Category Archives: mythology

Is The GOP “Kraken Up”?

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Sydney Powell, an attorney that was included recently in the fold of Trump’s “legal team” suddenly found herself “written out of the script” of the Trump Show, her conspiracy-theory orientation reaching an extreme that even the Kingdom of Trump could not handle.  At one-point last week she even avowed that she was privy the information that would devastate Joe Biden’s status as President Elect, describing this purported bomb shell as a “kraken.” 

I must commend her to being familiar with Scandinavian folklore, however, “Kraken” being a sea monster in its mythology that could suddenly emerge from the depths of the sea and wreak havoc on ships and their crew.  And I also give a nod to Sydney for utilizing metaphor as many of her kind are metaphorically challenged, being in a linear-thinking overdrive.  But after this “praise,” the woman is nuts! 

However, I do think that there is a “kraken” in the depths of Powell, and the Republican Party, and all political parties…and all humans.  One expression of this within the GOP is their intense fear of a “deep state” that is threatening to destroy them and is responsible for “rigging the election” against Trump.  This “kraken” is just one culture’s creation to express the human intuitive fear that there is a monster in the depths of our heart.  And in our current political morass, the Republicans demonstrate just how “human” they are as they respond with this internal terror by projecting it “out there.”  I remember noting this being illustrated by Republican Senator Ted Cruz who declared, “President Obama is out to destroy the Republican Party.”  It was obvious, even then, that the GOP had a self-destructive element in their depths with “creatures” such as the Tea Party. 

I admit that I have spent most of my life terrorized by the “kraken” in my own heart and obeyed the teachings of the culture of my youth and blamed “them”, whoever the “them” of the day was.  It is so frightening to contemplate the heart’s darkness which is why the gods were so gracious to offer us a persona, or “fig leaf”, to cover it up.  They intended for us eventually to find the humility to recognize its presence and begin the lifelong process of acknowledgement.  This is what Goethe had in mind with his observation, “The heart has its beastly little treasures.” My country is now having an opportunity to acknowledge its collective “beastliness”; our religious culture is having the same opportunity. 

Will the Madness Ever End?

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The White House intervened to prevent the U.S.S. McCain from being seen during the Trump visit to Japan.  The Wall Street Journal reported negotiations between the White House and the U. S. Navy to move this ship “out of sight” so that the President would not see it.  This is because of the rage that Trump has for this now deceased Senator who dared to be critical of him.  Trump denies having anything to do with this decision, of course. Trump may not have had anything to do with this silly decision…directly.  He does not need to as his handlers are completely in his thrall and automatically move to protect this two-year old child from anything that might make him uncomfortable or angry.  Can you imagine the time, energy, and expense that went into this decision-making process and negotiation between the White House and the Navy?  And they even bought a tarp to drape over the ship!

My concern here is not Trump.  He is but the symptom of the madness that is unfolding in our culture, a madness that is daily being aided and abetted by a supporting cast of handlers, aides, cabinet members, and Congress persons.  He has them in his grip and many of them do not have the “awareness” to know it.  Some of them are aware of this I suspect but are stymied by intimidation or black mail, and do not have the courage to speak out.

Trump’s two-year old narcissistic wound has been aided and abetted like this his whole life and he has always felt indomitable.  He still does!  And now he has what he sees as ultimate power, for he is the “duly elected” President of the United States!  Holding that office, to him and his supporting cast, is the ultimate validation of their beliefs and they support him steadfastly. BUT, the “hunger” of a frustrated and angry two-year old can never be satisfied unless an “adult in the room” will find the courage to set limits.  If the “parents” continue to indulge, a monster will be created and catastrophe will ensue.  In my clinical experience, this “catastrophe” often would find a “parent in the room” with my intervention which at times entailed hospitalization or juvenile court referral.  At times, this did not suffice and catastrophe did happen in the form of violence, often leading to incarceration.  The “acting out” of the two-year old, then running amok as a 16 year old, could not be contained other than by the strong arm of the law.  The phenomenon of a “brain-stem without arms and legs” in life is usually reined in by reality; but when “reality” allows it to occupy the Presidency, the peril for all is great.

Back in the “Flow” of Life!!!

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This ends my longest hiatus from “literarylew” in the four years I’ve been offering this verbal “deed to oblivion.”  I’ve had technical problems with WP but the real “technical problems” are with the rusty technology of my heart which has spent 63 years hiding my “light under a bushel.”

For over a year now I have been immersed in the works of Carl Jung and have found it stimulating and deeply challenging.  Jung did not live on the surface of things and his writings lead one into a plunge into the subterranean depths of the unconscious, a plunge which is disconcerting to say the least.  On this note, I often think of the title of an Adrienne Rich book of poetry, “Diving into the Wreck” for any descent into the hoary depths of the heart is certainly like “diving into a wreck.”  T. S. Eliot described it as daring to “live in the breakage, in the collapse of what was believed in as most certain and therefore the fittest for renunciation.”

Jung wrote extensively about the Christian faith, my spiritual bailiwick, and his perspective emphasized the power of myth which, if one can lay aside the comfort of biblical literalism that I grew up in, can allow one of explore the rich layers of meaning in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  But this cannot be done without daring to see one’s own life as mythical, to realize that the narrative of our life is fictional in a sort, and that in this narrative there can be found a real “Presence” which is the essence of who we are.  Or, as Stanley Kunitz put it, “I have walked through many lives, some of them my own.  I am not the one I was, though some remnant of being remains from which I struggle not to stray.”

Jung and Kunitz grasped the dynamic nature of life, its eternal flux.  Life is not static, though our ego constantly demands that we cling to a static view and experience of life even if that view and experience is devastating to ourselves and to others.  When we begin to tippy-toe into the “flow” of life (i.e., the “Spirit of God”) we find the experience unnerving.