Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights unnerves me.

The Kid was really troubled by it.

A deep inquisitive quality also blossoms in me.

The masterpiece is animalistic, sensual and full of pain.

Individual opposing qualities are seen. Together they make the piece whole.

It is profound and visceral.

Which plate will I end up in? That’s what I thought when I was the Kid?

Which is closest to me, I think. A fearful patriarchal catholic perspective getting a grip of me.

Which plate will I end up in?

Now when I look at it, I see balance between Dionysian and Apollonian. The Heaven and Hell of existence. 

Existence.  Consciousness. The middle plate of life on earth. The balance between the two.

Balance.

But which plate will I end up in?

How can we hold these two profound forces and become empowered. Enabled.

Bosch created his masterpiece during the renaissance . A time when the awakening of individual values and perspectives were being accepted more than ever before. The artist saw the balance. He used the balance between of opposing energies to create a work that awes the observer 500 hundred years later.

I look at Garden of Earthly delights.

I see the order of savagery and the order of pain. 

I see the order of its chaos and nature.

I see the order and reason of the Apollonian energy

It lifts and brightens me.

I connect to it. I find Apollonian energy deeply thought provoking. A soothing calming experience. I meditate on connection with the everything. Immerse myself. Lose myself in the everything. Individualism diluted, blended into the universal landscape. Soulful universal sound becoming my voice. 

Individual fears and longings melt away and I belong.

 Bosch - The Garden of Earthly Delights, click to enlarge.

But the world turns and the feeling of belonging fades…

The individual with all their complex, self deceptive fears and desires crashes in. The joy of the crowd, the Apollonian energy, is disregarded and forgotten.  Consciousness of the self lurches into one troubling experience after another.

In 2004, I had a difficult time.  I was facing bankruptcy, the dissolution of my professional life. My personal life imploding. I was in a fragile place being pitched into dark depression, stress and worry. 

My 6 year old son was a football fanatic.  

Spurs! Spurs! Spurs! 

He wanted to go to a game at White Hart Lane.

There was too much on, damn it.

It cost too much but fuck it, what can you do?

It’s your Kid, right. 

Troubled father and his excited son walking into a stadium full of souls.

The game kicked off and the sound of the crowd transcended me from what now seemed like petty troubles. I was part of the whole again. The Freddie feeling was with me again. The crowd sang and cheered and booed and mocked and praised and loved and I was whole. A sole voice would cry a chant. Then an explosion of sound would support them. The voice was held by the crowd, swallowed by the crowd.  I don’t remember the game but the crowd resonates with me today, many years later.

 But the crowd can turn ugly.

When I was my son’s age at White Hart Lane, my dear loving late Nana took me to a game. I saw a different quality to Apollonian energy there. Hordes of men pushing against metal barricades and climbing over fences.  Invading the pitch to scream, punch and kick at each other.  Gangs of Boschlike creatures entangled, rolling on the earth spitting, bleeding and squawking.

.

It was Violent and intrusive. Intimate.

Nana are they kissing?

She laughed then scowled.

That’s the last thing on their mind, my love. 

Let’s get going.

Dark group energy, manipulated by individuals for personal gain or individual aims and perspectives.

To destroy life. An anomaly to the Apollonian. 

Leni Riefenstahl was an Apollonian dream. 

She was beautiful and dedicated to her work. As an actress she played dynamic roles in German alpine films. These early works invented the action movie.

She is one of the first Wonder Women.

Leni was a Wonder Woman. 

She became a film director creating techniques, such as the tracking shot, which are still used today. She was one of the first contemporary film makers. She was a powerful individual who understood the power of the crowd. She could harness it.

Leni. Her ambitions tipped her into a dark place surrounded by monsters. 

By the early 1930’s Leni had acquainted herself with the German elite and become a confidante of Hitler’s.  She became the Nazi filmmaker, documenting the rise of Nazism in her film Triumph of the Will. The content of the film is difficult to watch, when you consider the horrors that unfold in the years under Nazi control. Yet the aesthetic is quite extraordinary and captures perfectly Apollonian energy used to gaslight and control the masses.

These party days were orchestrated to brainwash the nation.

Apollonian energy used to manipulate and control.

Create epic aesthetic experiences to overwhelm and stupefy the masses.

The Nazi propagandist Goebbels was able to produce acute emotional responses on a massive scale by using the latest technological advancements. Every trick and contrivance was brought into play at these showy displays of power, with the object of implanting awe and fellowship among their followers.

‘Leni Riefenstahl’ Audrey Salkeld

Apollonian energy used to deceive and gaslight the crowd.

Leni’s use of imagery is incredibly modern in Olympia, a film depicting the 1936 Olympic games. Olympia also depicts the great African American sprinter Jesse Owens, race in front of Hitler and the Nazi’s.

He aims for gold. 

Jesse Owens. The individual resisting negative Apollonian might.

Jesse Owens raises himself above the fascist crowd and wins 4 gold medals.

Goebbels wanted him removed from the film because Owens’ victories mocked the idea of Aryan superiority. Leni would have none of it and kept the footage of Owens. 

Triumph of the Will and Olympia capture the Apollonian energy. In all its beauty and negativity.

Riefenstahl’s connection to the Nazi’s never left her. She remains a controversial and vilified figure today.

Let us go back to the Apollonian light.  When its’ energy changed peoples’ perspective.

The March On Washington

It’s 1963 and Dr Martin Luther King speaks to the crowd at the March on Washington.  He is demanding freedoms and rights for those from the global majority.

250,000 people protesting with their feet.

A powerful Apollonian force

They are trying to change the American perspective on equality. A quarter of a million people willing Dr King to express their feelings and give them a voice.

To speak for them to the country. To the globe.

The singer Mahalia Jackson was Dr King’s friend.  From the platform where they stand, she calls to him

“Tell them about the dream, Martin”.

Kate Bush the beautiful Witch.

She holds the duality of Apollonian and Dionysian. The individual who leads us to connection and community. Kate Bush represents balance. To me, anyway.  Her wild spontaneity and aesthetic. So individual. There’s no one like her. You hear her voice soar and you don’t feel alone. You’re meant to be. A part of the whole story. Individual and community. The balance.

The Punk freaks and kicks with the Witch who burns and heals, so the Punk pogos and grins with the crowd.

I look at Bosch and see so many individual stories together, creating a disturbing beautiful image. I watch the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and can feel the millions sing and dance with them.

I watch Freddie. In an epiphany of his life, one of the greatest singers of his generation, sing We Are The Champions at Live Aid. Crikey! How they love him. Dionysian energy in harmony with the crowd. 

I reflect on the mistakes Leni made.

I watch Dr King reveal his dream. The crowd’s love and longing is palpable, real and as potent today as it was when he held Apollonian energy in the palm of his hands.

I reflect and wonder how that feels.

If I give these opposing forces time to blossom together and find harmony.

Don’t we all need a little time to explore this balance of energies?

I meditate.

The Punk says fuck it all.

I turn to the Witch and she says let’s fuckin’ change it all.

And the crowd says fuck, it’s all part of the thing.

The balance between the individual and the crowd is delicate. We have a duty of care to ourselves and the community.

How do we do this?

Offering connection and giving ourselves time to receive and reflect on the feeling which is born from Dionysian and Apollonian coupling.

On a street, in a supermarket, on a bus, in a park, reach out and connect to the crowd before you.

Realise the crowd and feel their power.

Empower yourself by embracing Apollonian energy.

It has been humbling living with the muse these last few months. It has awakened in me the need for balance.  That is what the Punk, the Witch and the Crowd give me.  Within one the other coexists and resonates. If we lose sight of the Dionysian we can become feeble and too malleable.  When we disconnect from the community, smother the Apollonian force, our ego contorts ourselves. Our experiences become struggles. Our perspective on life self deceptive.

Let us strive to find

balance between these two opposing forces.

Balance.

The next verse of this Muse will arrive on the New Moon of September 25th.

Our next ORBIT gathering exploring the frequency of The CROWD will take place on Saturday September 10th.

 Let us remember what we have forgotten