Art in the Age of Dreams

Dear Metapsychonauts,

With only a couple weeks left in the season, we are presenting the last few pieces in our Creature Consciousness series, along with a three-part essay on the transmissive power of art, serving as an exclamation point of sorts (or perhaps an ellipsis) on the year.

First, we are pleased to share “Three Anima/l Songs,” by poet Daniel E. Haar, which continues our exploration of creature consciousness, this time through a lyrical lens, as the poet invites us into the minds of the octopus, the rabbit, the fox, the squirrel, and the crow…

In “Hermes of the Worms,” we read:

On a dead branch atop a massive oak,
a crow is perched. Yet it is not because
the crow betokens death—nor, at the stroke
of sunset, that it lets out cryptic caws
as signs drawn from the shadows—that the bird
has come to rest on that gray bough […]

Just what is that crow up to? One might hear echoes of Wallace Stevens’s acute observations of nature in these lines. Yet in “Of Time and the Octopus,” there is also a hint of the fantastical:

There a great octopus sits looping out
her eight mind-legs and drinking in the sea […]

These short poems give much to reflect on and meditate with, and may even transmit a sense of gratitude for the mysteries all around us. They complement our long-form offering this week, an essay series titled “Art in the Age of Dreams,” which is the fruit of a unique collaboration and multiple synchronicities. As author Duncan Laurie recollects:

It’s odd how memory works, or doesn’t. Recently, Brian George contacted me about writing an article for Metapsychosis or even re-tweaking an older essay. We first met during the month-long leadup to Lamproneiro: Art and the Lucid Dream, a project Paul Laffoley organized with the Boston Visionary Cell for an exhibit at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank in 1994. Who knows how this strange meeting of opposites came about? It was an unlikely venue, indeed, but one with a wonderful large gallery. I recall very little from those events, not even what I submitted, but I can vividly picture Brian’s black on white glyph drawings. They reminded me of an alien language, of early saucer photos showing raised symbols along the contours of the craft.

“Art in the Age of Dreams” goes on to tell the story, not only of the collaboration resulting in these remarkable glyph-cubes…

… but we also learn about the fascinating field of research called “radionics,” which studies how consciousness can be embedded in artistic artifacts to produce measurable effects in the viewer.

Part One and Part Two of “Art in the Age of Dreams” are now published, with the Part Three scheduled to conclude the series next week. We hope you enjoy these deep explorations, and will add your comments to those already posted.

As a reminder, our call for submissions on “Crossing Thresholds” is now live and accepting submissions through January 19th. And next week we’ll be unveiling a new call for submissions, specifically for musicians and composers working in the Acousmatic space.

Also, the Cosmos Co-op Indiegogo crowdfunder continues until December 31st—so if you haven’t made your contribution yet, please do so soon. This is a special opportunity to become a part of what we’re doing and claim some perks along the way.

We’ll be back next week with  some concluding thoughts and our final features for the year. Thank you for reading… and thank you for supporting our journal!

Stellar regards,

Marco V Morelli
Editor-in-Chief, Metapsychosis journal
@madrush on Mastodon