooch.
My cats and I are mightily routine orientated. My Monday morning shopping is to avoid the crowds. I am often amused by the magazines at the checkout counter.
Today my heart raced a little faster. Not due to the young men on the cover; I prefer the older and wiser, but the overall layout of the design.
Was it in the mid-1980s when I was at my prime that I orchestrated a hand full of punk musicians to pose partially naked for the cover of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine 43? I try to put it behind me, but life is a type of cosmic mockery. Hilariously and repetitiously so…
“To answer the question where I got the idea: Out of the black. It was just a flash of insight and some youthful individual female power at the time. I told you to take off your clothes, you did, and I took some pictures.”
~ Hudley Flipside
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Front Cover Issue 43. August 1984
Check out the T-Shirt for Sale… Click on the image below.
