Memory Versus Forgettory

Alla Tsank

I have never heard Jung or Hillman or Thomas Moore ever call themselves an elder. I don’t know, I guess it seems more of an appropriate term for traditional cultures. But we still need people, in a way, that can hand down stories from the past, and create some kind of a ritual space, and guide in some way through what is often a complicated initiatory psychological and spiritual process(and all of this against the backdrop of a youth obsessed culture where some of the youth wouldn’t mind burning the village down). I can think of other people that have played that role as well, Mircea Eliade, Marion Woodman and Joseph Campbell. Robert Bly said once that the problem for the puer(eternal youth) is that they haven’t always met an older person they can respect.

— Jon Wilson

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Wildness is a Necessity

I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.

— John Muir

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In order to see a figure you have to have a background, in order that a memory be valuable you also have to have a forgettory. That’s why we sleep every night to refresh ourselves; we go into the unconscious so that coming back to the conscious is…