Art Goes On

Dear friends of Metapsychosis,

I’m beyond pleased to introduce the first Transmission of what, I recently realized, will soon become our tenth year of publishing this journal.

As the world continues its chaotic evolution, or “long curve of descent”—depending on your point of view—Metapsychosis, for me, has served as a sanctuary and sanity-saver, when it would have been all too easy to drown in a maelstrom of traumatic events.

Instead, I’ve gotten to work, directly or indirectly, with over 200 talented writers, artists, and other contributors, along with a stellar team of editors, some of whom have been collaborating or in dialogue with me and/or each other since even before we began publishing. I’m proud to feel that we’ve persevered in doing creative work that nourishes consciousness and sustains the human spirit, through many difficulties.

What a rare privilege and an honor! I feel it even more so when I hear that people whom I’ve never met continue to read and follow the journal. Our audience keeps growing, along with our network of contributors. Just over the last six weeks of hiatus, we’ve received over 90 submissions of new original work, including many experimental musical tracks we’ll be releasing as part of our upcoming series called “Acousmatic Crossings” (thanks to Michael Eisenberg’s enthusiasm for the genre).

We also have a number of essays, stories, and poems on theme of “Crossing Thresholds,” and many luminous pieces on other topics as well. What do they all have in common? Why are they all being published here? Even approaching a decade, I still have trouble saying what it is. It’s many things of course. It’s a feeling. It’s a knowing. It’s a way of being, or rather, a resonant multiplicity of ways….

There is something spiritual, something aesthetic, but also, given that we’re organized as a cooperative, something practical and engaged—an urgency and awakeness, yet suffused with the patience that art and philosophy require. In all honesty, whatever it is, I feel that we’re still at the beginning…

And so this week, we return to one our earliest contributors, co-host of the Weird Studies podcast, J.F. Martel, whose essay, “How Symbols Matter,” explores how the symbolic nature of art works in a fundamentally different manner than than the logic of transactional communication, where a word or other sign “stands for” something else. Art matters because it gives us “the thing itself.” It opens our perceptions to a realities that are beyond our conceptual categories and mental maps.

In an age of ever-intensifying propaganda, automated marketing, rampant misinformation, and insidious sensationalism—which would induce us to support this or that agenda, buy this or that product, and so on—art takes a different tack. Not that it’s pure; not that it’s non-commercial or apolitical necessarily—but in art there is essentially something deeper and more revelatory going on, something no one can merely tell you, or sell you, but which discloses something about what it means to be alive. You have to experience this for yourself.

Speaking of art that is worth experiencing, our second feature this week is most profoundly that. Lo Galluccio returns with a series of poems that delve into and perhaps attempt to exorcise her fraught 25-plus-year practice of yoga and relationship with the deity Ganesha. Anyone who has pursued a spiritual path or relationship deeply enough will know that it is not all light and bliss, but also shadow and struggle, with plenty of heartbreak and disillusionment in the mix. (How else could we open up, without breaking open? How could we wake up, without our illusions being undone?)

In one particularly pregnant line, Galluccio writes:

“You hear a story about a god:
it may be in your interest to listen or to run.”

I was especially moved by Lo’s performance of the poems, captured in an audio recording which I urge, nay, exhort and implore you to listen to. That we get to publish such work makes this labor of love well worth it. (Thanks to Eric Zinman for the technical assistance; and to Brian George for his editorial work.)

As ever, we enjoy seeing your comments and welcome your suggestions. Please also, now more than ever, consider becoming a patron. Starting in March, senior editor Mary Thaler will offer a writing circle for patrons. We are also in the process of surveying our members to determine what reading groups and other events to offer next. When you become a patron of Metapsychosis (or a member of our parent organization, Cosmos Co-op), you’ll get access to our private community forum, monthly meet-ups, and opportunities for creative collaboration.

Please also help us promote our authors and artists, and inject their alternative perspectives into the public discourse, by sharing the pieces you like with your friends and networks.

Thank you for reading and listening! Feel free to be in touch. And stayed tuned for more…

Stellar wishes,

Marco V Morelli
Editor-in-Chief, Metapsychosis journal
Co-Creator, Cosmos Co-op