Remembering Ursula Leguin: Praise for "Realists of a Larger Reality"

 

"I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries — the realists of a larger reality. "

  For so many years, the writer Ursula Leguin always spoke to the core for me.   I've visited numerous times every world she has shown us, and one thing she has always shown are  the infinite possibilities of the imagination and human culture, brilliantly reasoned out through the eyes of the anthropologist's daughter that she also was.

I have travelled with her through worlds of vast introverted solitude, where a young girl must travel alone  to "make her soul" in "The Birthday of the World" collection.  I've visited a world in the midst of an Ice Age, and come to love a pragmatic  hero who is also a hermaphrodite, neither male nor female on a world without gender, in "The Left Hand of Darkness".  I've visited Earthsea many times, and watched the coming of age of the mage Ged, who can talk with dragons, and  must learn not only about power, but far  more importantly, he must learn about the uses of power, about maintaining the Equilibrium, becoming attuned to the balance of the world.  And in "Four Ways to Forgivenesss" I've seen two worlds come apart and re-form as the long era of  slavery is ended, and former slaves and owners must find their personal salvation in the midst of a vast human revolution. 

In "May's Lion" I  saw the visit of a lion, coming to the home of an old rural woman in order to die, from the perspective of not only an old American woman, but from  an old Native woman as well, perhaps a woman who lived long before in the very place old May now lived.  But May only sensed the honor a lion had given her,  where as the woman who came before her knew, knew it well.

 Thank you, Ursula, thank you for making it possible for me and so many others  to visit those worlds, to escape my own when I needed to, to see with your words the infinite possibilities of  human experience. Her "view from the Ecumen" has helped me time and again to gain a view of life here on Earth, intimate and unique, and yet always part of a vast imaginative whole.  

I wanted to  share her 2014  National Book Awards speech, because the call she made to visionary writers (and artists and other creatives) is important.  She says what I have so many times thought, especially recently - how "money sick" everything has become. We have lost the Equilibrium of consciousness of the whole, of a "webbed vision".  And yet, that, whether we speak of cosmic entanglement and physics, or social systems, or ecology, or just about anything ........... is what is revealed to us as the underlying paradigm, the  solution for a civilization humanity must build in the future, if we are to continue at all.  

"But the name of the beautiful reward", Leguin says, "is not profit.  Its name is freedom."   The freedom to create uncensored, internally or externally,  by the demand that what is created somehow be justified, it's "value" determined,  by how much money "it" can make.

Which is no "real" evaluation of success at all, any more than the "success" of corporate oligarchs has, clearly,  anything to do with preserving our planet's future or our nations welfare and democracy.   Indeed, capitalism  has become an oppressive force indeed, a profoundly destructive, even genocidal,  force in  it's soulless quest for profit.  We need to put money "values" outside the door when we enter the house of  creative integrity - otherwise it's like a loud cacophony of endless commercials, nattering away, obstructing any capacity to hear, see, know, be "en-souled".

My house, of course, is full of art, 45 years of it, and basically supporting myself as an AIRBNB host, I'm always amazed at how very rare it is that those who come here comment or even acknowledge the presence of  the collection that is everywhere.   A painting is a window into the worlds of the artist.......... how is it so few people pause to even glance through that window?  I've often said to myself that I could hang mops on the walls to replace the artwork, and most of the people who live here wouldn't notice.  

Would the same works be treated differently if they were in a gallery, with a large pricetag on them?  Yes, they are, because the magic "symbol of worth", namely a $ sign, is attached to them.  And then there is  Trump and company, ending the NEA and the NEH without so much as a cringe of embarrassment.  I reflect that what I am witnessing in the face of that great loss is the utter triumph of mediocrity.  

But I often find I'm disappointed  for another reason.  Those who do notice the work so rarely seem to notice the "window".   Most ask about shows, what kind of prices I get....... how, in other words, did I or do I  make money from my work.  I've never said this out loud, but how can I make people from such a capitalist paradigm as our see that Artwork is  a Conversation.   Paintings are doors into some other dimension, they are windows into story.   In the babble and preoccupation with money,  so many  voices are never  heard.

What wealth, if money was left outside the door like we leave our shoes outside the door so as not to soil the space........what wealth might be found in the creative language being spoken on the walls or streets  of many places, what dialogues might be shared about the  impulses from which they sprang?  And what riches might be unearthed in exactly such conversations among "realists of a larger reality" as sustenance, as "pollination", for those who are yet to come, for those who face a very uncertain future?  

Bill Moyers Blog praised Leguin in a 2014 post, noting that:

" In accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 2014  National Book Awards, eminent  writer Ursula Le Guin made a knock-out speech about the power of capitalism, literature and imagination that, as she put it afterwards, “went sort-of viral on YouTube.”  

On the same blog post is a video of Leguin giving her famous speech, as well as an 2000 interview Moyers did with Leguin about her 1971 book, The Lathe of Heaven, that became the most requested film ever in the PBS archives. The plot revolves around the main character’s dreams altering reality. 

Transcript of speech by Ursula K. Leguin:

I rejoice at accepting it for, and sharing it with, all the writers who were excluded from literature for so long, my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction—writers of the imagination, who for the last 50 years watched the beautiful rewards go to the so-called realists.

I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality.

Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. (Thank you, brave applauders.)

Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial; I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an ebook six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwa, and I see a lot of us, the producers who write the books, and make the books, accepting this. Letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish and what to write. (Well, I love you too, darling.)

Books, you know, they’re not just commodities. The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.

I have had a long career and a good one. In good company. Now here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want—and should demand—our fair share of the proceeds.

But the name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom."

Bruce Springsteen Speaks for America!

 

Speaking at a concert in the U.K,  he couldn't have been more clear.  I am so glad people like him are speaking out! We all need to not allow ourselves to be silenced.

 https://youtu.be/6ZHWIYHlXOs?si=PTcpRDPtkTsAyvBM

Before the Flood

Almost 10 years ago this important film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, came into the theatres, and then home video, and left, and was largely ignored.  Ten years before that the same thing happened to Al Gore's   An Inconvenient Truth  

Basically, nothing happened.  Now we have a "president" (and I put that in quotation marks because he is not behaving like a president, rather, he fancies himself a dictator.)......... who calls climate change "a Chinese hoax", and gleefully tells his billionaire supporters to "drill, drill, drill" while he, and they, willfully ignore the endangerment of the future for money.  If that isn't a deeply moral issue, I don't what is.   

I don't know what to write about in this blog these days, because, as an American, our country is in chaos, and as someone who cares about the environment, about Gaia..... I have a great deal of anger, and grief, and often feelings of helplessness in the face of the ignorance and greed that ignores, indeed, ridicules the profoundly important message in this film.

This post, with this film, was a draft from 2022.  Even I turned away from putting the links to it on my Blog.  It's time I share them, time I myself look at this film, and Al Gore's film, again.  Because it's important to know the truth, even if it's inconvenient.  

Before the Flood (Trailer)

2016  

From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Fisher Stevens and Academy Award-winning actor, and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio, BEFORE THE FLOOD presents a riveting account of the dramatic changes now occurring around the world due to climate change.  

BEFORE THE FLOOD aired in theaters, and globally on the National Geographic Channel, in 2016. 

 https://youtu.be/D9xFFyUOpXo

AND HERE IS THE FULL MOVIE:  

Rilke, Harold Fry, and Pilgrimage

I recently saw a movie based upon a book I read called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.  The book, by British author Rachel Joyce,  moved me greatly, by that I mean it provoked me, and then continues to linger in my memory, coming up like a line from a poem, or a "meme" in contemporary terms, here and there as I go about my daily (mostly) orderly life.  (At 75, being "orderly" becomes a true necessity for self preservation).  Appropriately, I bought the book in the bookstore at Heathrow Airport in London.

In encountering Harold Fry, one sees someone very ordinary, it seems.  He's an old man, very English, retired and sedate.  He lives with his wife of many years, and they barely speak any more - routine, it seems, is all they really share.  

Harold receives an unexpected letter, just a short note, from a co-worker he knew years ago.  She tells him that she is in a hospice in Scotland.  Harold  writes a brief letter of sympathy, very proper and short,  and decides to walk to the nearest post box to mail it.  Except, when he gets to the box, for some reason, he just keeps on going, without knowing why.  And just like that, her enters into his unlikely, unexpected, Pilgrimage to the landscapes of his memory, his heart, and the people he meets on the road.  

Perhaps, when I think of the novel, or the movie, I find myself envying Harold.  I often feel pulled away myself, as if the Camino  lies just over the hill, just around the block.  In my imagination, there is a trail calling, just under a cover of fallen leaves, a  parting in a forest somewhere that invites me to pick up my backpack and follow.    But.......... 

This poem by Rilke has often also come to mind. 

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, 

and keeps on walking,

because of a church

that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him

as if he were dead.

And another man, 

who remains inside his own house,

dies there, 

inside the dishes and in the glasses,

so that his children have to go far out into the world

toward that same church, 

which he forgot.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Robert Bly

Lake Tamarisk, Revisited - the Need for a Personal Oasis

 

 All those years

forgetting

how everything

has its own voice

to make itself heard.

All those years

forgetting

how easily

you can belong

to everything simply by listening.

David Whyte

From “The House of Belonging”

 

I just love this Post,  which I first posted in, I think, 2015.  In the early 2000's I was doing the Los Angeles Renaissance Faire,  and coming from Southern Arizona to Southern California I passed through a long, empty stretch of desert.  It was a difficult time for me, with many emotional and financial stresses, and I developed the habit of always stopping at Lake Tamarisk, an Oasis very literally in the middle of nowhere.  It became my personal Oasis, a place of rest, beauty, hydration, silence and renewal.  I think everyone needs such a place as we proceed on the caravanserai of our lives.  Lake Tamarisk was one of those places for me.  

I don't make that drive much any more, but I remember Lake Tamarisk like a mirage in my imagination.  Me, sitting on a bench, watching the sun go down in the middle of no-where and no-when,  observing birds, water, air, letting it all speak to me.  

Today is, as they say, the first day of the rest of your life.  Here's a little story about an Oasis I found. 

 

LAKE   TAMARISK 

On my way to and from  Los Angeles, in the very middle of the California desert between Blythe and Indio,  is a mostly abandoned town called Desert Center. A sad circle of dead palm trees on the side of the highway attest to better days.   Desert Center once hosted General Patton's army training corps during World War II, and it has remnants of that time, mostly abandoned, when it was a place of lively business.  

I'm old enough to remember when the old diner was still in operation, if very dilapidated.  I used to like to stop for some not very good soup so I could sit at the counter and imagine the  soldiers  sitting there on stools at the counter  in prosperous times, maybe big band music playing on a radio while cooks fried eggs and potatoes.  But now it's just boarded up, and has been for a decade, and dust blows through the remains of every structure there, except, surprisingly, the post office - which suggests the presence of life and commerce somewhere, hidden away in the seemingly barren  recesses of Desert Center,  California.


However, the ghostly town of Desert Center is not what I write about............actually, as I sit here in a coffee shop in Los Angeles, having traversed the desert, enduring now  the ubiquitous sound of pounding rock and roll in the background (why is silence  seemingly so terrifying to people now,  even at 6:30 in the morning?  Why does it seem that  people no longer seem  able to eat, drink, shop, walk, or even  talk with each other without a  pulsing backdrop of  guitars and drums or screaming singers proclaiming their lust?).........ah.

The vast cacophony of the 21st Century, in which Silence is frightening.  

Yes.  What I  reflect on is actually a strange oasis some 15 miles from Desert Center's ruins called Lake Tamarisk. 

I first discovered it when I noticed, driving on the interstate at night, a circle of lights past Desert Center.  On a whim,  I decided to investigate.  What on earth is that, I wondered, in the middle of no where?  What I found was a lake reflecting the moon,  lawns with the tinkle of sprinklers, a wading white crane, and Silence surrounded by the dark mystery of the desert.  

So ever since I've stopped for an hour or two at Lake Tamarisk  as I've made that long trek to L.A.   Like the movie Pleasantville, it seems to me sometimes  that Lake Tamarisk is a kind of mirage, suspended in time.  That someday I'll look for it and it will have simply disappeared without a trace.

It seems to me as well that it's always about 1970 there, or maybe 1960,   when the little town was  built to house the Kaiser mine workers and their families.     I don't know if it has always been surrounded with lawns for golfing, but its little man-made lake reflects the colors of the desert, and birds float on its placid surface, and it derives its name from that.  

There is no store, no gas station, no restaurant there, and for such amenities  one must go some 50 miles.  But  there is a fire department and a community center and a little library.  They are always closed when I get there, the deck chairs stacked, the barbecues padlocked.  

I'm always there in late  spring or summer, when the winter people have left, and Silence is  what greets me in the empty parking lot beside the always closed community center.  Along with the occasional call of la Paloma, the desert  dove,  wind in palm trees, distant sprinklers and perhaps  a duck on the lake.  In all my rituals of visiting Lake Tamarisk,  I've never heard the sound of  a human voice, although clearly there are people who live there all year.  I've  walked around the lake,  never meeting a soul, and walking to the  edge of the grass or the paved walkway I  marvel at the way everything simply ENDS.  Take a step further, and you are in the vastness of empty desert.

There is a  swimming pool  that looks exactly like every swimming pool I remember from my Southern California childhood, complete with round metal tables and a  snack bar with rusty signs proclaiming Coca Cola! .........but it's usually empty, the gate locked.  I  have only seen it filled once, but no one was there..........still, it is not just a mirage, if it is sometimes full of water. 

I always find myself standing at the gate to the pool, and I can almost hear the faint sounds of  people drinking cokes and eating hot dogs.  Men in swimming trunks, women with one piece bathing suits, kids splashing and  bouncing on inflated inner tubes.  Girls in polka dot bathing caps with hula hoops.   I always feel a bit sad at such moments, as if they will all appear after I leave, when the sun goes down maybe. 

And I'm not invited any more, because somehow, I grew up.......

But what I do breath in, enroute and returning, is the Silence I find at that strange little Oasis.  An Oasis, for me, not just in space, here in the desert, but in Time as well.   A place of Silence.    Silence to hear the sounds of the desert, the wind, the here and now of nature.  Silence to relax into, silence with room for gratitude, silence enough  to hear the sounds of sweet memory and the bittersweet voices of ghosts as well.  

Silence out of time.  

"Poets live with silence: 

the silence before the poem; 

the silence whence the poem comes; 

the silence in between the words,

as you drink the words, 

watch them glide through your mind, 

feel them slide down your throat

towards your heart 

the silence which you share with the poet

when the poem ends, sitting side by side"

.....Michael Shepard

Jung in Bali

 JUNG  IN  BALI, INDONESIA

There do not appear to be any listings for Jungian analysts or practitioners  currently residing and working in Bali, Indonesia I am sorry to say, although there do seem to be psychological/healing groups that occasionally  include some Jungian based psychologists that come to Bali from the United States to offer retreats.

However:

There are some fascinating  similarities between Jungian thought and the yin-yang/ Sekala/Niskala philosophy of Bali. Both perspectives explore the interplay of opposites and the balance required for harmony. Here are some key points of comparison:

Jung proposed that there are universal archetypes and a collective unconscious shared by all humans.  These archetypes often involve dualities, such as the Anima/Animus (feminine/masculine aspects within each person), and the Shadow (the hidden or repressed parts of the psyche). Jung emphasized the process of individuation, where an individual integrates these opposing forces within the psyche to achieve wholeness. This, of course,  involves acknowledging and reconciling these internal opposites.

Sekala/Niskala is often called the philosophy of the Visible and Invisible Realms.  Sekala refers to the tangible, visible world, while Niskala refers to the intangible, spiritual world.  The Balinese believe that true understanding and harmony come from acknowledging and balancing both realms.  Just like the yin-yang concept, Sekala/Niskala emphasizes the balance of opposites.

Rituals and daily practices in Bali aim to maintain harmony between these visible and invisible worlds, something that is often confusing to Westerners.  For example, the Balinese on an auspicious day may celebrate, with beautiful flower sculptures and music, a benign Goddess or God, such as Saraswati, Goddess of language, music, and learning.  A week later, they may have an elaborate ritual, with imposing and complicated sculptures made of meat, dedicated to appeasing a particular Demon. 

Duality and Balance is the essence of the system, achieving a continual “moving point of balance”, the need to balance opposing forces to achieve harmony and wholeness. Balinese altar clothes, as well as sarongs often worn to Temple, consist of a black and white checkerboard fabric, further illustrating this yin/yang movement. ,

For example, the yearly (masked) Balinese drama of the battle between Barong and Rangda is a central element of Balinese culture and spirituality, rich with symbolic meanings that reflect the island's deep-rooted beliefs in duality and balance.

Barong is a mythical creature that symbolizes good, protection, and order. Often depicted as a lion-like creature, Barong is considered a guardian spirit. He represents positive forces and is often seen as a protector of villages against evil spirits and chaos. Rangda, on the other hand, is a fearsome witch who symbolizes evil, destruction, and disorder. She is often portrayed with a terrifying appearance, reflecting her role as a malevolent force, and she is often said to reside in graveyards.

The drama typically involves a battle between the two, symbolizing the eternal struggle between good and evil. This conflict is not just a physical battle but a spiritual and cosmic one.  The battle signifies the Balinese belief in the necessity of balance between opposing forces. This aligns with the concept of Sekala (the seen, material world) and Niskala (the unseen, spiritual world).  The performance is often part of larger religious ceremonies aimed at purifying the village and protecting it from evil spirits. It serves to cleanse the community and restore harmony.  The drama can be seen as a ritual enactment of maintaining cosmic balance and seeking divine intervention in everyday life.  Interestingly, at the end of the battle Barong and Rangda are not killed, but rather leave, to return again at some other time.  Furthermore, in some traditions, Rangda transforms (like Kali) into the beautiful Goddess Uma, wife of Shiva, and returns to the divine realms. 

Jungian individuation and the Sekala/Niskala balance both stress the integration of different aspects of existence (inner/outer, visible/invisible).  Both perspectives encourage a holistic view of life.

They differ in a number of ways, however.  Jungian thought is rooted in Western psychology and philosophy, whereas Sekala/Niskala is deeply embedded in Balinese Hinduism and cultural practices.  Jungian thought often involves introspection and psychological therapy, whereas Sekala/Niskala is practiced through rituals, offerings,  community activities, and daily life in Bali.  But in essence,  both Jungian thought and the Sekala/Niskala philosophy of Bali offer rich frameworks for understanding the complexity of human experience through the interplay and balance of opposites.

 

https://biblio.ie/book/bali-sekala-niskala-two-volumes-vol/d/1397225470

Bali: Sekala & Niskala: Essays on Religion, Ritual, and Art 

by Fred B. Eiseman Jr. (Author)

"Sophia Speaks" by The Veil (2002)

Here is something that came to my mind today.  "Sophia Speaks" by The Veil.  I first heard this piece when I was living in the Bay Area, and creating a ritual theatre piece at the Black Box Theatre in Oakland in 2003.  We used it in the Performance, and the Performance was created in part to ask for Peace, on the advent of the invasion of Iraq.  

The Veil draws on ancient mythic texts (Nag Hammadi Gospels?) from early Gnostic Christianity, when "God had a Wife, and Her Name was Sophia".  The Sophia was very important in the early days of Christianity - the great Basilica of Istanbul was named for Her,  "Hagia Sophia", Holy Sophia.  

 https://youtu.be/8Cy0AKVkMKM?si=Eka6Ow1YziOJaaVv

The Veil

Mark Ungar and Deirdre McCarthy had spent years exploring  Irish and English folk music. In The Veil, They decided to pursue a project in which music suitable for  ritual would be created. Margarita Kovats brings her  prophetic writing skills to the mix and a mesmeric, evocative narrative voice to the recordings. Scott Irwin lends his expertise on drum, and Cat Taylor adds her sinuous electric violin.