The Id of Trump

The Id of Trump

: is the id of America

As someone once noted accurately and crudely, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. 


By now everyone has an opinion on the shocking rise of GOP candidate Donald Trump. Equally beloved and reviled, he has swept through the Republicans with his mixture of racist-fascist idiot-ideology backed with strongman threats. 


Throw away clown candidate no longer this Republican nominations, hes come a long way. For the liberal, the ethnic minorities and non-fundamentalists Christian, hes shaped up nicely into the Last Boss, the doom of everything good about the USA.


Despite the ominous choir shaping up stage right, the 'good' are still stuttering over their chosen champion. Hillary or Bernie. The woman, widely regarded as the moderate contender albeit owned by corporations, or far-left Jew, widely regarded as too radical to win.


Eventually we'll cross paths with both our quixotic hero and woman's champion, but right now its about how voting numbers are neurons. Say what now?


Lets use an older metaphor. If you're reading this you've probably heard the Cherokee story of the good wolf and the bad wolf that live inside you. The one that you feed is the one you heed, or become; never been too clear on that bit.



I've always wondered, how do you know the 'Good one'? Do they come colour coded? Is there a majestic silver one wrestling a jet-black doppelgänger? Demeanour? Silky-smooth fur?! Does Evil look Ugly? Wouldn't that make things simple!


I present to you the idea, that whatever makes you feel unafraid will become the most beautiful thing you'll set your ballot on. When we are afraid, what promises succor today becomes Good, whatever it bills us tomorrow.


Don't we all feed the wolf that promises to save us? A steep loan to pay off your bills; chemotherapy to combat cancer, dating a narcissist to eclipse your loneliness? We all make choices that deep down, we know are bad for us. That will cost us.
Fear is no different, yet multiplied by millions, the cost becomes a global one. Worry not though, like China's One Child Policy's result, the results will probably be very ironic for the home of free and brave.


Naturally once we've drowned in necessary evils, buyer's remorse makes us consider the state of our soul. Which Wolf did we feed? To quell the uncertainty, perhaps the humanity, flickering at the base of your soul, you are seized by need to believe your wolf is the Good Wolf.


Terrorism equals Muslim, immigrants equals job-theft, all-other politicians equals liars; are the most popular rhapsodies of despair that Trump waltzes to. To the well-watered soil of American fears, he promises measures no other candidate would take. Measures that would rob many of their basic humanity.


Bereft of other choices to believe in: you choose Trump. A spark goes of in your head and your beliefs need to shift: if he is the Good, what he does becomes your moral standard. Today I read about some kids that singled out and bullied their classmates as immigrants that will be deported when he comes to power.




As Bernie and Hillary divvy out the political moderates and the Left, the Right rises to authoritarianism. “Give us a strong leader! Absolve us of our fears! Make us strong!” flood the noosphere. Underneath lurking in the psyche currents of racial fragility, Christian xenophobia and the need to be the most feared country in the world coil. It is a heady brew that the Trump regime intends to drink down.


Each vote, another piece of America's collective mind selecting the fears of the tyrant. A fascist government convinced its a hero; each vote a neuron of disassociation. Who knows how far a Trump presidency will go? The worst in us eggs one and encourages the worst in others. 


Maybe thats the secret of his success. Fear, and its handmaiden hypocrisy are both founded in the shadows of the psyche. Set those up in a threesome with powerlust and you have a candidate who champions the Id, the worser half of us all. Especially for those who yearn to rebrand their fears as heroism.


America and Americans has borne the burden of being the hero begrudgingly since World War Two, which they earned by defeating the ArchEvil Hitler and his Nazis. Vietnam demonstrated the hollowness of the titles, and the frustratingly unappreciative world has not taken kindly to the American dollars reign. 


America itself split under the heroes burden, the ultrarich that lived the dream, and the average American who desperately dreamed. Multiple wars that saved no one, running parallel to the losing hearts and minds on the homefront. Billions in the air, but worlds apart. Republican and Democrat, the two faces of America.


Perhaps all these contradictions could have rested uneasily together but pigeons came home to roost. Ironic in  their beginnings of CIA training and supported freedom fighters to topple despots, they became the seeds of extremist violence. The terrorist became the straw that broke the two faced party of America. 


Trump isn't a Republican, whatever colours hes running. Hes a vainglorious maverick thats seduced everyone's fears by being completely unafraid. Of lies, of logical impossibilities, of lusting after his daughter, of being the butt of Liberal jokes, he is brazenly untouchable. Hes the man on record as saying he'd run as a Republican because their voters would believe any nonsense. 


Devoid of political acumen he promises fundamentalist wars, bereft of global economics he signals the next Great Depression. Armed only with rhetoric and his hair (which is possibly an Elder God in its own right), he has become Id's Trickster God, one who is winning. Witness his checkerboard promises where good and evil are reduced to truthiness. Witness how he is a joke and threat in the same breath.


For the Jungian savvy, I remind you that not all tricksters are good natured, wise teachers. Mendacious, lewd and filled with hollow promises, Trump resembles Coyote on his worst days, Loki when he was still malingering among the Asgardians, and every creepy magical fruit seller in mythology. 


Tricksters are what happens when people can't laugh, or cry, their wounds away. When we repress our fears with constant chanting of greatness deafens our reason. Literally - "USA! USA! We're Number One!"

Painful enough individually, but when we deny our id's at a national level, the same forces that binds us in identity is expressed subconsciously. The gestalt psyche finds the closest mold of its representative Id that will cleanse the onus of the hero. The Id finds away to make fools of our hopes and breathes life into our nightmares.


If psychology holds true? How does it play out?


It is the nature of tricksters, especially greedy ones, to have the whole show in the bag and then to fail spectacularly. Especially those beguiled by his promises.


Whether he fails at the threshold of power, or if he takes the nation down with him, will be left to Left.




America the Great is having a goddamned disassociative episode and unfortunately its earned every bit of by ignoring its people.


Or in simpler parlance, if you can't take a joke, in America the Joke takes you. 


Good luck with your idiot tricksters America. You're going to need it.

Part One - Why Coyote, why?

Why Coyote, Why I? 

Why are we in a Coyote Conversation? If you haven't noticed, you're in one now.

  Namely for what comes if I - or rather, if we – get it right. I'll take anything between the tight curled cheek smirk, to the long full release of something held far too long. Its how all tales of Trickster in Coyote end: in laughter, perhaps even laughing through the tears.

  I want buttons to pop – wicked dreams going wild, and its still safe because its in your head. When you talk to Coyote you fall into his stories. All the strangematter places your shining longs to show you, all the noises and quirks that tremble in your body, and the wild, wild ideas you never dared share. The grain of your individuality that you, only you, unique and strange in a universe of unfinished stories. 

If only it was safe to let outside.

  Never ever relax, or one night you might say mad things about beauty and truth and love. Push it instead.  Carve out the safe good bits, choice cuts. Leave it wrapped up and bound in a sexy little corset you can barely breathe in.

  Different hurts unless you're beautiful or rich. We learnt that early. We learn it young, on the playground, at the breakfast table, in the mirror. Wrap and bind, don't be timid, and put on your human suit. Wonder why life feels heavy yet hollow somedays so you shove that down too. Rinse and repeat.
                                     
  Dissatisfaction is the universal constant of the West; not hungry, but never full, never enough. The answer 'we' learnt was to fill with more, and more, and ... suddenly we're battling addictions; maybe in rehab or maybe in a ditch, wondering where it went wrong. If your heart holds out that long.

  If I could I would burst through my safe, safe, circumscribed restrictions, how ever pretty my corset is. I would rock, I would strut, I would parade every imperfection and damn my reflection. Aging body, soft stomach, naked haunches and brown to the boot. I would be a Fool, because only fools parade naked.
                                 

         
  Invested with no crown, the Fool dances to the sound of laughter. Mocking derisive laughter rains, and his heart trembles. Shaming words demanding her shame, that we're too ugly, too broken, to painful to see – to just not be. Stop showing me, me.

  The Fool cries as she dances. I know I would. He cries till he hears Coyote laughing. Coyote's laughter is warm as hug, mocking with a shared ironic amusement, and it bestows grace to fools. It is Coyote's only benediction.

  Coyote is always willing to be the Fool. And he will always grin slyly and try again. He is shameless. He gives me courage. He lets me hear what lies under the skin, and below the jeers. I find my path walking it laughing through my tears.

  Since nothing in me allowed for my healing, I had to trick myself into letting go. Thats the very simple reason why we're in a Coyote Conversation together.

The second part will be all about archetypes, and buzzy words such as fractals and chaos, but who knows? You'll have to wait longer for Coyote with me.



Le Fou image by Oswald Wirth (Le Tarot) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

   

Without 'ships, we're swimming: A love letter

Without 'ships, we're swimming: A love letter

Hello beloved,

We don't see enough of each other I think. Or perhaps you always are looking at me, this half-child of you and Mind.

I only ever see you in our pain, both pure and uncomfortable. A good man has cause to feel pain, a man trying to be good is unremittingly reminded his pain is caused by his selfishness.

We echo sometimes, when I say out aloud, 'I hate'. "I hate being rejected." When we say that we lash outwards hoping our pain is flung away by momentum of our fury.

If only we could emancipate our demons with hate.

Do you fear me my heart? My constant howling unhappiness that I strive to hold back. My griefs I've entombed in you. I've hidden you so well from the world, that they see only our light. Is that why I never feel you in your fullness?

All my adulthood, I've craved to know you now, come to peace with you. I was only shown a single way. To make a screen of another person. To project you on to them, and to meet you in them. To love a woman and find you in her.

I could only know you through my lovers. I allow the bitter shell of watchfulness to crack in desperate craving embraces. To dissolve in the amber honeyglow of intimacy and affection. When bodies are shared, I feel safe enough to share my heart, and for a blinding moment I see you!

My touch would rend you, so I swaddle you away to her embrace that I trust more than my own. I love you at an admiring distant, and spend my affection upon her heart, lavishing it with everything I am too angry at us to give. I am told I am a gentle, loving man..

I wish that sorrow was enough to mend our distance. Partnerships, relationships, even friendships seem too small and narrow to hold so disparate needs. You hold the secret of forgiveness, sweet absolution, the amritsar to cleanse my selfishness. Because I am still selfish in loving.

How far I've come. To acknowledge women as people first and not a passage to happiness. To celebrate their happiness more than my neediness. It required long work and painful honesty, to see my principles were out of alignment with my beliefs. I grew up in the clarity of that discomfort.

To all the women I've loved, thank you for showing up in my life. To all the women who've loved me, all my gratitude for seeing me and sharing yourself. When we have reached for each other, we learnt so much together. Thank you.


For too long, I've rested content on these achievements. Believing that by being open, not pursuing, nor forcing a relationship, I would find a spiritual-partnership. Waiting to hear a resonance, not only in her, but myself.

I hoped I would find you in that song, my heart. That I could build a ship with her to trevass the great sea of spirit and we'd find our hearts together and heal them.

I may still build that ship with someone someday, but I know you have to come first. The tenderness I've learnt in waiting and giving space, it is for you to return. The lessons of anger and pain, I can no longer bury within, but allow, experience and release.

I'll dive into the sea and follow the sounds of our grief. I do not know if I'll find you, the sea is dark and cold, and monsters were spawned into these waters, yet I cannot bear to leave you alone anymore.

I will find you in the sweat of release of ashtanga. I will wordlessly speak to you in breath. I welcome you in the rare snatches of mindlessness I touch. I will be honest when I am hurt, and unguarded when I am happy. I will dance with myself first to the songs you love. I will nurture faith.

Reach for me, as I reach for you my love. Let me meet you in this verse ~

“But there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.” ~ Mumford and Sons, After the Storm, album Sigh No More.
photo credit: Yesterday's boat via photopin (license)