allanhunter.net Blog

It’s always a slightly surreal moment when one finishes writing a book.  Not that any book is ever truly ‘finished’ because there are always things one wishes had been added or removed, even years later, but I mean the moment when I survey the completed second draft and say, ‘Yup, that’s the way I want it, more or less.  This is what I’ll submit to the editors.’

That’s where I am with ‘Memoir Writing as Soul Work’.  Obviously the title will need some tweaking, but I think the text says what needs to be conveyed about the ways we grow our consciousness when we write Memoir - provided we keep ourselves honest and alert.  The same techniques that keep us honest as writers function in exactly the same way in our lives, as it turns out, which is why writing is never a closet activity, never an Ivory Tower exercise.  As each of us becomes more open to more possibilities for understanding our lives we shed the prejudices, the ingrained ways of seeing, that deceived us for all those years.  Confronting these honorable lies, these lies of the soul, isn’t ever easy - and that’s why I wrote the book.  It gives practical advice on how to outwit that slippery series of unconscious defenses we have taken so long to construct, that we all love so well, that keep us partly blinded.

These are things I know about first hand.  I’ve not only seen others wrestle with them, but I’ve been through this particular fire.  Several times. Oh yes.
And my hope is that readers will use the book and become a little more alert to themselves.

For when we can see clearly how we deceive ourselves, then we forgive others their deceptions as well. Gradually we move closer to a mind space that can only produce more peace.

Peace is, in the end, what we need more of.

They’re at it again.  The press, I mean.  In the news is the statement that Obama’s silence about the Israeli attack on Gaza is ‘damaging’.

Let’s just hold on here, a second, and point out the obvious.  Obama is not yet the president of the United States.  George Bush is.  Obama, therefore, would not only be out of line in making any sort of policy statement, but he would be inevitably making a grave error.  Why?  Because until he becomes president (which can’t be too soon for me, but won’t be until January 20th) he won’t have full access to the sort of intelligence and security briefings he needs before he can possibly speak out. Only a very impolitic politician would speak out under those circumstances.  His silence, in fact, shows tact, strength, and wisdom.

By contrast George Bush’s silence says he does not care two hoots about peace in the Middle East, or he can’t be bothered. And surely he is the one who could speak out.
Yet where is the focus of the press?

They’re up to their old tricks, aren’t they?

I was down at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, in Watertown, yesterday, just as the exhibits were being carried in for the RISD show (Rhode Island School of Design).  There were pieces of art all over the place, propped in corners, wrapped in burlap and bubblewrap, and so on.  But one could see that right away, most of this was art.  What was it that drew the eye in so seductively?  How was it that I could immediately distinguish between a pile of office debris (just plain old stuff) and the objects that at first glance might seem the same but obviously weren’t?  What is the difference, I wondered?

In the main hall there were other objects, one of which was an old high-wheel bicycle like object, constructed from old farm implements, including bits of a plough and a scythe. I took one look and could hardly look away. This was a careful assemblage about 10 feet long and 7 high, which had matched the silvery colors of the aged, decaying wood, and yet had a simplicity and balance to it that was surprising. It was instantaneously recognizable as something worthy of more attention, since the piece seemed to ask questions about our present-day world of machinery, the world of nature and decay (the wood) and our relationship to nature itself.

It also left me asking myself what sort of mind could create such a vision - to translate farm implements into something other, something not seen before in quite this way.

It may not appeal to everyone as an object.  But if one of the purposes of art is to act as a spur to deeper thought, to mediation, then this did it.  It had all the charm of an old carthorse that one wishes to pat, and love, and appreciate, and which one cannot possibly take home. And that’s part of the tragedy of history, isn’t it? We love buildings that are 400 years old but they’re impractical, expensive, and have mice.  And so we move to the new condo instead and watch costume dramas on PBS.  Believe me, I know.  I’ve lived in castles and most condos are a much better bet. So what is our relationship to the past but a mixture of nostalgia, love, and relief to be away from much of it…..?
But you’ll have to see it all for yourself.  The show opens on Saturday, at 2pm, but you can see it before then just by walking in the front door.  Let me know what you think.  Photos do it less than real justice, by the way.

So here I am, energetically blogging away at this site, then I’m also writing a column for PlanetLightWorker.com on a regular basis, plus a blog for Amazon.com, and now here’s Myspace wanting me to put up a blog as well.  Is there no end to the fragmentation possible?

So just to reassure you, I’m not repeating material here that you’d be getting elsewhere.  Still, you might want to check out the other places too, from time to time, just for a laugh.

But - what do you think?  Is it sensible to have all these things going at once?

And all the while I’m wondering if I can boost readership at www.sixarchetypes.com at the same time. It’s a very appealing site, but not nearly as popular as www.allanhunter.net. I’ve no real idea why as yet.
But in all this I won’t lose sight of my main aim, which is to finish my book on Memoir as Soul Work, and see if I can find a sympathetic publisher for it. It’s almost done, and it feels as if it’s a really good one.  Then I have to put the proposal package together.

And the teaching semester starts very soon….!

Life, surely, is a lot of fun, and comes at us way too fast.

I spent part of New Year’s Day following up a resolution to improve my ‘exposure’ by using Myspace and Facebook. I’m already on Goodreads and Gaia.  One of the things I noted yesterday is that the technology is not that smooth, because, I discover, my computer is not as fully up to date as the sites would wish.

This annoyance is akin to telling me that the gas in my car is no longer up to the required standard, even though I just filled up.

I know that these on-line forums can be useful and reach many people, and I know this has supposedly democratized the way things are done (in my case, getting people to buy my books and get ideas from them) yet….. it does depend upon having all the latest gear, doesn’t it?  It relies upon individuals buying the most recent gizmos and using them at a huge investment of time, just to make a glitzy statement.  As such it comes dangerously close to being another version of good old fashioned capitalism.  The person with the big bucks still gets the best exposure.

This is vaguely disappointing.  I had hoped it might be different.

Perhaps, for me, the most sensible course is to go about earning money, which I know how to do in my current job, so I can just pay someone else to get this stuff functioning for me?

I just replied to Jean’s comment on yesterday’s posting, in which she said that we need to re-align our priorities in 2009 so that they match our actual values.  This struck me as important.  What we’ve been manipulated into, for the past eight and more years, is crisis management, and that means we’re constantly trying to get the boat back on an even keel but unable, as it happens, to think about where the boat is headed, or even if we still want the boat as a mode of transportation.  It also stops us from having to think about what we do when the boat reaches wherever it’s going, and it certainly doesn’t allow us to question the captain….

It’s a tactic that came into play with Clinton-Lewinsky, and which effectively stopped government dead while giving the impression that government was working overtime, and therefore needed a lot more of our money to do so.

We really can’t afford such silliness anymore.

Doubtless the press will try the same old tricks.  It’s up to us, each and every one of us, to let them know we’re not going to be fooled again. So when your local paper starts to kick up some sort of bogus story about something idiotic then write and complain.  Call and complain. Tell them to grow up.  And the same with your local TV news. We can’t let them do this to us again.
I may find it hard to follow my own advice as I’ve long since canceled my subscription to the Boston Globe, since I found the ‘news’ portions of that paper to be parochial, petty, and racist as well as actively mendacious. I was ashamed to call that rag a ‘national’ newspaper, and I told them so on many occasions. So I may not be the first to notice when they act silly….

It’s snowing energetically outside so the mood is about right.  Snow, after all, changes the way we see things, at least temporarily, and its disruptive capacity lets us know how much we’ve taken for granted about comfort, mobility, and so on.

It’s a good way to help us reassess.

As 2008 fades I’m reminded of all those wishes one sends each year: ‘Hope the New Year is  great one for you!’ and so on.  With Obama in the White House on January 20th we do, in fact, have more than just a vague hope.  We have an expectation.  Peace is much more likely to happen than under Bush, and although it may not happen as fast as we’d like it now feels distinctly possible.  And add to that our longing for greater equality, greater awareness of the poor, respect for other nations, attention to solving the problems of Global Warming, pollution, and corruption.  It can’t all be done right away, but now it feels do-able.

So we’ve moved from a situation of vague hope that things will turn out nicely without much conscious in-put from us, to a place of seeing actual possibility.  That’s the difference between a dream and a call to action.  We made that shift, we moved to a new place as a whole nation, when we voted.  What does it all mean?  It means there’s work to do.  And we’re ready for it. With this attitude 2009 could turn out to be quite a year…..

I’m sure you’ve noticed. There are quite a lot of rather zippy websites out there - with little video clips and embedded features that enable all sorts of flashy options.  All very cute.  But I really can’t recall many of them, with the possible exception of Guardian UK on-line, which is a ‘newspaper’.  It’s updated about a million times a day, probably employs a staff of hundreds, and is truly informative and entertaining.

Somehow not much of that appeals to me for my own websites.  Am I behind the times? Is my belief in plain-speaking and clarity just too nineteenth century? Or do I just wilt at the thought of employing hundreds of staff? (Definitely a possibility).
Or is it a case of me believing, somehow, in the written word (as opposed to the dancing rabbits with rainbow hats singing the word)?  I mean, this blog is visually very plain, and I think I like it that way.

But perhaps I should ask you, my readers, about it?

I’m just back from a quick trip to Canada, where it was certainly much colder and icier than here.  I think the thing that always surprises me about Canada is that before one reaches the delicious architecture of Old Montreal, with its spectacular restaurants, its streets of granite solidity constructed by dour Scots and ebullient Frenchmen - before one reaches that, one has to pass through the most astounding areas of urban sprawl.  The houses themselves are well built, but with all the architectural appeal of the average cardboard container (in some cases, less).  And there are acres of them.

I can’t understand that.  But the second aspect is one I understand even less.  These ‘estates’ of sprawl that one sees from the road are brand new, still being built, and devoid (as far as I can see) of any community space. There are no libraries, town halls, nor even any shops.  There is no public space of the park variety, and almost no trees. In fact there is no ‘there’ in such places.  They seem to be dormitory areas for commuters. How, in these circumstances, can one build any sense of community, one wonders?

Mercifully these places will be filled with Canadians, who are surely amongst the most civilized, reasonable, and caring folks in the world. (There’s a good reason Canada is placed so high on the UN human rights table each year….)

So how did they allow themselves to build places which, since the 1950s, we’ve all known were dreadful for a sense of community?  This sort of housing is very hard on human beings’ sense of connectedness, as we learned the hard way in England after World War II.

But perhaps the trees will grow, the shops will arrive, and the schools will spring up in their own sweet time.  I do hope so. Then it won’t really matter if the houses are bland and boring. Still, it was an opportunity missed.