What Is The Metaphor?
These are stories, secrets, and reflections from the catacombs of hyper landscapes — the metaphorical landscapes we live in and take for granted.
Only underground do we find the source of those hyper landscapes. It is strange water.
I studied philosophy (Nietzsche, Emerson, and William James) and then worked in Silicon Valley (helping build tech companies) and Hollywood (a TV pilot). But, more importantly, I never really left behind where I grew up.
On my mom’s side, it was Louisiana swamp mystics. They knew myth in their bones. They knew the invisible stories that not only describe their lives, but actually cause our lives. And it’s easier to see the stories that shape our consciousness when the (post) modern spectacle isn’t blinding you.
My great-great uncle Claude was the first in my family who could even read. He broke his leg one summer and couldn’t work the farm, so he uniquely had the time. He became deeply obsessed with the strange, archetypal stories most religious people take for granted. He became so transformed by the meaning of these texts that he became a “traiteur.” A Cajun healer. Sick people came from all over to visit him.
Years later, his son (my Uncle Junior, also a traiteur) took live call-ins to heal sick people on the University of Lafayette’s Cajun French-language TV channel. To this day, he lives in a shack somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana, taking desperately sick visitors.
Call that “the placebo effect” if you like (as if that explains anything) — I’ve heard some unbelievable stories.
I left that strange landscape behind to become a modern man and take on the assumptions of modern men. But I couldn’t help but notice how hollow this world is in comparison. Despite all our comfort, ease, and power, we’re missing something…. Vitality. Embodiment. Mysticism.
The modern hyper landscape is the water we’re swimming in. It seems inevitable; irrefutable. But, there are other places we could call home. Richer places. Paradoxical places. Places where everything is still alive.
There are reports, rumors, and sketches from those hyper landscape frontiers.
Welcome to The Metaphor.
Oops, we’re all still pagans
Months ago, I wrote a Twitter thread about Milton’s Lucifer. It went a bit viral. God, it made me feel weird and exposed. When I’m getting coffee, walking, talking to a friend… it’s out there. Roaming the earth, infecting people’s heads with my half-baked curiosity.
Merry only has half a brain
If Merry's head was an ice cream cone, he only had half a scoop. In my college town, there was your usual hipster coffee shop so you could go study while eating a muffin. Highland Coffee, I believe it was called. Merry hung around near the front door, waiting to say hello to anyone. Once you got over the shocking sight of his half-imploded skull, Merry w…
