the asheville asylum

part 5

part 3

behind the asylum not 100 feet from the shed stands the trailer. and on that night sweeney and Dmoll raided the morgue. and it was on that night that carvel woke up his wife ruby and they crawled to the window because the flickering blue of the torch appeared like armageddon itself through the trailer bedroom portal and they slowly raised their heads to the sill, then higher, afraid of what they might not see. and carvel began to pray and ruby tied her hands in a holy knot and began to hum sweet by and by. and jimbo their son woke and confounded began to cry because he was at the age when he knew his parents could never be wrong and he began to cry about that too. and all three of them at the window. and that sunday at the pentecostal tabernacle pastor early had his third-party proof that there was indeed a god and at least two angels. so early had his proof and took it on the road and assembled and wailed and collected and then retired somewhere near tarpon springs. but back here people soon forgot, that is except for the dorrs who still see two angels standing ever closer to their trailer and of course Dmoll who sometimes gazes from an attic window into the sun, shaking his head at the miracle he created.

they announced yesterday in the asheville newspaper that Dr. Gaidi Regis was appointed head of the asheville asylum. we all were more than joyed because he never wears a white coat and he is always there. i mean when he stops to chat, he stops like when we say the rain stops, he stops. and usually he'll start a conversation with.. 'you know, i've been thinking about something...maybe you could help me....' MWF...i mean dr. regis was always outside his office, and always talking to one patient or another. that's why we like him too. and his wife eunice does volunteer tutoring here, she taught Dmoll everything. and i don't know how but Dmoll found out right away and wrote a note to dr. regis and dr. regis wrote back in that secret language of the afflica diaries that eunice taught him "Dmoll nilivyoahidi kulinda na kuongoza," and she said that dr. regis wrote to Dmoll: "Dmoll, that which I have pledged to guard and to guide." and i've been seeing a lot of klaus carrying paintings and papers with MWF...i mean dr. regis...back and forth to Dmoll's room and i know something's going to happen, and i ...(because it was eunice regis who 1st recognized that Dmoll needed to read...she, not MWF, who tutored him...she, not MWF, who taught him about the warrior prophets....and she who suggested the afflica diaries...and so through her came the echoes of patrice lumumba) know it will be soon and i know it is not going to be bad because i heard dr. regis saying to murphy something about documents being in order and an apartment being fixed up. (because eunice knew right after they had arrived in asheville for his first appointment and just before dmoll ever showed up that he (gaidi) would finally have to choose between two worlds. because eunice knew when she first heard of dmoll that he (gaidi) would finally be the catalyst, because he (dmoll) came without the inherited baggage of prejudice, a tabula rasa with whom he (gaidi) could create the beginning of another past. so eunice tutored him (dmoll), careful not to become the ersatz mother, careful not to nurture. and he (gaidi) maneuvered to have dmoll transferred to him. and so eunice had set the stage and given dmoll the prerequisites for growth and he (gaidi) struggled to surround dmoll with a carefully defined set of influences that could create a human being capable of embracing any environment without malice or suspicion. so a little more than a year after dmoll's confinement, he (gaidi) knew and told his eunice i think it's near. this is jennifer and this is my first entry, Dmoll calls me his kid sister.

i am the one who paints. they say i have a talent that needs expressing, but i think i do better in words. i miss dr. safna a lot. he finally got me to admit that i am not the center of the universe. he also got me to understand that i have no short term memory so i needn't to carry around a pad of paper and a pencil and pictures of things that i must not forget. i miss him very much and blame the people in this town because they are prejudiced against foreigners. he's from another country. he helped me a lot. i wanted to tell him just how much i loved him for never missing an appointment but i forgot and now i'm better and he's gone. i am the only sane one here.

a b  this is Cdur545 and i love dmoll. so much that he gave me papers to guard that he said he hadn't given dr. regis. and that's why there are no more capital d's. i'm the one to thank for putting this stuff up here. i know my shit. an dmoll trusts me to be the way i am under one condition. dmoll said he'd write one more entry. but in the meantime i would be his mouth. this picture is the last one of a couple that led up to it, and they will come later. he calls it the two temples: the temple of things past and the temple of things yet. you figure it out. i'm 17 an i know. i know what goes on here because i know about how these people interact, and i know what it is like to be a woman an i know men. oh yeah...i love music and i love soccer. the temple of the yet says:

this temple will not harbor the wicked
this temple will not dedicate itself to an unknowable god
this temple will not be built of wood
this temple contains 1 body
this temple has no windows
this temple contains 4 doors opposite one another
this temple does not face to the south or east
this temple allows no rituals
this temple contains holy dirt + water
this temple does not contain things that cannot be moved
this temple contains no precious metals
this temple contains 1 voice but no words
this temple is light and dark when needed
this temple is made only of sand and soapstone
this temple moves when least expected
this temple can be owned but not possessed
this temple contains wings but cannot fly
this temple can be hummed but not spoken
this temple can be seen but not entered
this temple can be felt but not touched
this temple moves but is no body

(and the women that dmoll loves) eunice, lilith, eve mary, mary, judith, cassandra, pandora, isis, rahab, jezebel, makeda, dido, helen of troy, nikki giovanni, kathe kollwitz, mother teresa, rosa parks, camille claudel, eva hesse, mona, sylvia plath, sophie scholl, artemisia.
Cdur545

KV 545 the piece sounded

sometimes i sleep for 2 days and monsters come to my dreams in the great hall like grendel or

his mother. so to understand it i came up with a formula: 1 ID + 1ML = -SE
one id plus 1 instance of blind motherly love equals to the attack on the infant christian superego. i can understand fury

like 2 females or 2 boobs like 2 marys.
Cdur545

if i were not 2 people i could not endure the red that i am seeing now; i could not be the 2 marys i am; i could not drink from the trough before poisoning the water; i could not be that nanny seeking an eternal interval between their nudging and sucking.

but because i am that when my cones and rods erode into a chicken shit green, that i move like lead or that i cannot find enough hands to hold up my head... i know that the lithium metal they force me to swallow lodges where i cant either inhale or vomit. this is for the new hoi polloi, the dumb bitches and silly pricks who know the emperor has no cloths and yet still invest feverishly. i am too tired. do yr handjob on yourselves, here are yr new commandments. 

1. Promote your cynicism
2. View the world as chaotic and contradictory
3. Seek allegiance with nature
4. Assume the role of sophisticate
5. Crave the public coffers
6. Confuse the novel with the dernier cri
7. Transform the commonplace with ulterior imagination
8. Read them
9. Quote them
10. Believe them
Cdur545

this is me, Cdur before dmoll began to have me record his dreams, but after the fitzgerald episode. sweeney taught me how to weld after i asked; after i learned from MWF about the acetylene torch; after cherry sucked out every conceivable treasure from the chapel into some other realm. but sweeney said a MIG welder would be more lady like like i give a shit. i just wanted to make something like that images dmoll imagined on carvel dorr's lawn at the back of the trailer. something sweet for ruby and jimbo. tonight i'm going to plant them out there.

the following notations recorded during june, 1985
(Dmoll's first dream)

(regis recorded the following as tape #1, years later he told Cdur that tape #2 contained a reinterpretation of what follows) this is not a formal entry into the asylum's notes on CN DMOLL010647, i'll be informal, at Dmoll's request to make public his dream(s) regarding the 'shadow.' without using too much psychiatric lingo, we ask first....what is the shadow an image of; what is its referent; and is it necessary to eradicate it from the 'personality,' as freud thought might be accomplished? in all my years here at the asheville asylum i have never seen the shadow in such pure form,--that is, symbolizing that aspect of the personality within, that is unacceptable. more often than not, patients complain of dreams in which a 'hideous form' or animal is chasing them....but upon further inquiry, that 'form' or personification references more so an object external to the patient's unconscious (i use jung's term instead of the freudian 'subconscious.') Dmoll's shadow, on the contrary, points inward. the shadow symbolizes by definition that part of the one's motivating and personal unconscious that the patient cannot or will not accept; that upon emerging to consciousness, causes the patient mild to serious anxiety. in Dmoll's case let's look at the first detail of the painting on the left.

there is an arena, a public event with appropriate spectators. the front is open as is a stage upon which characters play roles, events scripted. however, in the midst of this seemingly adult situation, the 'boxing ring' is also a trampoline, associated with youth. the shadow here is symbolized by the bobolink, which when hit or punched (and that is its passive function!) it recoils back to the 'child' such as in fencing, 'touche and retouche'! Why is the bobolink such an unassuming image and not the expected grotesque intimidating creature usually associated with its namesake?

let's first look more closely in to the symbolic imagery here. Dmoll was in his late teens when he began to have very similar dreams involving the bobolink. Dmoll 'grew up' here in the asylum (arena). and the asylum is a very public place where nearly all our patients suffer from some behavioral disorder (the various roles). the faces that Dmoll has put on the spectators demonstrates the variety of reactions by spectators (patients and staff) to the events in the ring (on the trampoline), and range from fright to boredom. it seems that the bobolink is an image associated with his past, but i do not think it is meaningful except as a once-owned toy that happens to portray the essence of his shadow. so there seems to be some unconscious past behaviors that he has brought up into the present, something that he is fighting against, but cannot win. after all, the bobolink keeps bouncing back, it is not phased or destroyed or overcome. whereas most images of the shadow actively pursue the person, we notice here that his is passive yet persevering in its passivity! so, we may ask, 'what are those characteristic behaviors of Dmoll's past that he (and only he) finds undesirable but has brought into his teens and beyond?' as much as i would like to conjecture, with evidence only from this dream, i do not believe i can give an answer. however, because i believe all dreams, even of one's past, are cloaked in the circumstances of the present, i think that Dmoll is in turmoil now, and the cause begins in the past and continues 'unchanged' into the present. the important word is 'unchanged.' is there some infantile or childish behavior that he sometimes exhibits? this.....a decided 'yes.' here i disagree with freud, but agree with jung, that not all of the unconscious can be emptied onto the psychiatric couch. the essence of some things will remain a mystery. so if we can set aside our desire to know what the bobolink symbolizes in Dmoll's past and concentrate on its present symbolism, we can be more fruitful in our endeavor. it seems to me that this 'bouncing back' is simply stating: 'Dmoll I won't go away!"

how has Dmoll grown and not grown during his time here at the asylum? he has matured physically and cognitively. intellectually at an astounding rate. yet we know that he came here when he was 5-6 years of age. we also know that he did not have young friends, and consequently was not able to play, that is, learn, mimic and portray typical children's behavior with peers. he was always in the company of 'adults,' but adults whose behavior represent extremes. hmmmm.... i am thinking that the last few words may take these notes into a fruitless direction. let's back track. i think i have it: what aspect of the shadow emerges at such times and during such circumstances that he cannot accept these associated behaviors? let's look at the ways he formed associations with the patients here. if, for the sake of argument, he used childlike behavior to associate and communicate with the so-called adult patients because trying to mimic 'normal' adult behavior could not produce results....then what we have is Dmoll constantly being forced to act childishly or in child-like manner with adults to achieve a desired effect or goal. could this be what the shadow is telling him....that Dmoll is using these behaviors to interact with adults, when they are inappropriate? i don't know. i need to put this aside for a while and let it simmer. now for the picture on the right-- same picture but representing dreams years later.

...at one point in time the image of the bobolink cease to appear in his dreams. during his middle to late 20s the shadow changed form into the image on the right side of the current painting: a more traditional 'devil' or 'wild man' image, such as the one depicted here.

that the shadow took on a second form was puzzling to me for a long time. i could not imagine why until one day last year klaus mentioned something that stuck in my mind. while talking about rodney, he said that it seemed there are some things people have to accept about themselves because if they don't things get worse. this folk wisdom came back to me recently and i think i can apply it to explain the change in the shadow's appearance. both images are 'typical' of the shadow, however, the bobolink is not. could it be that by Dmoll's not accepting the childish/childlike behaviors that the bobolink represents, the shadow gains in power, moving from the benign to the malicious? after all the bobolink is benign but unconquerable. fighting against it over the years has produced a shadow much more dangerous. by analogy: as the benign bobolink turned into the vicious devil or wild man, the childlike behaviors the bobolink represented turned into anger that the devil/wild man represents. and further: because Dmoll could not accept the fact that he would have to rely on childlike behavior at times, those behaviors became frustrated and became anger. this may explain his tendencies in his 20s to be self deprecating and his sudden explosions! what then was the original bobolink trying to tell Dmoll which he did not hearken to? i think the message was: accept me and use me when you need me. i am not dangerous now and i won't go away. and perhaps, allegorically, the evolved shadow is now saying: now i am more powerful and i represent impulsive anger. all right. if this is true what, then, were the associated unconscious behaviors that the bobolink represented? i think now that they were an organized constellation of child-like behaviors that could be used on occasion to associate with, communicate to, and elicit desired behaviors from others, especially his parents. and this is quite normal. but what happened is that Dmoll applied these behaviors on occasion even when he was an adult, and when he became conscious of this, his embarrassment led him to seek to destroy these behaviors. but don't most of us occasionally rely on the childlike or childish behaviors to get what we want when the occasion permits? especially when adult behaviors like reasonable and lucid argument seems to have no effect? personally, i think this is not strange. but what is uncanny is that Dmoll seems to have been AWARE of this at such a young age, and that he could not deal with his own insight. so instead of simply accepting these behaviors, he fought against them. this may hold water. if we recall the events sketched in these pages, there seems to be some accumulated evidence. i need to distance myself from this.

(part of tape #2, damaged in the asylum fire)... now i know. the bobolink was never the shadow... it was the the image of its attributes... not singular, not specific, but a definition... as though his mind was simply saying... this is what the shadow does can do...

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