Entry 98

Written 11:30am, 16 June 2020 Tuesday:

I’m in a Yace or Chapa (what people call a minivan used for public transportation in Cabo Verde and Mozambique respectively). It gets full of passengers. There’s this CV or Moz woman across me who comments about how my hands are dirty. I’m sure I understand her. I thought about telling her I’m a professor, translating the words in my head, but then corrected myself: Fui (I was) um professor na Uni-CV. Ensinei ingles. I thought, maybe she meant my feet are dirty because I like to walk barefoot on the beach. I didn’t know how to say “barefoot” in Portuguese, but thought “sem sapatos.”

Then I’m walking through the backyard of a big white house. My family’s house is just next door, but I have to walk through the neighbor’s backyard first before getting to our house. The tree-lined walkway was obscured by some branches, and as I held on to one, it broke off. I didn’t want to just leave it there, so I take it with me. The neighbors were having a bbq, the dad grilling, the mom with a baby on her hip. There’s an older daughter, maybe, in the house or just getting out of the glass-sliding doors. The end of the broken branch I was holding had a piece of broken-off cement attached. I pulled off this cement part, left it at the end or bottom of the walkway. As I pass by the family I tell the dad I broke the branch off and didn’t want to just leave it there like rubbish. The dad said, “Thanks, buddy.”

Entry 97

Written 12:45pm Sunday, 14 June 2020:

I’m in some motel room putting stuff in my backpack. There’s a train of people walking through; they’re ready to go with their backpacks, but I’m still packing. I’m trying to pack detergent, one box almost empty is for machine washing, another box, still pretty full, is for hand washing laundry. A camino woman — steps out of the queue walking through the room, jokes about how I’m still not ready, offers to help. I tell her she can take the hand-washing laundry detergent, she declines. I decide to put the machine-wash detergent into the hand-wash detergent box which doesn’t close, so I worried it would spill inside the backpack, so I wrap it in clear plastic. When I was about to stuff it in the pack I see it’s almost full because there’s another backpack inside. I flatten the detergent box wrapped in plastic and try to stuff it behind the packed backpack. . . And then I see I’ve got another bigger backpack sitting on the floor, my REI pack. I started to doubt I can finish packing in time, started to realize I need to leave a bunch of things behind. I see there’s a woman that’s just joining the train of people. I thought I knew her but could only see her back and somewhat long black hair.

Entry 96

Written 11 June 2020, Thursday 12:47pm:

Driving across a bridge, with my parents, I’m on the passenger side next to the driver, my dad. We’re on some kind of road trip, traveling to . . . Nicaragua, came to mind in the dream, but when I tried to think of where we are on a map, I couldn’t. I thought we were in the southeast of the U.S. crossing a bridge in Florida to the Keys. Towards the end of the bridge as we get closer to the mainland the road is canopied by these large, leafy green trees with enormous white rose flowers. Only a few flowers remain, most have fallen off or been picked. . . After the canopy of trees we reach a clearing, then the bridge turns towards a forest city. I was thrilled to be arriving there, excited to explore. . . Then the perspective changes to a view of a map, and I see the lines of roads we would be or are currently going through.

A letter to This Jungian Life Podcast

In the introduction to this blog, I say that the podcast “This Jungian Life” inspired the chronicling of my dreams. The pod has also been a source of comfort and insight both in the time of corona, and even before the pandemic. However, their episode last week entitled “Riots: When the Collective Catches Fire” is not something I would recommend. I felt compelled to write them a letter, an email which I’ve copy-pasted below in this post. I’ve yet to look back at my dreams to see if/how my unconscious has been processing current events, but below is my conscious attempt at critiquing white analysis of the protests.

Critique on Episode 114 – Riots: When the Collective Catches Fire (email sent 05 June 2020)

Dear Ms. Marchiano, Ms. Stewart, and Mr. Lee:

First, let me say I’m a regular listener and fan of your podcast. It has been a source of solace not only during this time of crisis, but also even before the pandemic. For the most part alone (I’m a Filipino-American immigrant/expat living in southern Portugal), I look forward to your episodes weekly as they offer insight and wisdom, as well as community. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been both touched by your words, and felt included in your conversations as friends, projections though this may be.

This is the first time ever I’m sending out an email to comment on an episode. Actually, yours is the first and only podcast I’ve ever reached out to–I listen to a number of pods, one of which, by the way, is also NYT’s “The Daily,” Mr. Lee. I’ve decided to write up this email because something about this week’s episode was just off for me; it resonated, and then it didn’t, so I hope to clarify that here.

I understood by the title and with Mr. Lee’s introduction that the focus is to be on the riots, through a Jungian lens. With this lens the conversation is to put aside politics: even though “social justice” voices from your backgrounds and training clamor, you want to elevate archetypal patterns, to move beyond the concrete tumult, to sublimate it and see the transpersonal, which may then offer some relief and refuge from the chaos.

I think it’s this focus or maybe the framing that is off here, at least for me. I was thrown off by Ms. Marchiano’s statement that “it’s easy to get swept up, to identify with the voices experiencing pain and rage, and that’s important and somehow it can lead to one-sidedness.” Are you saying that the protests and peaceful demonstrations are one-sided with the rioters?

I think the conflation of peaceful protesters with the agitators becomes more apparent when Ms. Marchiano says “while I so resonate with the moral outrage that protestors are feeling, the acts of violence when I see the footage of it, it’s like what is the remedy being sought. . . ?” You all seem in agreement that the “telos” or forward movement of the protesters offers no remedy, or that they offer no “telos” at all. But I think they do. I speak as one who is not demonstrating (I hope this is no hyprocrisy), but from what I’ve read in news reports both from the U.S. and here in Europe, protesters are clear in their demand for the arrest and prosecution of the officers involved, as well as the defunding and demilitarization of the police.

The protesters, I think, are not the agitators who, mostly under cover of night, take advantage of the unrest. The agitators’ “telos” is easy to discern: it is anarchy, destruction, looting. I take your point that rage can infect and ignite more easily and rapidly in crowds. But I also want to add that many of the protesters during the day, before curfew, are with families and children. They are not the “berserker” agitators. The “berserker” image for me is not of these protesters but of the police officer that pepper-sprays a child, or the police car ramming into crowds, or the military in D.C. tear-gassing peaceful demonstrators during this pandemic of a virus that attacks our lungs.

The episode also made me wonder who your perceived or intended audience is. It seems on the one hand you are speaking to the rioters, asking they self-reflect, and sit with their feelings before taking their rage out on the streets. On the other, you’re speaking to listeners like me who are feeling the anguish and the helplessness, the anger and the fear, yet are not contributing to the chaos, but are taking walks, journaling, and writing emails like this. I appreciate your reminding us to humanize the rioters; it’s just that the emphasis on them without much discussion on the police brutality prior to the riots felt too vast and empty a gap for me.

The framing and emphasis of the episode on rioters, I believe, actually shifts the conversation away from what protesters have been demanding, projecting unto them a monolithic mass that is reactionary, not self-reflective, not responsive, not responsible. There’s validity in discussing the mob mentality of the rioters, to be sure. And I appreciate the contrasting example of the Atlanta mayor who with wisdom was able to speak to and resonate with protesters. But what I don’t understand is, in referring to the individual “mass man,” with his fanaticism and divisiveness, there’s no reference at all to the U.S. president. I’m sure you’d agree that he’s probably the most powerfully divisive, populist strong-man, with the biggest bullhorn but without much wisdom nor compassion. Here I come back to the premise that the episode is supposed to put aside politics, and I don’t think this is at all tenable. I realize, too, that the episode has avoided the mention of race except once, and wonder if the whole discussion on riots is supposed to be devoid of race in our minds? Why not address the president’s characterization of the protesters as “thugs” that must be shot when looting?

I do not believe you all see property as more valuable than people. I’ve listened to almost all of your episodes, and will keep on listening for your wisdom and humor, the compassion in your voices. I’m just engaging with the episode in the best way I know how, in a creative way, I hope, not reactive. I actually listened to the episode twice, drafted this email last night, but only now deciding to send it out. . .

I’m not sure about the concluding connection between the murders of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and George Floyd. Yes, both Caesar and Floyd were murdered. But I believe one was intended as an “honor” killing of a powerful dictator by fellow politicians, the other was of a man whose people have been demanding greater political power since slavery, and has inherited generations of bigotry and discrimination. I can see the “havoc” that the rioters have caused, but Antony’s “dogs of war” resonates more with the president than with rioters.

I appreciate the acknowledgement that we’re all holding an enormous amount of tension, that we can’t underestimate the suffering with the rate of unemployment reaching Depression levels. I remember episode 87, “The Racial Complex with Dr. Fanny Brewster,” in which you discuss that the inner work is to lift up our racial complexes into consciousness, to be more self-reflective so that we may act with greater agency and choice. I would appreciate hearing Dr. Brewster’s take on the riots, if possible.

I relate to the image of heartache and sorrow, of tears. Like many, I find myself weeping almost everyday, like yesterday, when I first listened to the episode and Ms. Marchiano spoke of love as connection with the soul. . . I’ve lost an image of love in the course of lockdown, and am still learning to accept that she will never return. I also thought I heard Ms. Stewart’s voice break a couple of times, which didn’t help in holding back the tears. This image of tears moved me, mirrored me, and, while it’s hard to bear, it’s also keeping me from raging. I think it keeps me real, so I thank you all for it. Then on the second listen, the mention of tears summoning the angel brought up for me an image of mothers and fathers who have lost their children to police brutality, yet I don’t know if they would say angels have come for them. . .

Other images mentioned in the episode about the embracing police and protester, or the police down on one knee in solidarity with protesters are also medicinal. But the comment on them becoming viral on the internet made me think these images may be easily co-opted. They may become empty images, or worse, like the president’s posing with the bible, a fabrication of the establishment of trust between authority and people.

I appreciate the exercise of naming my feelings, specifying them so that I may manage or self-regulate better. I appreciate the acknowledgment that you all were hypothesizing, not speaking from certainty, and also the mention of Buddhist meditation on the archetypal frame of creating, sustaining and dissolving. I’m not a Buddhist, but I can see how this meditation practice, accepting the cycle of “natural suffering and occasional joy” can temper my anxieties and fear for my family in the states, as well as my disappointment of dashed plans for this year.

I hope my critique here is constructive. If it is unfair or unjustified, I remain open to correspondences. I really do sincerely appreciate and respect your work.

Yours truly,

Entry 95

Written 9:17am, 06 June 2020, Saturday:

I’ve entered a bedroom, dimly lit. There’s the woman from “Altered Carbon,” Quell. She’s wearing this bright purple-white swirl tight shorts and top, and lying o the side of the bed. I lie close to her, kiss her on the neck. She says to me something like, you may need a breath-mint. I took that not as a rebuff, just got up and was gonna go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, but then she held me, or took my hand. It’s hazy, and then we’re in the bathroom. She’s on all fours and I’m behind her. I make some sort of sound, a heaving grunt, then I try to take off her tight shorts. She helps me pulling it down, and she also makes a sound, like of discomfort as she pulls down her shorts because they were too tight.

Entry 94

Written 9:43am, 04 June 2020, Thursday:

Was at some supermarket at first, I think. A hazy beginning. Already picked up, or sensed my cart was full when I get a call from my sister-in-law’s sister’s father-in-law. . . In other words, S-‘s father-in-law, whose name I don’t remember, nor do I remember her husband’s. Anyway, I recognized it was him and he was calling about his son, also about his concerns for not being able to visit him, mentioning his sense of abandonment. I told him something like it’s good that he called, and by this time I’m in a car driving. I continued saying that my brother and I had the same issues. If I could relate and not take away the focus from his son, we also experienced abandonment, our mom worked abroad for 10 years, visiting us once a year for a month each visit, but mainly it was just us and our dad, along with a housekeeper. I’m sure this is something we’d have to talk about in therapy someday, but yeah, when you mentioned abandonment, I know I could relate and take the time to talk, I told him. It’s something we all gotta unpack. We all love our moms, but this abandonment is part of our emotional baggage. Our history we need to work through and talk about so you can call any time. He thanked me and was quiet for a while. I think he was processing what I said. I pulled out an almond from a bag of groceries in the back of the car. The almond was crooked and brown. Popped it in my mouth, and I remember it tasted delicious, but hard to describe the flavor. It was like how a red-blue flame might taste like, hot but not burning sweetness. . .

Entry 93

Written 11:05am, 03 June 2020, Wednesday:

At a gym locker room looking through, maybe, the perspective of –. The manager of the gym had her locker opened and was telling — that she’s banned from the gym because they found drugs in her locker. She appears indifferent, unmoved. There’s a big ziplock bag full of pills under a book or a laptop. She knows they’re not really hers per se; she was just supposed to give it to someone else after gym workout. Another woman, –‘s friend standing to her left unseen, tells the manager the drugs are actually hers, not –‘s, and that she put it in –‘s locker so she wouldn’t get caught. There’s no logic to this outside the dream, but I guess it made sense inside. — then approaches (or I see from her perspective that she approaches) the locker and tells the manager something to the effect that she would sue the gym for libel or slander, accusing her of something when the real perpetrator is right there to her left. . . Again this doesn’t make sense in waking life. Maybe she said she’d sue them for invasion of privacy, opening her locker without consent and warrant, but this is me trying to make sense of it awake from the dream a day later, posting on this blog. — pulls out her light green fleece sweater. The bottom wrist ends of the sleeves look like they’ve been branded burnt black with grill marks.

Entry 92

Written at 8:12am, 02 June 2020, Tuesday:

I’m at a cafeteria, grabbing a loaf of bread, but it’s not really a loaf, it’s flat like one long slice of bread. It’s cinnamon and raisin and looks so fresh and good, I admire it’s little nooks and moistness. Then Ross and Jennifer Aniston (from the series “Friends”) come in. Or Aniston came in first to get bread, then Ross. When she saw him, she said something to him, singing like it was a musical show. She said something like I thought it was you, or I was expecting you. He replied singing, That’s what I used to be. Or something like that, in a tune, the conversation in verse singing at each other. I come close to hear. Their voices were terrible, but the lyrics in the songs were very interesting. It was supposed to be funny, but I was more interested than laughing.

Entry 91

Written 30 May 2020, 10:30am, Saturday:

Driving around we arrive at a sort of ranch house, not fancy but well-lived in. I think there’s a small garden patch outside. I walk up to the house, there’s something I need , looking for a phone maybe, or something connected to my phone, I don’t know. The door is open, but I see no one inside. I go into the living room. I assume people are sleeping in the bedroom, but I don’t go there to my right. I walk around the couch or daybed in the middle of the living room. The place is a little messy, like as if there was just a party, but it wasn’t dirty or trashed, like the party was a child’s. There’s a balloon tied to the back of a chair in the dining area. Having walked around, I go back out, stand out by the door and call out, or make myself heard, knock of the door. There’s a baby I see now sleeping on the daybed. It’s woken up and got out, walked towards me. I was surprised it wasn’t afraid of me, a stranger. I waited outside so when the baby’s parents come out they won’t be frightened. The baby seemed to be saying something, communicating something to me I couldn’t understand.

Entry 90

Written 24 May 2020 at 10:02am, Sunday:

Walking downhill, down a street. To my right I go into a cabin/motel room. I stash my bag inside. I go back out to keep exploring, walking downhill. At the bottom I see lots of buildings, windows with balconies protruding like bridges to the open air. There were two women on bikes at an intersection where we were stopped. They ask me, “Were you gonna try –?” I couldn’t make out the last thing they said. It was something local I didn’t know. I think I said no, not sure. They bike off laughing silently. I hike back up the hill. The door to my room was ajar, I don’t remember locking it, but I sensed I’d been robbed. My bag was pulled out from under the bed (I don’t remember putting it under the bed, though). My wallet was missing some cash. I tell the hotel manager or my dad who is suddenly there. I empty my bag to see if the rest of my money is still there–I had left cash in different parts of the bag, spreading it so it’s not in one place. Then I wonder why they didn’t steal the whole bag in the first place. I keep pulling money out from different pockets. I estimate about 400 gone out of a thousand. My dad said he wanted to go. I said I rented the place for a night already paid and there’s two beds.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started