Active Imagination

“Active imagination refers to a process or technique of engaging with the ideas or imaginings of one’s mind. It is used as a mental strategy to communicate with the subconscious mind. In Jungian psychology, it is a method for bridging the conscious and unconscious minds. Instead of being linked to the Jungian process, the word “active imagination” in modern psychology is most frequently used to describe a propensity to have a very creative and present imagination. It is thought to be a crucial aid in the process of individuation.”

“Enslave me and I am a dangerous enemy; command me and I will make you mad; give me life and you will die.”

― Patrick Harpur, Mercurius: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth

Individuation

I am having a challenging time with this Mercury Retrograde. So, I decided to take some skills I have learned over the years with “active imagination.” I did engage in communication with the planet on various levels. As a planet, an intellectual being (very Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,) astrology and astronomy.

I came to an interesting dialogue with the simple ideas of; don’t force things, go with the flow, and enjoy reflection with an awareness of what lessons are essential to learn.

The most interesting thing came the next morning when my geophysics son explained to me how things move in space.

When rockets leave the earth, they do not travel in a straight line but in a circular one even a spiral. And gravity in space can be used as an advantage or as a good kind of disadvantage in space travel.

Again, he told me some things about Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. I did not realize that it is smaller than our moon and of course has no moons of its own.

Mercury based on Mercurius, that is a lot to learn here, is always open to this type of intelligent awareness and dialogue. You should try it. Be astounded by Mercury Retrograde’s curious responses.

In its highest sense.

“According to Jung, humanity holds a special role in creation: to contribute to the act of consciousness, and the point of view of morality, in its highest sense.”
~ Johnson, Robert A. Ecstasy (p. 64) Harper One. Kindle Edition.

Time of Coyote

As we move into the Summer Solstice I celebrate the “Time of Coyote!”

We have been beginning to walk in the Santa Monica Mountains again.

I was not feeling well enough but my two sons went for a walk today.

Guess who popped out of the wild to show up?

Coyote.

Youngest son said Coyote had a big grin with tongue hanging out and then leaped away.

Coyotes are magical animals who only let you see them if they want to!

I know Coyote knows me, and also knows my two sons, because Coyote showed up in the wild to say hello!

What an awesome delight that is to know!

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/coyote-tattoo/

Driving towards home the dark night held all the romance that a woman could ask for. Falling in love after 30 was not a goal. Looking out of the passenger seat coyote was eyeballing my lover. He looked back at the wild thing that was part of a mythology deep in this hill’s subconscious. Hadn’t he been on top of coyote hill and tasted the nectar of adventure? Once on top years earlier coyote turned to look as coyote defined his territory. A wild thing knowing all those living there. A sacred path that went on for generations.

Posts about Coyote

Coyote Hill

Coyote Green Stone Story

Yellow Behind the Ears…

Coyote

Never ever, no way, give up again!

Chiron Retrograde Dance

The Infant Bacchus (Dionysus) painting (c. 1505–1510) by Giovanni Bellini.

The Bibliotheca seems to be following Pherecydes, who relates how the infant Dionysus, god of the grapevine, was nursed by the rain-nymphs, the Hyades at Nysa. Young Dionysus was also said to have been one of the many famous pupils of the centaur Chiron. According to Ptolemy Chennus in the Library of Photius,

“Dionysus was loved by Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites and initiations.”

~Diodorus Siculus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_historica

Rocket Man Review: The Film

PUNK ROCK COLLEAGUE & HISTORIAN AND PROFESSIONAL CONSULTANT HUDLEY FLIPSIDE

Centrifuge Going So Swiftly

“And we went to California and up and down the Pacific Coast for a day and a half, settling at last on the sands of Malibu to cook wieners at night. Dad was always listening or singing or watching things on all sides of him, holding onto things as if the world were a centrifuge going so swiftly that he might be flung off away from us at any instant.”

~Ray Bradbury. The Rocket Man

“I’ve been a cunt since 1975.”- Elton John

Rocket Man explained a lot about Elton John that confused me since 1975. I love autobiographical stories and memoirs. What a joy! Elton John shared his psyche with the world. A healed psyche that was given more then a second chance.

The film has that real deal 1970s thing going that sprang forth from the late 1960s. The chance that two genius dudes like Elton John and Bernie Taupin found each other is amazing. So grateful! I enjoyed the integrity, depth and darkness shared in this film. The world of rock & roll was not romanticized.

Fun musical choreographed dance scenes moved through the film. Bernie Taupin’s lyrics enhanced by being sung clearly and slowly made me want to sing and dance along.

I love Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s music especially the years between 1971-1974. I include in this review a conclusion with an early song written 1971 entitled Friends. I think the song Friends was a song of amazing foresight. As if Bernie knew the journey ahead would be a difficult one. Especially for Reginald Kenneth Dwight!

“Friends is a 1971 teen-romance film directed and produced by Lewis Gilbert and written by Gilbert, Vernon Harris, and Jack Russell. The soundtrack, with music composed by Elton John and Paul Buckmaster, and lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, was released as the Friends album, and John’s recording of the title selection charted when released as a single in the United States.”

1970 my favorite

To my two sons … 🌸

2016 Film 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

20^TH CENTURY WOMEN

Photo included in this Film

Black Flag with Keith Morris Singing. Last image of this band in their original lineup.1979

Nice to be acknowledged in closing credits.
Very honored to be a part of the film.

“Black Flag live in the basement of the Church in Hermosa Beach. Greg Ginn, myself, Robo and Chuck “The Duke” sandwiched between Dez Cadena on Greg’s right and Brian Grillo on Chuck’s left.” ~ Keith Morris

My review of Film….

In the film 20th Century Women …women are at the table.

Mindfulness and Raven

“… but rather that it is the intangible things that imprint on us and we imprint on others that are most important… allow that magic to spread to your soul and enlighten you spiritually.”

~ Bear Medicine Walker / omtimes.com

RAVEN MEDICINE

Raven Medicine https://www.pinterest.com/whytte/dream-catchers-mandalas-shields-medicine-wheels-fe/

Often our lessons in life come through illness. We all go through these experiences. As well as our ancestors, loved ones and friends have. My illness has taught me the mindfulness of others who have gone through similar experiences. A family member or a friend that went through illness and died. Wasn’t it Madam Blavatsky who said,

“We have neither friends nor enemies only teachers?”

An illness may be only a physiological illness, but I am experiencing mine more. My illness is in my heart. It is in my lungs and esophagus. The area of our hearts and lungs are what connect us to our friends, family, and ancestors.

As practicing mindfulness, it is helping me to see that all relationships are what Madam Blavatsky taught. Also, that we all have a dark and light side.

Today I am authoring an essay about two people who were, and still are, a big part of my life. I experienced their dark side and light side. Their joy and sadness are with me.

I am hoping that this Tibetan Buddhism subtle mindfulness will help my two relationships that have passed on. In return, helping me to let go of resentments and promote healing. As Raven from the Native American Medicine Wheel teaches,

“Be strong, have faith and remember within all things are lessons and positives.”

Today my mindfulness is focused on two relationships, my longtime girlfriend Lynn, and my oldest brother Steven Jarvis. Both were independent, shy, and creative people. They both had an addiction. Lynn died of an overdose before she turned fifty.

Steven Jarvis was an alcoholic, and I was not close to him when he died so I do not know what illness killed him in his early seventies.

I am sad they are gone.

Now for the good part of this story. They both caused me pain, stress, and unhappiness. They also brought me so much fun, joy, and love. This also is a mindfulness of how they experienced me in life.

Lynn and I grew up playing as a profession. We were wild as the wind. Later in life she drove me and some other friends to high school every day. She had a little brown VW Bug. She always had a tape of Crosby Stills, Nash and Young on her cassette car radio.

Steven Jarvis was my brother who I looked up to as a kid. He was 11 years older than I was. I painfully watched as he left our home at 18. He was a movie extra for years. He was a lady’s man and sailed on his own sailboat to Hawaii.

He was a licensed scuba diving instructor. He took me sailing and I sat on the front tip or the ‘stuck.’

Flying on the waves as a seagull. He had a Ford Falcon that he raced when he was younger. I learned about the Beatles listening to his 8-track tape of Rubber Soul while he worked on the engine with his cute friends. That is it…. mindfulness…

Anthropomorphism

Here is my latest praying mantis caricature. A holiday greeting from long ago ancient times.

Attis brings Liberte’

At the darkness time of the year, the longest night, the winter solstice… here comes some ancient anthropomorphism… and praying mantis is here to make life so meaningful.

Bathed in its own reflection.

“By their fruits you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistle?”
~ Mat. 7:16

Jerusalem, Plate 28 Proof Impression William Blake

My Mentor Tree and Eucalyptus Friend

The tree replied to me today, “I AM WHO I AM.” This is the same whisper I always heard from my mentor tree and eucalyptus friend.

Dad first visited the eucalyptus tree when he went horseback riding in the San Fernando Valley. The late 1940s. He rode from Ventura Blvd towards the dirty hills of the Santa Monica mountains. It is not easy to imagine that there once was a horse stable found near Ventura Blvd. and Canoga Ave.

He told me how he stopped one day under the eucalyptus tree and looked over the valley. Once he saw a for sale sign there, a hill covered with wild sage and wilder nature. My dad made it happen.

His brother was a carpenter / builder and his mother already invested in properties throughout the San Fernando Valley. They made his dream come true. They made it happen for my dad and mom. As a WWII Vet he secured a government loan.

Dad and his brother, Had, created a plan to build a house on that wild hill in the San Fernando Valley. They fought like brothers often do. My dad fought for the large sliding windows that looked over the valley. He also fought to build a house which cuddled around a eucalyptus tree.

I learned to climb that tree as I was learning to walk. The smell of the eucalyptus tree on foggy mornings before going to school or during rainstorms often filled my bedroom. I climbed that beautiful tall tree on my way to the top of the red brick chimney often.

Sometimes to see thunderstorms break across the valley. There I silently sat listening to the sound of coyotes in the distance and viewed lights in the night sky. All this magic still captures my imagination.

Once I left home, I often went back to visit with my parents. The first thing I would do was hug my eucalyptus tree. The seed pods from the eucalyptus are a wonder. Round and cone-shaped with a five-pointed star in the middle. Always a signal autumn was approaching.

Today a walk on a slightly foggy morning at the end of August brought back this memory of a eucalyptus tree I grew up with. I was beholding today to the only eucalyptus tree in my neighborhood. Whispering a scent and showing an aura that took me back to my nebulous childhood.

Summer Poem number 2b

I used to see anarchy & chaos much differently.

Today I see it as something I will not agree to.

Yet the will of an individual can be applied for the benefits of all or for only oneself.

To harm others without caring.

I used to think it was to bring all others to the table and to change and make new ways of seeing the world creativity and imaginatively.

An individual can uniquely inspire a generation, or a few people, to be good human beings.

Or the opposite can happen when an ego causes dark chaos & we are witnessing this now.

It is a time to consider this all, …. as very important parts of who we all are!? So much for August… it does this to me.

A “Daily Fuck Gazette” Limerick

Uppity dubiety Scott Pruitt purines

Eat your prunes you’re a greedy old man

Lotion on your bottom

Sleeping in a used bed

Will not get you any respect

The day you’re found dead!

Uppity dubiety Scott Pruitt purines

Chicken finger frenzies

lost in your gloom

Uppity dubiety Scott Pruitt purines!

Only in the shower do I sing…

Doe: a deer, a female deer, alludes to the first solfège syllable, do.

Ray: a drop of golden sun [i.e. a narrow beam of light or other radiant energy], alludes to the second solfège syllable, re.

Me: a name I call myself [i.e. the objective first-person pronoun], alludes to the third solfège syllable, mi.

Fa’ [i.e. “far”]: a long long way to run,” alludes to the fourth solfège syllable, fa.

Sew: [the verb for] a needle pulling thread,” alludes to the fifth solfège syllable, sol.

La, the sixth solfège syllable, lacking a satisfactory homophone (see below), is directly referred to in the song as a note to follow so[l].

Tea: a drink with jam and bread [i.e. the popular hot beverage made by steeping tea leaves in boiling water], alludes to the seventh solfège syllable, ti.

Austrian composer Hugo Wolf~3 March 1860 – 22 February 1903

I wish I could sing well. In the 1990s I received my AA in Humanities. This gave me an option to take some fun courses. Do some risky stuff. I took two vocal courses. One was basic, ‘learn how to sing,’ with all the fancy techniques like breathing from the diaphragm.

Singing ‘do re mi fa sol la ti do’ repeatedly with one single breath was not easy.

I endured the class and sang the song Blue Moon as my final project. I sang the original “Blue Moon” a classic popular song written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934.

When I joined the chorus as part of a class requirement. I knew my singing was not class “A” stock. We had to perform for Los Angeles Valley College’s Christmas celebrations. I was in the first Christmas singing group. After we sang, I heard a mumble from the audience…,

“OK now we will hear the real singers in the next choir singing Christmas music!”

So, I tortured myself and took the next music class that went from learning only how to sing: to singing operettas in German, Italian and French? I really went all out when I decided to sing my final song written by Hugo Wolf.

“Heut Nacht erhob ich mich um Mitternacht?” or ”Last night I rose at midnight.”

My wings melted! My voice and confidence as well. I left the course before finals because the class was too much for me. Sometimes a good challenge is about the process of just trying. I did find Hugo Wolf!

If I could sing a song. Like a sexy noir dame. It would be the song below.

In music, solfège (/ˈsɒlfɛʒ/,[1] also US: /sɒlˈfɛʒ/, French: [sɔl.fɛʒ]) or solfeggio (/sɒlˈfɛdʒioʊ/, Italian: [solˈfeddʒo]), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach pitch and sight singing of Western music

As a friend of friends

Urania is talking to Uranus
Ambassador to the planets and stars
She calls to Earth
As a friend of friends,
Catalyst of goodness and humor,
to Uranus ascending electric magma
Eccentric insect antenna muses
Human Beings 
To be the best 
we can be.

Bubbles. Christ ‘Salvator Mundi’

While sitting in my computer room I heard a lady screaming. In a fire windy weaving voice yelling,

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!!”

The car raced by my home. Oldest son heard it too. It was not directed at us, but we did catch it in passing.

Last night while watching reruns of Ancient Aliens I came upon one old image I’ve studied and another that I did not know about. The flower of Life and Leonardo da Vinci’s long-lost portrait of Christ ‘Salvator Mundi’

The flower of Life means many things but the one meaning I love best is that it represents the universe.

The Christ portrait is fascinating. I am amazed by a sphere he is holding. An interfaith symbol that other religious masters hold as well.

Two mystical round bubbles or circles of insight came together in my mind. Because Leonardo da Vinci shows the Flower of Life in his works, I found this an interesting point of reflection and study.

So, I did my own improvisation and put the flower of Life in the bubble sphere. It was fun to do.

I hope the lady who was screaming will have a better day then she seemed to be having.

Salvator Mundi is a painting that depicts Christ blessing the viewer with his right hand raised while holding an orb in his left. The Latin title translates to “Saviour of the World”. The painting is attributed to the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci and is dated to around 1499–1510.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/bubble/

Leonardo da Vinci’s long lost portrait of Christ ‘Salvator Mundi’

Flower Of Life

https://www.tokenrock.com/explain-flower-of-life-46.html

THE MOODY BLUES TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME IN 2018

http://www.moodybluestoday.com/moody-blues-inducted-rock-roll-hall-fame-2018/

Maybe it all ready happened…congratulations…

In Return

Receptive, illumination and synchronicity,

I’m a wise old blooming flower, waiting to be pollinated,

I’m receptive to what I shall become, Let life approach me,

I do not have to go seeking,

I have all I need to succeed, I’m a beautiful rose,
wise, good and ready.
I can be trusted,

I follow things through, I speak my mind,

Let the spirit of god / goddess, move over my deep dark waters.
Receptive as an open flower.

Now, waiting for life to impregnate me.

“The Rose makes honey.”

A dream sets the pace of the day…

“One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

https://hudleyflipside.com/meet-the-flopside-family/

A Gift from Saturn

As Saturn moves from Pisces to Aries,

They say Saturn leaves us gifts…

This poem is an active imagination I had a few years back.

The inner world of a writer

often goes deep.

Into the world of our psyches.

We also reach high into the sky.

As we watch the Pleiades and Orion’s Belt

above us these winter nights.

As we walk our magical walks.

This is only one gift I remember well,

Many more gifts since.

We all need Saturn’s gifts.

Brightening our days.

I hope you find yours too!

I am leaning Saturn’s

Continuance.

Winged centaur

Invisible sounding hooves

Upon the backyard cement.

Lifted me upon his back

We flew through

The rain, clouds, and satellites

Rounding the earth.

Straight and fast towards

Saturn’s castle

He is to give me a gift.

I have waited upon the words

Of Buffalo yesterday and today.

“Today Saturn will give

You a gift… today today!”

I waited and wondered

Tonight, as I watch the hearth fire

I heard the call towards Saturn

As before …

I rode over frozen land

Blue ice and white paths

Overall, we flew

centaur’s wings outstretched

Gracefully I slip off the centaur.

I walked towards the big door

Dark but when opened

Filled with light and beings

Those who lived there

Those who were visiting like me.

An earthling’s visits are often short

Saturn, I found

Up the golden spiral staircase.

Waiting with a smile

And comfortable charm.

Saturn gave me a gift

A green box

Asking me

Not to open it now.

Wait until I am home

And place it over the fire

On your hearth,

The gift will reveal

Itself to you.

My journey home was fast

I made a space upon my hearth

Above the fire

Then turning to look out the window.

The wet outdoors

From a cold rain

Found me hoping

For a drop of cymene.

Of the ascending centaur

Glissading and glistening

Away from my soul through the rain

Under a full peeking moon.

Saturn told me

To write a poem about the green box

A gift from him

And so, I have.

Vesta Image

I have enrolled a new image for The Seminary of Praying Mantis. She is Vesta.

“In her role as sister. Vesta represents the principle of focus and commitment. She functions as autonomous self-identity transforming creative energies into purifying and integrating personal circuitry.”

~ Demetra George & Douglas Bloch

A Honorable friend…

“The old generation is going. What will the new bring us? What shall we ourselves contribute?

Destiny says to us: “Show what is in thee! Now is the moment, now is the hour, else fall back into nothingness! It is thy turn! Give the world thy measure, say thy word, reveal thy nullity or thy capacity. Come forth from the shade!

It is no longer a question of promising, thou must perform. The time of apprenticeship is over. Servant, show us what thou hast done with thy talent. Speak now, or be silent forever.”

-Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel’s Journal