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October 22 ’24
We see the jack-o’-lantern first. A little orange dot floating in a field of gray — maybe 100 yards off in the early, marine dusk. After cutting the engine we tilt it out of the water and lock it, gliding quietly toward the red-yellow dot. From out of the puddle in the bilge we grab the large oar and stand up; nearly every time we do this (which is often) we think of Charon the ferryman who transports dead souls across the river Styx. Sometimes the thought makes us smile; sometimes it gives a shiver. Today we shiver, not due to anything morbid but because the air is cold and the wood of the oar is soaked through.
* * *
It’d be difficult to be more excited about arriving at the little wetland house on stilts. The one ahead with the pot belly stove, in front of which our clothes have been drying all day. Warm socks. Warm jumper. The last half of a pumpkin pie.
* * *
With a pleasant, dense thud, the boat knocks against the piling. We maneuver through the stilts and tie to the large brass cleat. There is a ladder which we climb which leads to a hatch in the floor. Inside: a twin bed, a small table and chair (which have been painted seemingly thousands of times), a cooler, the small black pot belly stove and cabinet — above which is pinned a very creased photo of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. There are a few more things not worth mentioning.
* * *
We quickly change out of our clothes, replacing them with the ones on the drying line. We cut a slice of the pie from under a blue handkerchief, and place it on a similar blue napkin and walk outside. We sit on the solitary chair on the narrow deck and make a tacit apology to the flickering jack-o’-lantern for eating its friends. The only sound besides our thoughts are the sounds of the boat knocking below and an occasional far off bell clanging somewhere in the darkening mist.
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There is an easy puckish pinging between these two types of interior spaces in the work of designer/artist Chris Fusaro.
As well, his work strikes that weird note familiar to more expressive furniture designers: a chair is not a chair but it’s also a chair.
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Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
57. The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind)
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- A reconnection to the concealed, inviolable, innocent strength of this world must be established.
- Make a pilgrimage to a personage, place or scenario of greatness.
- To achieve a good and serious goal, one’s conduct should not be glamorous, scattered or scheming, but always striving to be genuine (it is a continual journey not an arrival).
* * *
From “M.S.”: We are very tired of the world, life, other people and ourself — we would appreciate any advice as what to do? To be a bit specific, we are tired of learning about dead children (both in war and generally). We’re tired of thinking “where is all this headed?” every second of the day. We’re tired of news people and tired of the endless stupidity of the unproductive negative “discourse” they create. We are tired of the expensive (both environmentally and financially) imbedded obsolesces of technological hardware (phones, laptops, cords, etc.) and tired of the executives who pretend they don’t implement these transcendentally wicked blights. We are tired of our love of processed foods and tired of thinking about the deadly cell growth that it may cause. We’re tired of the gossip parading as philosophy. We are tired of our own infinite bad habits. We are tired of the constant middling to severe hatred of our own body. We are tired of everyone’s insane confidence in their perspectives. We are tired of all the urges and memories. We’re tired of not being able to get our true projects off the ground. We’re tired of the death of books (because of what that death really means — namely the death of humans being able to think improvisationally and the subsequent ability of corporations to be able to turn human heads into a network of unthinking actual corporate nodes). We’re tired of the sanctimony of the Right. We’re tired of the sanctimony of the Left. We are tired of porn and all of the sad soul crushing spokes that radiate out from it (tired of the people who say its amoral and tired of the people who rationalize it). We’re tired of the steady replacement of good mornings and hellos with something akin to either blank paranoia or legitimized easy avoidance (the foolish thought that we’ve entered a new era of independence where quotidian kindness is somehow unnecessary). We’re tired of thinking about what people are going to do if Harris wins. We’re tired of thinking about what people are going to do if Trump wins. We’re tired of the fake stories we tell ourself to make sense of a story-less universe (the endless single perspective anthropomorphism). We’re tired of feeling like we’re stuck in a perpetual home room world right before a school shooting (or the week after). Tired of people mostly only taking on easy targets. Tired of that grotesque thing in everyone’s hand. Tired of people being told to love themselves but it really being a trick by businesses and governments to get everyone to consume more. Tired of the hoards of Facebook vampires, Instagram vampires, YouTube vampires, X vampires, TikTok vampires, Twitch vampires, Snapchat vampires, LinkedIn vampires, Reddit vampires, Discord vampires, WhatsApp vampires, and their hoards of stupid familiars. Tired of our own complaining and its closed reverberations and shrill feedback. Tired of the fake battle between tradition and newness (they’re really inseparable, inter-defining and indistinguishable).
We know “the race begins when you’re tired,” etc. and we know that many situations are far worse than our own but... 🤷♀️
(Surprisingly we’re not tired of scenarios like wind blowing through the leaves of trees in defunct and forgotten parking lots...)
* * *
“The soul’s weariness is the precursor to its renewal.”
It seems you must get away and go somewhere un-networked; a place beyond where you only see manifest corporate/profit intrusion. It may take a moment to figure this out. But it can’t just be a purchase of a ticket to a magnificent landscape or whatever, it must be a real attempt to get beyond your “understandings” — maybe it’s not a physical place at all. Perhaps it’s meditation (likely at least part of it). It might be the reading of a significant book from cover to cover without apology. Maybe it’s death.
You must reconnect with the truth of not knowing. Fatigue and belief are inextricably linked. You must break apart the weariness of your calcified knowledge and be “shaken by awe in the face of eternity.“
It is a world of opinions only on the surface. Try to unveil the inviolable, innocent strength that pulses through all things in this world whether processed foods, the clothes journalists wear, the patterns of thoughts in your head, or the patterns of currents in the oceans.
Perhaps you should strive to see all things in the manner in which you see the “wind blowing through the leaves of trees in defunct and forgotten parking lots.” That definitely seems a good start.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled Power card (reversed). A connection to the concealed, inviolable, innocent strength of this world has been severed. One’s proper/healthy function is at risk without its restoration (or, at least, without the journey towards its restoration).
Our first hexagram this week is 59, Dispersion (Dissolution). “When a person’s vital energy is dammed up within them… gentleness serves to break up and dissolve the blockage.” “Here the subject is the dispersing and dissolving of divisive egotism.” “Through hardness and selfishness the heart grows rigid, and this rigidity leads to separation from all others. Egotism and cupidity isolate people. Therefore the hearts of people must be seized by a devout emotion… must be shaken by awe in face of eternity.” The point here is the dissolving of barriers, of rigidity. A dissolution that reconstitutes the individual with the all else — like joining, melding. That is, to break apart a biased clinging, so as to let in a kind of humble but deep, appreciation of the cosmos of self as well as the outer cosmos. This likely will require a visit to a personage, place or scenario of greatness (visiting a holy person, climbing a mountain, helping to build something of civic/healthful significance, etc.).
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: at times, to achieve a great thing, the weight of personal objects must be eschewed, so that the momentum of the object can be pursued.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #57, The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind). “Penetration produces gradual and inconspicuous effects. It should be effected not by an act of violation but by influence that never lapses. Results of this kind are less striking to the eye than those won by surprise attack, but they are more enduring and more complete. If one is to produce such effects, one must have a clearly defined goal, for only when the penetrating influence works always in the same direction can the object be attained.” To be effective one’s conduct should not be glamorous, scattered or scheming; it must be genuine and persistent, that is, continually strive to be true and clear.
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October 15 ’24
Sundown in a sad town.
It’s windy outside Party City.
“Just a yin looking for a yang.”
A wig on a twig stuck in sand.
We heard the handle latch catch.
We saw the dog leash by the door.
We found a dollar in the pollywog.
“Why is there a scarecrow in the basement?”
“Because there’s a plastic rose in the attic.”
Beyond the garden gate → a black hole of Klein bottles.
Ted the Caver: “I feel fantastic...”
...but then he was sealed in the nutty putty cavern forever.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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May Sinclair, Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched (1862)
Enzo Cucchi, Senza titolo (2008)
Stephen Carpenter, Soul Survivors (2001)
Rick Owens, Fall/ Winter (2012-13)
Freddie Francis, The Creeping Flesh (1973)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
31. Influence (Wooing)
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Be wary of false generosity — whether receiving or giving.
- “All success depends on the effect of mutual attraction.”
- Obstructions are opportunities for learning.
- Many mandatory tasks cannot be accomplished by oneself — therefore a consistently humble and deferential attitude toward interdependence is necessary.
* * *
From “M.S.”: Though we immensely like the subjects of ghosts and aliens, we often wonder if it is an odd preoccupation, as we generally feel surrounded by the equivalent, if not actual, aliens and ghosts, at all times — like, is there any need to go seeking such things as we humans ultimately live in a haunted and alien land. Trees, plants, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and all animal life (and of course other humans) are not sewn up as far as our understanding of them, making them all pretty alien. And as for ghosts, humans, in a very real way, are haunted and performed by language, histories and thematic drives fit for any apparition roaming the hills of folktales... Is a preoccupation with ghosts and/or aliens more of a diversion from being unable to make sense of our immediate world?
* * *
“La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.”
“Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let slip sometimes confused words;
A human passes through forests of symbols
Which observe them with familiar eyes.”
(from Les Fleurs du mal, The Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire)
Much of what you said rings true and real. But the question at the end, is more presumptuous than the lovely bulk of your proposition. Within Baudelaire’s poem we find something similar to the way the “presence of an observer” affects observable states in quantum physics (the maddening transition/collapse from “all possible states” to the “certainty of a single, definite state”).
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Six of Pentacles (reversed). When upright the implication is an appropriate distribution of accumulated wealth. When reversed as it is here, the tone is greed and/or ingratitude and/or blackmail and/or tokenism.
Our first hexagram this week is 39, Obstruction. “The hexagram represents obstructions that appear in the course of time but that can and should be overcome…” The advice is to “persevere” even when “one apparently must do something that leads away from their goal. This unswerving inner purpose brings good fortune in the end. An obstruction that lasts only for a time is useful for self-development. This is the value of adversity.” And further: “Difficulties and obstructions throw a person back upon themself. While the inferior person seeks to put the blame on other persons, bewailing their fate, the superior person seeks the error within themself, and through this introspection the external obstacle becomes for them an occasion for inner enrichment and education.”
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: after a failed solo attempt it has become apparent that more hands are needed to complete the task — you must regroup and recruit some dedicated friends to finish; another solo attempt will only yield disaster.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #31, Influence (Wooing). The stimulation of favorable (and healthy) circumstances require an attitude of humbleness and receptivity. “By keeping still within while experiencing joy without, one can prevent the joy from going to excess and hold it within proper bounds.” To understand this receptivity it is advised to consider mutualities/attractions in the non-human world. The interdependence of sun, water and plants is a good example — their relationship is reciprocal and mutually reliant — it is implied that this should be mimicked in the human spirit. “All success depends on the effect of mutual attraction.” “Attraction between affinities is a general law of nature.” From these attractions “we can learn the nature of all beings in heaven and on earth.” “Heaven and earth attract each other and thus all creatures come into being.”
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October 08 ’24
To believe in a linear (unilateral) point of view is irresponsible and selfish.
To act on a linear (unilateral) point of view is irresponsible and something akin to wickedness.
To have acted in a manner informed mainly by a linear (unilateral) point of view (as we all have) and not take pains to integrate the mistake (with others and yourself) is grotesque.
Also, confidence is meretricious, pedant-ism is obfuscation, sanctimony is disgusting, and topicality is transcendentally reductionist.
A thoroughly exhaustive (almost inarguable) exposition of the above points can be found in this list of cognitive biases.
The list is quite sobering, and necessary exposure (we think) in times like these where the greed of the robber barons of digital media (both news and social) is turning us all into simplistic, wildly un-self-critical, gossipy, tackily ostentatious, pretentiously faux-intellectual, narcissistic goblins only capable of linear, unilateral and binary thinking (a la 👍👎 + endless reams of pointless, un-researched, mock-authoritative, provincially anecdotal comments — like everyone’s 15 minutes of fame is spread out imperceptibly over a lifetime 🙃).
* * *
(It’s also worth saying that “times like these” is meant genuinely, that is, these are wonky times in a long string of wonky times — in Flaubert’s writing there’s all sorts of commentary on the rise and shitty effect of newspapers, as well, the broad adoption of the printing press led to the protestant reformation and that whole mess, the Chicxulub asteroid created some substantially wonky times as well, etc., etc., etc. etc. ...)
* * *
If reading the list of cognitive biases (even if only a little bit) one’s reaction is “I don’t make these types of errors” that is serious cause for concern — as everyone makes these types of misapprehensions all of the time (whether political, metaphysical or straight sense data type conceptions). Case in point, if one’s primary mode while reading this brief text, is simply to try to sort the writer, with rigidity, into a narrow, dichotomous category (ignoring all partials, overtones and subtleties that exist herein) that person is likely exhibiting one or all of the following cognitive biases (the False Dichotomy Bias and/or the Ingroup-Outgroup Bias and/or the Selective Perception Bias and/or Attentional Bias).
As well if one doesn’t try and at least attempt to bracket out [in the Husserlian phenomenological sense] and engage the (oft mentioned here) late work of Turing on reaction-diffusion as an underpinning of the fascinating/surprising/full-width causality of formation (whether tangible or mental) — that is, if one doesn’t try to constantly and seriously attempt to scrape the barnacles of stupidity off of the hull of their outlook, such is a terrible way to traverse life.
What should be foregrounded is the Pursuit (writ large) of unfeigned conciliation with all objects, animals, histories and with as many perspectives as an individual mind can handle.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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Emily Dickinson, One Need Not be a Chamber — to be Haunted (1862)
Félicien Rops, The Human Parody (1878-1881)
Sogo Ishii, Angel Dust (1994)
Rolf Nowotny at No Gallery (2023)
Lew Landers, The Raven (1935)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- One must actively try to free themselves from bondage. Try and try again!
- Favorable circumstances come from the understanding of interdependence not illusory independence.
- To receive something beneficial you must be open (have an attitude of humble receptivity).
* * *
From “M.S.”: Improving oneself is obviously very important and perpetually wanted — but we find that personal transformation is little affected by advice and/or aphoristic volleys — that is, it’s mainly being faced with something like unavoidable information [a diagnosis, or an end (death or whatever)] or surprising almost mysterious “natural” change over time, that promotes constructive metamorphosis. Any advice regarding how to elicit (or speed up 😅) such positive but indirect processes?
* * *
It is true that isolated aphorisms have little effect on behavior. Phrases like “a penny saved is a penny earned” and “the early bird gets the worm” are true enough but more like abstract observations than anything like genuine shocks/prods to action. Change is a full surround, 360°, scenario. Monolithic observations can feel right but are often just confusing.
The only way to “speed up” conditions of genuine, healthy transformation is to be super receptive and recognize your symbiosis with the world and other humans.
If you are being actually bound by some circumstance you must transcend the limitation or try to free yourself. Passivity is retrograde.
So, to “elicit such positive but indirect processes” constantly try to free yourself from the bondage of preconceived outlooks by simply allowing information to come in (the education of receptivity) — likely positive change will “naturally” occur.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Eight of Swords. The feeling here is malignant restraint/bondage — but it is important to remember that being restrained isn’t necessarily a situation of permanence. How to free oneself — cunning acquiescence(?), genuine compromise(?). The best thing to do is trying to free oneself.
Our first and only hexagram this week is #31, Influence (Wooing). The stimulation of favorable (and healthy) circumstances require a certain attitude, namely, humbleness and receptivity. “By keeping still within while experiencing joy without, one can prevent the joy from going to excess and hold it within proper bounds.” To understand this receptivity it is advised to consider mutualities/attractions in the non-human world. The interdependence of sun, water and plants is a good example — their relationship is reciprocal and mutually reliant — it is implied that this should be mimicked in the human spirit. “All success depends on the effect of mutual attraction.” “Attraction between affinities is a general law of nature.” From these attractions “we can learn the nature of all beings in heaven and on earth.” “Heaven and earth attract each other and thus all creatures come into being.”
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October 01 ’24
We are sitting on a bench in a park.
The shadows are long.
A man is playing fetch with a dachshund.
The busy bouncing oblong goes out and comes back, out and back; like a living yo-yo.
The man has a perm which is somewhat popular.
It makes us think about what people think about generally — why they do things; what they are attracted to, what they are repelled by, what they think is happening or is going to happen.
As well — we wonder what exactly we have in common with people, if anything besides the vaguest generalities.
Would our perspective(s) be compatible; would any of our registration marks of reality line up?
* * *
At our feet is a painted curb bordering a path.
It is blue, a kind of cloudless sky blue, but deeper and obviously not as dynamic and luminescent.
In certain eroded spots the cement is showing through.
These grey areas are much less than the overall blue; the effect is very similar to a map.
It is very easy to imagine that these are unknown countries.
We immediately wonder what the political climate is like, but just as quickly are annoyed that we don’t wonder about the magical abilities of the animal life there — as would have been our first thought at an earlier time.
* * *
The man with the perm, and the other perspective, is now walking by us.
We can see, at this range, that he is wearing a very slight mock turtleneck with a gold chain on the outside.
His dog is ridiculously cute.
We like small dogs for what we perceive as their thumb-less mock busyness.
We are of course anthropomorphizing though.
But to be fair, if the dog noticed us at all, it would be canine-pomorphizing us right back.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
from around the web
from around the web
Seamus Heaney, Digging (1966)
Batia Suter at NŌUA (2024)
Zachary Epcar, The Canyon (2020)
Inez & Vinoodh at Matthew Marks Gallery (2001)
Miu Miu, Fall/ Winter (2003-04)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
37. The Family [The Clan]
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- The danger of intellect is that it can be deviously employed — if one is intelligent they must take measures to use it righteously (as in, Gandalf didn’t allow himself to hold the ring).
- Obstacles are practice for overcoming them.
- Influence starts with the self.
- Even hermits may rightly be called upon to return to action.
- “The family” and or “the self” is “society in embryo” — their stability and health radiates outward, fractally.
* * *
From “M.S.”: It is perhaps embarrassing by way of being on the nose or an obvious question to ask the Book of Changes (and has likely been asked before) but what is the best way to handle change? We want to be sophisticated about managing the mad novelty that is always coming and blowing apart our world(s) — that is, we would like to be durably kind and sensitive as regards our interaction with all assaulting difference whether short, middle, or long-term. We remember Crowley saying something like the price of transformation is eternal vigilance — which, from our current standpoint, sounds hard (both in the sense of difficulty and in the sense of needing to be indelicate of emotion). Is there nothing that can be done except vigilance in the face of change? As well, is our desire for intelligent kindness just masked laziness? Do we just have to accept that some change requires raving, whilst others are best met with the proverbial stiff upper lip? Sorry again for the possible prosaic-ness — nevertheless please help/advise.
* * *
In a very real way we are all centers. But also, in a very real way we are all false centers. With the latter we are attempting to speak to the limitations of human perspective, with the former, we are insinuating that most influence really comes from within. Yes it is true that we are set in motion by the imprinting of difficult (or worse) childhood events, but all people still experience (and subsequently behave) by weighing things in the hermetically sealed place of our own heads. All is change, not sometimes is change.
We are all storms within larger storms — but it is necessary not to have a totally dark outlook — you can trick your brain (you’re brain is a kind of trick afterall). Obviously we understand this may sound very weird.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Queen of Pentacles (reversed). When upright the card indicates a healthy broad intellect and a gift for fertile contemplation. When reversed as it is here, the emphasis is on highly negative cunning — a dark outlook with dark plans.
Our first hexagram this week is #39, Obstruction. This hexagram is a meditation on obstacles; how if approached in a positive spirit, a hindrance can be an opportunity for growth — a set back pack is training for next time. “The inferior person seeks to put the blame on others, bewailing their fate. The superior person seeks the error within themself, and through this introspection the external obstacle becomes an occasion for inner enrichment and education.”
There were two changes this week of which the specific notes are: danger avoided should be taken as welcome notice and there are times when long term, intelligent retreat needs to be overcome into a return to action (call this a return to duty).
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #37, The Family (The Clan). “The family is society in embryo...” Though much has changed gender-wise (etc.) since the ancient Chinese world of the I Ching, the essence of this line holds true — whatever a family unit may be to someone. Behavior is fractal, if a core structure is insecure or lazy or strong or flexible or sensitive — the quality will radiate out (or leach) elsewhere. One must struggle to be honest with oneself first and foremost in this world, then with those closest to you. “Influence on others must proceed from one’s own person… one’s words must have power, and this they can have only if they are based on something real… if words and conduct are not in accord and not consistent, they will have no effect.”
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Sept 24 ’24
With equal ease, and in equal measure, humans produce both solutions and illusions.
The situation is part and parcel of evolved consciousness and its need for a kind of transcendental flexibility.
Though the situation is really split down the middle, the solutions aspect is often emphasized, whilst the illusion part is suppressed. This makes sense when thinking of the basic spark of hope needed in all endeavors, but in a contemporary context, the emphasized solutions aspect can seem dangerously and stupidly suppressive.
If a solution defines itself by concealing illusion — the solution is itself actually an illusion.
A further complication, our ability (in real time) to ultimately distinguish what is a solution and what is an illusion, is itself a conundrum of unstable and uncomfortable recursivity (not to mention, the ability to detail the structure of consciousness strains its mechanisms).
(Maybe the intended tone is this, please, stop being so confident about everything. Perhaps place deep compromise, and actual flexibility, above all else.)
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Christina Rossetti, Cobwebs (1862)
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John Richmond, Fall/ Winter (2004-05)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
38. Opposition
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- A process has reached the end of its movement.
- A decrease in means can often be a gift of a simpler life.
- A lack should not be obfuscated by pretense.
- Humility will help estranged but sympathetic relations to strengthen.
- Do not be drawn into a binary relation with a base or vulgar or dirty dealing person — as you will become equivalent to that energy.
- Respecting the absolute reality of difference is a good starting point for working together.
* * *
From “M.L.”: I work as a creative director, but my background is in design. Deep down, what I’ve always wanted since I was a kid is to be an artist, but for survival reasons, I decided to set that aside in a parallel space. I think I’ve been distorted by Vignelli’s principle of “Professional Appropriateness,” and I just can’t seem to get my artistic projects off the ground. I’m torn between wanting to create what I truly desire and the need for it to be understood, to make sense (whether as a continuation or a break) within a broader context. This ambivalence has kept me completely stuck for years. I’m fed up with this neurosis that no one around me can understand, and with this need for unanimous acceptance. What situation, exercises, or actions can I take to break out of this cycle?
* * *
Art is not an Archimedean point — if anything, like beauty, it is play with distances and is ultimately only a process. As well, art is itself often a neurosis — the compulsion to formalize. Again “art” is not a resolution but a process not at all distinguishable from every other aspect of a person. Perhaps you are like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz — you are wanting something that you already have.
One can’t change one’s nature but one can emphasize or de-emphasize wanted aspects of their personality.
The feedback here is to simplify and work on your humility.
Please know that we know that, what might be called dream deferral, when it goes on for years, unfortunately becomes a way of life (we know this all too well, personally). The dream of change can become a dangerous drug.
Yours is a VERY relevant question to a lot of people — it is also a complicated one. We are happy to pitch a follow-up question to the oracle, should you have one — feel free. We know we’d be very interested in the oracle expanding on your topic...
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Ten of Swords. A severe image to be sure... As opposed to the Death card, which indicates massive change, the Ten of Swords points to an actual end — something has played out, quite completely — but the end was part of a process, not an end intended to be a surprise (this might be clearer in hindsight).
Our first hexagram this week is #41, Decrease. A decrease of means or capital should not be met with hoarding, but rather, a welcome embrace of simplifying one’s life. That is, a forced decrease can be the greatest of gifts. “Decrease does not under all circumstances mean something bad. Increase and decrease come in their own time. What matters here is to understand the time and not to try to cover up poverty with empty pretense.”
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: negative attributes can keep even the most sympathetic friends at a distance — attempts at humility/modesty should be made to lessen the gap.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #38, Opposition. Opposition is a difficult but perpetual scenario in life, therefore it should not be ignored, but studied and taken seriously. When serious opposition is met in an absolutely important matter do not respond with a violent return (that would only bolster resistance) rather, consider committing to producing “gradual effects.” To do this it is wise to remember that “a reasonable, cultured person is never led into baseness or vulgarity… with persons of another sort; regardless of all commingling, they will always preserve their individuality.” As well, without differences, generally, we could not hear, think, see, or even exist really. Respecting the absolute reality of difference is a good starting point for working together.
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Sept 17 ’24
In the morning, we notice one of the sprinkler heads is clogged. An arced blobby jet of water is spilling onto the sidewalk, creating a river along the curb, down the steep hill. At a minute scale, it is likely wreaking havoc — though a possible godsend to the errant curbside weed or parched microscopic garden. We’ll have to spend the afternoon fiddling to fix it.
* * *
Later from a seat in the shade: the sumptuous variegated swaying of overlapping foliage. Spear palms waving stiffly like a queen’s hand against trembling bottlebrush branches. A eucalyptus trunk rocking upwards behind a nearly still box hedge. Scraggly sycamores creaking to and fro.
* * *
In the evening, from a hill-high window — a few approaching, yellow-lighted cars and a few departing red-lighted cars meander along some curves of Sunset Boulevard, and disappear. Above them (and the dark foliage and distant twinkling buildings and the bunches of quasi urban/suburban houses that typify Los Angeles) is a starless middling grey sky. Beyond this banal veil, as far as humans are able to conceive, is apparent infinity. It is likely that those people in the cars, and most of the people inside and in bed, are not thinking about the interminable crevices and scenarios of the cosmos.
* * *
In our bed, before drifting off to sleep, two vague memories alight from preschool. The first, we are sitting at a table with other children, for some sort of snack break. At the center of the table is a pitcher of apple juice and a plate of vanilla wafers. Without thinking we take the pitcher and start drinking from it. A boy says “you can’t do that” we put it back realizing that what he said makes sense. Surprisingly we recall the moment as not being embarrassing at all. The other memory is of popping out a kind of large plastic tube for kids to crawl through. We slide out of one end on our back, just enough so that our head pops out. A girl we are friendly with, is lying on the top, her head popping over the upper edge as much as ours, her dark hair hanging down and shading her kind face — in a kind of temporary cubby. She lets out a little glob of clear spit. We catch it in our mouth. After, each of us goes about our business playing elsewhere as though it never happened. Atypically, it is another memory devoid of shame and embarrassment.
* * *
After this, we sleep, which always seems something akin to joining the sky — but of course isn’t — but perhaps just the sky of our head.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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Dorothy Parker, Rainy Night (1926)
Jenny Watson at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (1994)
Junya Watanabe, Fall/ Winter (2003-04)
Sanya Kantarovsky at Modern Art (2024)
Budd Boetticher, Ride Lonesome (1959)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
56. The Wanderer
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- It is limitation (not freedom) that shapes the best work.
- The fumes of a dream will not power anything, such things will likely just make you sick.
- In particularly difficult situations employ thrift.
- When pushing for change consult the experienced first (your forebearers) — don’t seek them only when you need help cleaning up.
- Read, a lot, and diversely.
- Keep it light and be modest in relation with others.
- Try not to “grow roots” prematurely.
* * *
From “J.P.”: How do I escape without losing my edge/place (in the job world/marketplace)? I find the popping out from instagram and urban areas into the people-less environments (“nature”) to be kind of backwards (dishonest) and rather ostentatiously extreme — like pretending to go from “impurity” to “purity” and back again (it’s all nature after all right? — no matter what fart’eryx, etc. implies). But I need a change from all of it. I know meditation is often cited here as key, but is there nothing else?
* * *
You are not the only one who has these feelings (so, thanks for your query). It is also not the only time that individuals have been faced with this type of quandary, not hardly. Artists, “prophets”, scientists, etc. throughout the millennia, have found their contemporary worlds to be horribly wrong/grotesque in their “ostentatious” and vapid ideas of purity vs. impurity (among many, many other notions).
So, consult these past iconoclastic kin (your artist, scientist, prophet forebearers) — read, read and read them some more. You will see that so much interest and beauty and struggle has built the best parts of the world around you — you are definitely not alone in history (though in your immediate surroundings, you might be).
It is easiest to profit off of fear and negativity — these methods often suppress anything that complicates their offering — but homogenization (left as is) ultimately has very little utility when it comes to complex problem solving. But alas, the world would be mega-horrible, rather than merely terrible 😅 if individuals, who often had to go against the grain, didn’t persevere for us in the contemporary world.
(But don’t ever let yourself get arrogant; struggle for a kind outlook. You ultimately want to be of use to others and yourself.)
As well, and as an aside, don’t let people who see the unpeopled places as stylish gyms prevent you from enjoying a good walk out of doors.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Five of Cups (reversed). All is not lost and you are beginning to see that. It’s like yes there has been waste in your “Project” (writ large) but maturing might actually be best defined as ingeniously utilizing what is there and actual — the fumes of dreams will not power anything. To paraphrase the poets: it is the difficulty of limitation (not freedom) that shapes the best work.
Our first hexagram this week is #62, Preponderance of the Small. “Thus the superior person… must always fix their eyes more closely and more directly on duty than the ordinary person, even though this might make their behavior seem petty to the outside world. The superior person is exceptionally conscientious of their actions… In all their personal expenditures they are extremely simple and unpretentious. In comparison with the person of the masses, all this makes them stand out as exceptional. But the essential significance of their attitude lies in the fact that in external matters they are always on the side of modesty.” But this is the only path of a superlative human. To be superlative is the most difficult thing. (“Superlative” here, meaning being admirable to oneself and useful to the greater good.) The world of people is largely one of the short term, only interested in topicality. Since being an excellent person means fixing to a long-term goal — you’ll have to risk not always making sense or not being integrated into society; some may even try to hurt you (or worse) for your outsiderness. But this is the only dignified path (utility for humankind/yourself by economic/thrifty means).
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: when trying to force change, consider “all” existing paths (precedents of great forebearers) before trying something wildly new.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #56, The Wanderer. “When a person is a wanderer and stranger, they should not be gruff nor overbearing. They have no large circle of acquaintances, therefore they should not give themself airs. They must be cautious and reserved; in this way they protect themself from evil.” The advice is literal but there is also a general behavioral admonition: when you search, persevere intently, but don’t get caught up. Don’t dramatically grow roots (with an idea, object or person) until some time has passed and larger contexts are seen. Keep it light and be modest in relation with others.
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Sept 03 ’24
Remember Verdun.
Not for heroism (no)
but for the senselessness of exploding skulls
and how provincial and bureaucratic rivulets
erode to trenches of hell.
Remember the ceratopsia.
Not for horns (no)
but that they (too) didn’t die for sinning
and that we are their inheritors,
the children of Chicxulub.
Remember the ENIAC.
Not for crudeness (no)
but for the elegance of its clay and fire circuitry
and its Golem obsequiousness;
it will solve our problems, then solve us.
Remember Facemash.
Not for kitsch (no)
but for the upper middle class, finished basement cynicism
and how wild that its basic bitch binary became the basis
for all governance (and everything else).
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We could certainly say much about how our personal fantasy world(s) were brought into existence by horrors.
In any case we are true believers in fantasy for fantasy’s sake whatever their origin — certainly ones like the ravishingly polished zones of stylist Domenico Scialò.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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from around the web
Connie Fife, The Knowing (2013)
Marlene Dumas, Canary Death (2006)
Alexander McQueen, Spring/ Summer (1994)
Guido Guidi at Yancy Richardson (2001)
Michael Davis, Monster Man (2003)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
34. The Power of the Great
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- In conspiratorial/cabalistic times, influence must be exerted invisibly.
- An impasse isn’t always a bad thing; it can be a mature way to avoid violent outcomes.
- Balance isn’t control, often it is merely a cleverly used impasse.
- The proper attitude toward good fortune is to know that it comes and goes — a light touch, shaped by the poles of humor and seriousness (tragedy and comedy) is helpful here.
- Movement and strength, when successfully joined, generate serious momentum, which is wanted for achieving goals — however the energy can be unwieldy and mess with the subtleties needed for proper timing.
* * *
From “M.S.”: Human cognition is awesomely economic, that is, the possibility of focusing on a single thing is incredible, but only if that preoccupation happens to be healthy. In an age where our focus is increasingly capitalized upon by corporations wielding increasingly efficient focus-sucking machines — what is some good advice for blocking these forces. (Knowing that “self-improvement” is itself often a focus-sucking machine for profit.)
* * *
You are going to have to trick yourself.
You are not separate from any exterior movements; that is, the problem isn’t disassemblable or dissectible. Neither is it mono-directional, binary, or even as wholly contemporary as you are thinking (overcoming negative issues of focus and distraction have been around in the form of meditation, at least since 1500 BCE India).
Balance isn’t control, often it is merely a cleverly used impasse.
Don’t be so heavy handed you dork.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Two of Swords (reversed). A mature balance — but with a touch of an impasse, is the intimation here. If opposing forces are equally met at least there is no bloodshed.
Our first hexagram this week is #55, Abundance (Fullness). A “condition of abundance cannot be maintained permanently.” If bounty is to be maintained at all, it will only be when internal clarity is coupled with energetic action; perhaps call this vigilance. It is also implied that a proper/light attitude toward the ebb and flow of good fortune is important (being “a person who is inwardly free of sorrow and care”). That is, when things are bad, keep an eye out for opportunities to encourage more favorable circumstances; then when times are good, take full advantage of them, knowing they won’t last.
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: To have influence in a time of darkness (“plots and party intrigues”) one must exert their influence invisibly.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #34, The Power of the Great. “Movement and strength” are coalescing — but: “The hexagram points to a time when inner worth mounts with great force and comes to power. But its strength has already passed beyond the median line, hence there is danger that one may rely entirely on one’s own power and forget to ask what is right. There is danger too that, being intent on movement, we may not wait for the right time… For that is truly great power which does not degenerate into mere force but remains inwardly united with the fundamental principles of right and of justice. When we understand this point — namely, that greatness and justice must be indissolubly united — we understand the true meaning of all that happens in heaven and on earth.”
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August 27 ’24
We are like bees
and the days like flowers.
Then sleep comes,
and wipes clean the day.
We are like sleep,
and the days are hours.
Then bees come,
and wipe clean the flowers.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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from around the web
Richard Wilbur, Marginalia (1956)
Frances Stark at Galerie Buchholz (2024)
Zachary Epcar, Return to Forms (2016)
Hugo Montoya at Anonymous Gallery (2023)
Maurizio Galante, Spring/ Summer (2003)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
1. The Creative
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Be on guard against depression causing misjudgment (whether the depression is abstract, literal and/or chemical).
- The best way to ward off unseen danger is not to deceive yourself as to the reality of unforeseen danger, and then, act accordingly.
- When a bad/destructive element arrives, waste no time — deal with it immediately.
- “Success” comes by “perseverance in what is right... by consciously casting out all that is inferior and degrading.”
* * *
From “L.P.”: Should I take psychedelics? I have never taken any, but have always had the inclination. Of course I have some worry, but a responsible opportunity has come up — so I am asking.
* * *
Should you take psychedelics(?) — only if you have strong mental health and the right attitude.
The right attitude is having a seriously deep desire to eschew self deception (as much as is possible) — and to be earnestly involved in “casting out all that is inferior and degrading” (or at least honestly desiring to do so).
By strong mental health it is meant that psychedelics are supremely powerful substances that focus on transcendentally altering one’s perceptions. The alterations are so novel and so severe that it is unlikely that anyone who takes them isn’t permanently changed. Often the changes are positive, as often they convolute and elaborate subsequent thought structures — but in rarer circumstances, if there is serious depression or schizophrenia (latent or extant) the repercussion can be disastrous.
This all may sound dramatic — but perhaps this will help, if ignorance is bliss, then awareness is a kind of hell — and perhaps raw, transcendental gnosis best describes the psychedelic experience.
Another way; do you want to be the mouse of humanity slowly being digested in the stomach of the viper of geologic/cosmic causality, for eternity? Do you want to be a stone ape frozen on a forgotten lifeless moon, dreaming of a yellow parrot fluttering free in some tropical jungle canopy — only to all of a sudden realize that this is actually some sort of meta-metaphor for the psychology of all focus to periphery relations — but realizing this because you were able to see your personal histories floating in cross-section after being sliced by five hundred iridescent scimitars of doubt — and saying to yourself, with full terrified confusion “I don’t think I will ever be able to put myself back together again.”
If you do want this, then proceed with love, caution, bravery and light.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Queen of Swords (reversed). A serious card, made more so by its reversed aspect. When upright the card points to a sharpness honed by sadness. When reversed as it is here, the aspect is pushed towards the dark end of such a quality — misjudgment due to sorrow/depression.
Our first hexagram this week is #44, Coming to Meet. The coming together of powers, elements, and/or people is constant (and necessary). Whether the resultant scenarios are healthy, disastrous, or middling, has to do with the attitude and aspect of the converging elements/parties. But there are no guarantees — a situation can have impossible to see dangers (like deceit). The best way to ward off unseen danger is not to deceive yourself as to the possibility of unforeseen danger, and then, act accordingly.
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: when a bad element arrives, waste no time — deal with it immediately.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #1, The Creative. This is the first hexagram of the I Ching, and the most important. Of course life is an interplay of endlessly varied forces, matter, and scenarios — which can come to the fore at any time to be a dominant and supremely determinant (of which are detailed in all the subsequent hexagrams). However, it is The Creative that is at the heart of the I Ching’s ultimate metaphysical proposition. “When an individual draws this oracle, it means that success will come to them from the primal depths of the universe and that everything depends upon their seeking of happiness and that of others in one way only, that is, by perseverance in what is right... They must make themselves strong in every way, by consciously casting out all that is inferior and degrading. Thus they attain that tirelessness which depends upon consciously limiting the fields of their activity.” As well... “each step attained becomes a preparation for the next. Time is no longer a hindrance but the means of making actual what is potential…”
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August 20 ’24
The Ashwan cemetery is bordered on its north and west sides by almond orchards; a long, dark field of corn runs along its southern edge — and to the east, a rough two lane highway — just beyond which is a forest typified by cottonwoods and sycamores. There are no structures to speak of except a modest grey brick caretaker’s shack, and across the highway a slowly decomposing shop with a sign that faintly reads, “Stained Glass Junction.”
The Ashwan cemetery is neither particularly old nor particularly popular; the oldest grave being from around 1840. People are still being buried here — though maybe only one or so a month. A lot of families prefer to bury their dead in the Guénon cemetery, about 10 miles south; it sits on a bluff overlooking the Guénon wash, a vast angled plain of manzanita and chamise, dotted with black oaks.
Besides Guénon being more typically picturesque, we’ve always assumed that it was the darkness at Ashwan that turned people away — and the sheep.
For just under a century and a half Ashwan shepherds have had an easement to the cemetery and any unplanted grass fields in the township. Since there isn’t much of the latter, the cemetery is one of the sheep’s main places for grazing.
The cemetery’s dimness is caused by the flourishing of about forty ponderosa pines; their presence makes it feel like it’s always dusk (except of course at night). Nothing grows in their shadows except fine fescue-type grass.
The white and gray marble headstones are blotched significantly with pale green blooms of xanthoparmelia lichen and are mostly askew due to the ponderosa’s many surface roots.
* * *
We are seated on a large, flat ledger stone. It is August so everything is bursting green. We are sipping some water from a little blue plastic cup kindly given to us by the caretaker. We are absently looking east through the choppy white stones and broad trunks into the gently swaying darkness of the forest beyond. The only sounds besides the recent blast of a distant freight’s airhorn and the periodic raspy thuds of a shovel hitting dirt, is a light breeze rustling the corn and swishing the pines, and the little, incessant tearing sounds of teeth pulling and chewing small blades of grass.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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Amy Clampitt, Nothing Stays Put (1997)
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Joan Brown at Carnegie Museum of Art (2023)
Yoshiki Hishinuma, Fall/ Winter (2013-14)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
44. Coming to Meet
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Nothing is an isolated phenomenon.
- Shared group reverence for an ideal (not necessarily religious) is necessary for societal thriving.
- If modest and collaborative in spirit, be careful working with pushy/aggressive people, they can lead you astray from your goal. Be vigilant as regards your aim(s) — at all times.
- There must be no forcing, coercing or impatience when trying to reach a goal — only persistence.
- Do not be taken in by appearances when collaborating with other people — they may be lying to you — so do your due diligence beforehand.
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From “R.G.”: In a period of tumult, political/economical/cultural, what is the best way for a shy shut-in freelancer to seek/secure work?
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It is obviously fine to be reclusive, especially today, as the logistics of making a living in such a way are fairly straightforward — the appearance of the Four of Wands nicely underscores this. But it is important to think about interconnectivity when trying (or preferring) to be alone, that is, understanding that nothing is an isolated phenomena. Shelter, food, employment, companionship (of every stripe) is a deeply interconnected affair — no one is ever truly alone — areas of overlap should be deeply respected and considered.
As for “tumult” you must try everyday not to be selfish and fearful. It is certainly true that in our individual capacities we have very little effect on major, worldwide events, but locally and personally one can change lives for the better, everyday. There is a clear difference between deceptive and covertly narcissistic collaboration and collaboration involving a mutuality of self-care, self-respect, self-expression and self-preservation. Stay with the latter and discourage the former — this will address tumult in the best way.
Regarding this last note the oracle had specific advice — be patient, use vigilance not force. This might be phrased as building a reputation — if you are intelligent, have self respect, are sensitive, and hard working, over time it is likely that you will be a wanted asset and be held in high regard — whether you work in an office or whether you work from your bedroom.
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Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Four of Wands. This is a card of removal, specifically of withdrawal to the countryside (or to a smaller non-city community). More generally it points to a tendency to retreat into one’s own space — not necessarily unhealthily or completely alone. A card perhaps pointing to an online community.
Our first hexagram this week is #50, The Caldron. Nothing is an isolated phenomenon... The image here is of a caldron — a container for cooking that can feed a large group of people. However the emphasis of the metaphor is not focused on ingredients or even the iron of which the caldron is made — but of the far reaching elements and aspects that make the nourishment of the caldron possible: the sun, the rain, the wood, the fire. The sentiment is thus: many things need to be in accord in order for a society to be sustained... In the past it was religion, or the worship of a god that imparted this accord — but in 2024 things are quite a bit different; though we personally don’t think that the organized religions of the past are the way, we do feel that shared group reverence for an ideal — that is, awe and respect/reverence for the world, its inhabitants and the cosmos, is fundamental for societal blossoming. (Perhaps call this Love.)
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: it is good to be modest and self effacing in a working environment — but there is a danger of being led astray, when working with more aggressive types — therefore constant, vigilant allegiance to an overarching goal is paramount.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #44, Coming to Meet. The I Ching is consistent in saying that there must be no forcing, coercing or impatience when trying to reach a goal — the time must be right. This hexagram continues the council, talking specifically about people coming together: “coming together must be free of dishonest ulterior motives, otherwise harm will result.” That is, when it comes to mergers; nothing can be left to chance a cleansing of personal bias and a conscientious analysis of the particulars is wanted at every step. As well, there is a particular admonishment mentioned here: do not be taken in by appearances when collaborating with other people — they may be lying to you — so do your due diligence beforehand.