I enjoyed reading this Matt, thx! I was trying to show my painting in the comments here but don’t see how, so I posted a new note if you want to check it out
Yum!! Of all the Substack subscriptions that landed in my in box this past few days, yours was one of 3 I didn’t automatically erase. I love this. “that primal dyad of self plus world, forever revealing and concealing the real in a projected dream of duality where the truth (of us, the world, everything) both lies behind and beyond the appearance and stands embodied and embedded in and as it.”
I was dipping into Bill Plotkin’s work, do you know it? Wild Mind, Mature and the Human Soul? Most notably doing research for the energies of Fall, West quarter of the year’s wheel, and leaning into the stage of life I am leaving, that Bill call’s the Well Spring. He names the West quadrant of the four-fold self the Dark-Muse and your wording in this piece reverberated with familiarity.
In my work with deep nature connection and mythopoetics, this notion of an ever emergent connection and communication between the so called real world, and all that is shimmering at its edges, or stirring from its depths just beyond the common senses is understood to be very normal. I haven’t studied surrealism as an art form or cultural / philosophical expression before and so this is my first time considering it as part of this Deamon-Dreaming process.
I wonder what you think of our roles as creative creatures and the brink of all this magical perception in the age of ai.
I'm glad this post resonated wit you, Belinda. And I appreciate the recommendation for Plotkin's work, which I'm not familiar with. I'll definitely look it up. It sounds like your own work is quite resonant as well.
Regarding all of this in connection with the age of AI, my current hunch or suspicion is that AI will unfold new and previously unsuspected or only dimly intuited levels, and that this will come as a challenge on several front. One challenge will be for us maintain our center, our core of fidelity to what's real about ourselves and the world, without selling our souls to the technology's ersatz road of least resistance. Another will be the challenge that the very existence of generative AI presents to our definitions of mind, self, and intelligence, thus impacting our self-understanding -- something that people like Robert Saltzman have already been interrogating with considerable acumen.
the darkening of tone, brings heightened contrast, the visibility of the stars, and self recognition through direct sensing/knowing, of elements overlooked unseen in sunlight, participatory elements always there from the first. Right now as we navigate eclipse season we’re experiencing the suspense, turmoil that can be felt when the orderly light/dark iteration is suspended. On planet Earth emergency brings forth recognition of process: the emptying, cleansing, seeding, refueling of creative life!
I think synchronicities are an expression of the same dream logic that underpins the surrealist project. Consider the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that happened last year, triggered by a collision with a container ship named after Salvador Dali. The image of the collapse evoked comparisons to Dali's 1945 painting 'The Broken Bridge and the Dream,' and it occurred at a moment when the ideals represented by the American national anthem (of which Key was the author) seem to be crumbling in real time.
There is also an astrological through-line to this particular event that involves the cyclical alignments of Venus (the artist) and Neptune (the dreamer), another layer of the synchronistic dream logic that pervades all experience.
I enjoyed reading this Matt, thx! I was trying to show my painting in the comments here but don’t see how, so I posted a new note if you want to check it out
Yum!! Of all the Substack subscriptions that landed in my in box this past few days, yours was one of 3 I didn’t automatically erase. I love this. “that primal dyad of self plus world, forever revealing and concealing the real in a projected dream of duality where the truth (of us, the world, everything) both lies behind and beyond the appearance and stands embodied and embedded in and as it.”
I was dipping into Bill Plotkin’s work, do you know it? Wild Mind, Mature and the Human Soul? Most notably doing research for the energies of Fall, West quarter of the year’s wheel, and leaning into the stage of life I am leaving, that Bill call’s the Well Spring. He names the West quadrant of the four-fold self the Dark-Muse and your wording in this piece reverberated with familiarity.
In my work with deep nature connection and mythopoetics, this notion of an ever emergent connection and communication between the so called real world, and all that is shimmering at its edges, or stirring from its depths just beyond the common senses is understood to be very normal. I haven’t studied surrealism as an art form or cultural / philosophical expression before and so this is my first time considering it as part of this Deamon-Dreaming process.
I wonder what you think of our roles as creative creatures and the brink of all this magical perception in the age of ai.
I'm glad this post resonated wit you, Belinda. And I appreciate the recommendation for Plotkin's work, which I'm not familiar with. I'll definitely look it up. It sounds like your own work is quite resonant as well.
Regarding all of this in connection with the age of AI, my current hunch or suspicion is that AI will unfold new and previously unsuspected or only dimly intuited levels, and that this will come as a challenge on several front. One challenge will be for us maintain our center, our core of fidelity to what's real about ourselves and the world, without selling our souls to the technology's ersatz road of least resistance. Another will be the challenge that the very existence of generative AI presents to our definitions of mind, self, and intelligence, thus impacting our self-understanding -- something that people like Robert Saltzman have already been interrogating with considerable acumen.
the darkening of tone, brings heightened contrast, the visibility of the stars, and self recognition through direct sensing/knowing, of elements overlooked unseen in sunlight, participatory elements always there from the first. Right now as we navigate eclipse season we’re experiencing the suspense, turmoil that can be felt when the orderly light/dark iteration is suspended. On planet Earth emergency brings forth recognition of process: the emptying, cleansing, seeding, refueling of creative life!
Thank you, Nancy.
Beautiful writing! Thank you.
Thank you, John!
Thanks for this interesting piece, Matt.
I think synchronicities are an expression of the same dream logic that underpins the surrealist project. Consider the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that happened last year, triggered by a collision with a container ship named after Salvador Dali. The image of the collapse evoked comparisons to Dali's 1945 painting 'The Broken Bridge and the Dream,' and it occurred at a moment when the ideals represented by the American national anthem (of which Key was the author) seem to be crumbling in real time.
There is also an astrological through-line to this particular event that involves the cyclical alignments of Venus (the artist) and Neptune (the dreamer), another layer of the synchronistic dream logic that pervades all experience.
Fascinating observations and connections, Robert. Thank you.