Can a Whip be a Souvenir

2011-1_02 Can a Whip be a Souvenir?

The Black Sphere, my signature symbol, is wet ink on paper, but first it was a dry image in the mind, a mind in distress.

Joseph Campbell put it this way: “ The Mythogenetic zone today is the individual in contact with his own interior life, communicating through his art with those ‘out there.’”

In PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN James Joyce said along the same line: “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

In regard ‘Serpent Power’:

• Moses: “ Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: And it shall come to pass that everyone…when he looketh upon it, shall live.”
• Here is a report of a dream by a first generation Jungian, C. A. Meier: “It was an exhibition with my two sons. Suddenly one of them, who had stayed a little ways back, called out, ‘A snake!’ He had vomited up a worm about 18 inches long (like a snake) and pulled it out of his mouth, and was holding it
in the middle with his right fist, he ran to show me the snake. It had the head of a miniature dog. I said to him I too had once had a worm like that, and it was a good thing when it came out.”

While I was in distress I had a vivid and power dream about a serpent emerging from my body. While I was teaching at UNLV another professor took me into a huge gym to explain his germ theory to me. When we got into a bathroom with urinals he paused and said, “I want you to watch what happens when I spray the red spots on the surface of urinal.” With that he took out an aerosol spray can and dosed the porcelain with a fine triangular mist. The area began to bubble up and create a thick froth; out of the foamy substance a cluster of small silver worms emerged. I stood there amazed. “That’s nothing watch this. I am going to spray those self-same red dots on your left deltoid muscle.” The area, in a similar fashion, turned into froth and then a huge serpent began to emerge from my shoulder. I was so horrified I turned away so I didn’t have to watch this thing happening to me. “You can look now,” my associate said. When I turned I saw he had rolled the snake up like it was a whip with three large loops. He walked toward me saying, “Here, it’s your ‘souvenir.’ ”

Like the dreamer said, it was a good thing that it came out.