Psychoanalysis with the tarot

Silhouettes

loneliness hits her face
with a hornet sting
she picks up the phone
and tries to ring
a friend
to hear a sugared voice -
but darkness brings fear
and ghostly shadows
cast silhouettes
onto an empty wall
awakening haunting dreams
of how things might have been

Annie Elliott 

Every day Ann writes a poem, always concise, insightful, sometimes of her frustrations with a life subject to fate's whims rather than her choices. Sometimes they are nostalgic; sometimes filled with anger at the stupidity in the world, in politics, in neighbours, in family; often about the annoyances of living with me. She has the powerful ability of complete empathy, able to enter the hurt and anguish or disturbing anxieties of others, and many people share their inner pain with her, like a priest in the confessional but without the guilt. I long ago gave up any pretence at a private, inner life, for she could read me before I knew my own thoughts, and there could be no secrets from her.

Using the tarot, she does not claim to read the future, but uses the revealed cards to explore the person's inner feelings and troubles, often leading them to insight of themselves that might take them forward over difficult choices or anxieties. In the olden days it might have been called witchcraft; now it is a form of psychotherapy and if she ever chose to take paying clients, she could be very rich from it. But it remains a private thing, for a few confiding friends and family.

Ann is not widowed yet, and still has full contact with her children and most of mine, yet today's poem looks at loneliness in total bereavement, seeing in the lines a woman cut off from her past, her memories, her family, with no one to share photos or common chat of her children's young lives, nor her own childhood. I do not think in Ann's case it is prophetic, for she is someone who will always have friends and family support, yet she can enter the heartache and unbearable loneliness of others who do suffer, and cry at their pain and yearn to give comfort. It is a deep and lonely gift in its own right, and even in the midst of companionship and a life shared, it reflects the aloneness we all experience from time to time, for her poem has that wonderful quality of all great poetry, of being specific yet universal.

Loneliness and gay roles for gay actors

Who Cares?

Who cares?
None - but the lonely piper
Churning out his dirge across the stair
That leads down, down, down to dark despair.

Who cares?
None - but the dark moon howling
In the silent night; calling at the last
Those dear departed dead loves of my past.

Who cares?
None - but my heart, which beats slower
With each passing stroke, reluctant yet to flee
From hopeless, hapless, love of she.

JHM

An article in The Guardian today (gay roles for gay actors) highlights the problems modern actors face in following their trade, i.e. should any actor play a role as someone other than themselves. This is a real problem for the profession: should women play male roles (e.g. Glenda Jackson in Lear - brilliant!); should non transvestites cross-dress to play women (Charlie's Aunt); should actors be padded out to play fat characters (Falstaff); or healthy people play the roles of invalids or people with some form of mental disability (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg)? Eddie Redmayne was in trouble for this recently in his role as Stephen Hawking. The problem is, he portrayed Stephen deteriorating from full vigour to severe disability. No actor inflicted with motor neurone disease could do this, so should they select an actor with some other disability to mimic a different disability?

I am happy with gay roles for gay actors if the actors are the best in their trade; but in fairness, I would then like to see straight roles played by straight actors, which is never going to happen. No - let our actors continue performing their trade: they are a mirror to reality, and must never be confused with reality itself. The problem with PC is that it is only ever applied by the vocal minority. It's a bit like Brexit, where a very vocal minority are making every effort to thwart the wishes of the silent majority. Would I could wave a wand and it would all be over with a clean out!

Loneliness

And so I am alone,
more alone than I have ever been,
no one at the end  phone
or here to walk the path with me.
So this is what was meant
how the story meets it end.
no one by my side,
not brother, cousin, child nor friend.

Annie Elliott

Ann's poem reflects so closely that which we all feel deep down. Loneliness. That sense of isolation, no matter how we disguise it with the idle chatter of friends or the distractions of a busy life. In the end, our inner being is ours alone, and the journey through life is a journey we must take for ourselves.