Episodit
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âThe clock in the back of the deserted house (everyoneâs sleeping) slowly lets the clear quadruple sound of four oâclock in the morning fall. I still havenât fallen asleep, and I donât expect to. Thereâs nothing on my mind to keep me from sleeping and no physical pain to prevent me from relaxing, but the dull silence of my strange body just lies there in the darkness, made even more desolate by the feeble moonlight of the street lamps. Iâm so sleepy I canât even think, so sleepless I canât feel.â
This episode begins with a restless nights for two literary alter-egos: Fernando Pessoa's Soares and Richard Matheson's (I Am Legend) Neville.
Pessoa grapples with insomnia, intertwined with alcoholism as well as various existential anxieties in Fragment 31 of The Book of Disquiet, a meditation on sleep, death, and the nature of being.
Neville, the protagonist of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, finds himself seemingly the last human on Earth, haunted by the undead. His struggle for sleep mirrors Pessoa's, hinting at a similar psychological issue: the manifestation in his life of the Death Drive as explored by Freud in his 1922 essay "Beyond The Pleasure Principle".
Also, a fascinating historical footnote: Pessoa's role in crafting early advertising copy for Coca-Cola in Portugal, resulting in a government ban on Coca-Cola imports that lasted for over 50 years.
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"Sadly, or perhaps not, I recognize that I have an arid heart. An adjective matters more to me than the real weeping of a human soul. But sometimes Iâm different."
-Fernando Pessoa
--
Every so often, I sit down and write a letter to Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet and writer.
I not only write but also send each letters to the postal address where Pessoa spent the last fifteen years of his life before dying at the age of 47 with cirrhosis of the liver - most likely due to the alcoholism.
He hasn't written back to me yet, even though I put my own name and address on every missive I send (Steve W., 111 Ruskin Gardens, Kenton, London, HA3 9PY). One day he, or someone very much like him, will perhaps write back. I live in hope. -
Puuttuva jakso?
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In the last episode of my Tarot Cure, I take on the Yuri Challenge: âWhen people die, you've got yer 5-Stage KĂŒbler-Ross model of recovery, right? So how about a 3-Stager for breakups? Breakup Therapy? Breakup Recovery. What are the three stages?â The tricky part is that he then got me to create my three stage model based around three of our favourite Kendrick Lamar songs from Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. United In Grief N95 Die Hard I tried. We also find out how things worked out for conceptual artist Marina AbramoviÄ and her partner Ulay as they attempt to cross heaven and earth, (and The Great Wall of China) for each other and their art. And finally (finally!) Madame Kalathaki delivers her enlightenment KO in our quest to understand whatâs inside that fricken fourth cup on the Tarot card she drew for me!
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The second part of my Tarot Cure Pilgrimage to Treadwell's Bookshop to see if one of their finest Tarot readers (Madame Kalathaki) might have some wisdom to share with me on where my last relationship went awry, and what I need to do to keep the next one (when it comes) more enduringly on the path of Love.
This episode of the Tarot Cure is sponsored Naomi Shihab Nye's Red Brocade:
The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.
Links & Music for this episode:
Alain De Botton on our crazy minds, hearts, souls (in love & out).
Marina Abramovic on her tempestuous relationship with her former partner Ulay.
Kendrick! (United In Grief) - please don't sue me/break my balls Mr Lamarr for using 30 seconds of your genius on here, ta :-)
Peter Gundry - Lucifer's Hymn
Wet Leg - Chaise Longue
Randy Newman - Short People
SG Lewis - Finally (CeCe Peniston cover) for Monki on Radio 1
Funk The Revolution - Finally (CeCe Peniston cover)
Aydar Gaynullin plays Piazzolla's Libertango
Alejandro Aguanta performs Zorba's Dance by Mikis Theodorakis's
Laura Nyro - It's Gonna Take A Miracle -
In which I take myself off to consult a professional tarot reader at London's main hub for the Tarot Cognoscenti (Treadwell's Bookshop) to see if she can help me with the "stuff" that Iâm still trying to work through in relation to my last romantic relationship.
One of my favourite centaurs (Alain de Botton) also shares with us his theories on Romanticism and Love, whilst Marina Abramovic digs into her infamous, and all-too-thorny relationship with fellow performance-artist/lover/muse: Ulay.
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Before falling in love with the Enneagram, I had a thing for Tarot.
And so I decided to put this thing into a podcast called The Tarot Cure.
Here's an Omnibus edition of those episodes, spanning the length and breadth of my 50th year.
It was a good year :)
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Sophie (psychotherapist, single) asks a burning question that her friend Steve (psychotherapist, also single) might also like to have answered: "Will It Ever Happen For Me?"
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This episode of The Tarot Cure is sponsored by two poems:
REQUEST
Please love me
And I will play for you
this poem
upon the guitar
I myself made
out of cardboard and black threads
when I was ten years old.
Love me or else.
-Franz Wright
THE HOUSE OF BELONGING
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the gray day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
-David Whyte -
Why do our burning questions burn in the way they do? I try to answer this by looking back at the phenomenon of PostSecret, and how burning questions often tap into core needs, longing, and yearnings such as the yearning for orientation, meaning, coherence and understanding, as well as self-direction, competence, belonging and connection.
[This episode also features an Intro to a new Tarot Cure offshoot: The Burning Questions, where I sit down with a guest to have a chat about a question that is burning within them: be it a personal issue or one related to a topic close to their heart. Some kind of creative intervention is then applied to each question (a tarot card , a poem, a piece of music or art) in an attempt to "try to love the questions themselves - like locked rooms, or a book written in a foreign tongue (Rilke)", but also with the hope for some magic, insight, and an interesting conversation.
Listen to The Burning Questions [on Spotify] [on Apple]
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This episode of The Tarot Cure is sponsored by the following passage from Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (translation: Charlie Louth):
“But all the same I believe that you need not remain without solution if you hold to things like those now refreshing my eyes. If you hold close to nature, to what is simple in it, to the small things people hardly see and which all of a sudden can become great and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is slight, and quite unassumingly, as a servant, seek to win the confidence of what seems poor – then everything will grow easier, more unified and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the intellect, which, amazed, remains a step behind, but in your deepest consciousness, watchfulness and knowledge. I should like to ask you, as best I can, dear one, to be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign tongue. Do not now strive to uncover answers: they cannot be given you because you have not been able to live them. And what matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually,, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one distant day in the future."
--
Music:
Hania Rani – Live from Studio S2
Sting - Fragile (Piano Cover)
Celestial Sphere by David Crowell -
Are you getting huffy and puffy about online dating? Or maybe One Of The Other Things We Tend To Get Huffy and Puffy About (the list is endless)?
If so, this one is for you: giving birth to Max, poetry vs. evolutionary psychology, incense vs. incensed, and Cain versus Abel. All with added Hot-&-Spicy Jungian Sauce :-)
Thanks, as ever, to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of The Five of Swords. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see these FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious.
This episode of The Tarot Cure is proudly sponsored by Satya Nag Champa Incense, "the world’s most commercially successful incense blend. The first secret recipe for Satya Nag Champa was formulated by the founding family of Shrinivas Sugandhalaya and has stood the test of time as the most beloved floral incense in existence. To this day, every incense stick is hand-rolled in our factory in Byatarayanapura, Bengaluru."
AUDIO EXCERPTS:
A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships by Ogi Ogas & Sai Gaddam
This Jungian Life - Episode 84 - Anger
This Jungian Life - Episode 153 - Resentment
Notting Hill - "Just A Girl" Scene
MUSIC:
David Crowell's "Celestial Spheres"
Sting: "Fragile" (piano cover by ëźìŹë)
Photronique: Boom, Boom
Meredith Monk, Facing North -
This episode takes a walky-talky dive into my favourite scene in the Wizard of Oz: "The Wizard Revealed", exploring the healing powers of Hierophants & High Priestesses versus that of Persona-fied Schmucks like toi et moi.
This episode of the Tarot Cure is proudly sponsored by KURKURE NAUGHTY TOMATO SNACKS: "A sweet and sour tomato flavor with just the right amount of chili powder. Kurkure is a perfect 'namkeen' snack which makes one fun-loving and quirky. Made with trusted kitchen ingredients, it is a perfect tea time snack. Kurkure Naughty Tomato has the taste of tangy tomatoes blended with spices which gives it a sweet, tangy and spicy flavour. It is an embodiment of endearing human." (description supplied by PepsiCo India, with thanks).
Thanks, as ever, to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of the card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious.
Music:
Photronique: Boom, Boom
Right Said Fred: "I'm Too Sexy" - Pointless Celebrities '90s special Performance
DoGa Kalyan: Symphony: III. Scherzo
Andrew Byrne, "Striking" (for Strings & Chopsticks)
The Tallis Scholars perform Josquin -
This episode discusses our core existential fragility through a pink child's bracelet found on the side of the road, the violent and sometimes even bone-breaking choreography of Elizabeth Streb, as well as my mother's recent mishaps with "The Jaws of Fate".
This episode is sponsored by Dorianne Laux's poem What Is Broken:
The slate black sky. The middle step
of the back porch. And long ago
my mother’s necklace, the beads
rolling north and south. Broken
the rose stem, water into drops, glass
knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s
pot of parsley and mint, white roots
shooting like streamers through the cracks.
Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,
the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken
little finger on my right hand at birth—
I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t
been rent, divided, split? Broken
the days into nights, the night sky
into stars, the stars into patterns
I make up as I trace them
with a broken-off blade
of grass. Possible, unthinkable,
the cricket’s tiny back as I lie
on the lawn in the dark, my heart
a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.
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LINKS:
Elizabeth Streb talks about her work.
Maggie Nelson's The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning.
Chase Eagleson acoustic cover of Sting's "Fragile". -
In this episode I wonder, to use that line from Larkin: "What are days for?" Parcels of time we hold in our minds when we opening our eyes after being off-line, asleep. Days where we either feel on-track or off-track with those experiences, states, fulfilments we all desire to have more of in our lives. I also get a phone call at 3am from Hannah who I haven't spoken to for some time. Does she still believe I'm some kind of demonic trickster (à la "Conchis" in John Fowle's The Magus)? If so, why is she now calling me? Links: Interview with Ajahn Sucitto about Unseating The Inner Tyrant Kaveh Akbar reading "Vines" "I don't know if people change..." from Jerrod Carmichael's Rothaniel Turn! Turn! Turn! (Pete Seeger)
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of the card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious. -
In this episode, Sophie delivers an impromptu free-association on The Queen of Wands from a semi-recumbent state (hence the superb quality of the F-A, dream-like?), whilst I ponder Max's gender metaphysics and admire some spindly trees on a walk.
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of this card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious.
Links:
Tree, Tree, Tree by CARMEN GIMÉNEZ-ROSELLÓ [poem]
Tree, Tree, Tree by Fred Rogers [song]
Baby Bushka playing Kate Bush's Running up that Hill -
This episode is mainly about the incredibly young (only 22!) and goofy Elvis Aaron Presley's performance of "Don't Be Cruel" on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1957.
It also delves a little into why vegans don't (or shouldn't?) eat honey, and whether we'd change our behaviour towards people and things, if they had an SUC (Subjective Unit of Cruelty) measure attached to them.
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of this card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious.
Links:
Initial quotes: Ed Winters on why vegans don't eat honey [video]; Maggie Nelson's The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning
"I Have Got To Stop Loving You" by Ai Ogawa [poem]
Lucille Clifton Reads Three Poems
Music:
-Ave Maria (Tomás Luis de Vittoria)
-Don't Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) -
Why do we do one thing, rather than another?
Why do we sometimes struggle to commit to certain kinds of behaviour, whereas others come naturally?
Why do we procrastinate and self-sabotage?
Once you've understood how the Winner Takes All mechanism works in your mind, as well as the "mind" of our 400 million year-old ancestor, C. elegans (aka: the nematode, or roundworm) you'll be on your way to understanding all of the above. As well as the Five of Wands archetype ;-)
Links:
Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos (by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam)
Ogi Ogas interview with Michael Shermer
Chaise Longue by Wetleg -
An exploration of The Emperor archetype through the sex lives of Orthodox Jews and the sublime wittering of John Ashbery.
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of this card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious.
--
Links:
What Is The Language Using Us For by W.S. Graham
John Ashbery Interview with Alfred A. Poulin Jr. (November 27, 1972).
Leaving The Atocha Station (Ashbery Poem)
Discussion of matriarchal religions from the Nearly Numinous podcast.
Magnum and Higgins doing their shtick.
Papa Can You Hear Me (Yentl) - piano cover
Black Betty by Leadbelly
Larkin Poe's cover of Black Betty
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' cover of Black Betty -
What do you love more than what you imagine is your singular life?
Are you willing to take your place in the forest again? to become loam and bark
to be a leaf falling. from a great height. to be the worm who eats the leaf
and the bird who eats the worm? Look at the sky: are you
willing to be the sky again?
You think this lesson is
too hard for you You want the thing you're struggling with to end. You want
to go to the movies as before, to sit and eat with your friends.
It can end now, but not in the way you imagine You know
the mind that has been talking to you for so long—the mind that
can explain everything? Don’t listen.
You were once a citizen of a country called I Don’t Know.
Remember the burning boat that brought you there? Climb in.
(Marie Howe: What The Silence Said)
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of this card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious.
--
Music:
Ariel's Song
No human or non-human creature was hurt in the creation of the slap sound used in this podcast. -
A exploration of the The Sun archetype with a nod to these two poems:
LEISURE
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?-
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty’s dance,
And watch her feet come alive to our glance:
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-William Henry Davies
DON'T HESITATE
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when wonder begins. Anyway, that's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
-Mary Oliver
The quote at the top of the episode is from Phillip Roth's The Facts.
The Beatles cover is sung by Nicole Milik. You can find her YouTube channel here.
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of this card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious. -
A exploration of the Hermit archetype through Lizzie MacKenzie's recent documentary The Hermit of Treig.
THE GREAT FIRES
Love is apart from all things.
Desire and fulfilment are nothing beside it.
Neither body nor mind can truly love.
Even if they try to lead us there.
What is not love provokes them.
What is not love quenches them.
Love lays hold of everything we hold dear,
But we are not able to hold onto it.
Passion is one of its many paths
but passion does not bring us to love.
Desire opens the castle of our spirit
so that we might find there
the inner mystery of love:
hidden, intangible, silent.
Love does not last, but it is different
from the passions that do not last.
Love lasts by not lasting.
Isaiah said each of us walks in our own fire
for our sins. Only Love allows us to walk free
in that sweet, transitory music of our pained and particular hearts.
-Jack Gilbert
Thanks to Sophie for her FFA (Free Free-Association) of this card. Each FFA involves Sophie, freely-associating around the episode card which until that moment she had never set eyes on before. I see the FFAs as buckets of cool spring water from The Well of The Collective Unconscious. -
An exploration of The Tower, an archetype which invites us to explore and consider sudden change, upheaval, and chaos in our lives, as well as a kind of revelation or awakening sometimes associated with the word "enlightenment" as it is sometimes linked to personal transformation.
We take this journey together via the following cultural stepping stones:
Irene Solà's novel When I Sing, Mountains Dance
Nichiren and his Soka Gakkai chums chanting of Namu MyĆhĆ Renge KyĆ
Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Robert Frost's poem Fire and Ice:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Sessions with my shrink "Magic Mike" discussing the end of a relationship
Giant waterfalls
Woody Allen's opening monologue to Annie Hall
Mumford & Sons' cover of Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire
Samuel James' cover of Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song
Siddhartha Gautama's first "podcast" (The Four Noble Truths, with a focus on his "thirsting" (Second Truth) of TaáčhÄ
Siddhartha Gautama's second "podcast" (the Adittapariyaya Sutta - The Fire Sermon) which has also been turned into the following poem:
ALL IS ARDOUR
All is ardour burning & blaze
Eye is ardour ear is ardour
nose lips tongue ardour
mind ardour body ardour
burning burning burning away.
Sound burning scent burning
taste burning touch burning
incandescent bone fires burning
burning pleasure burning pain
either neither burning away.
Feel the fire that burns through
this hour passion fire aversion
fire delusion fire all ablaze
birth and death & aging fires
burning burning burning away.
Contact feeling craving takes us
calls to the awakened soul
know then free your self from ardour
find some peace
while burning away. - Näytä enemmän
