Here Comes the Sun
Celestial Chaos, Tribal Colors, Interior Space
Sunday newShrink greetings, with a sunward shift from last week’s skyscape.
It’s a shift toward sunspot-triggered energy storms, forecast across central U.S. by midweek.
This CBS News headline is hard to beat for capturing the Celestial Chaos of today’s title:
A "cannibal" solar ejection heading straight for Earth could bring the Northern Lights as far south as Illinois and trigger power voltage issues. (Illustrated in the three top-center images above and the story discussed more below)
title themes
🔷 This Celestial Chaos’ dynamic beauty, energy and potentially destructive volatility sounds a lot like the range of today’s news-scape. (A handful of headlines is broadly depicted by images in the center-column above.) The sunspot-storm metaphor can also be an apt descriptor for living with attentive awarenes of the reality and the autonomous nature of the unconscious (that shadow realm we might know as soul or psyche.)
🔷 Then backtalk looks at opinion commentary about the stories and issues by pundits, by newsmakers, and by us as consumers and citizens — particularly on national and partisan-political fronts leading into November midterm elections. My recent emphasis on opinion/commentary and those producing it has intensified attention and concern to what I’ve titled Tribal Colors here. The term refers to all the ways we identify, “brand,” and categorize ourselves, others, and the vantage point from which our arguments and possibilities are being posited.
I’m finding that Tribal Colors not only characterize literal and figurative hats, tee shirts, language, role-definitions and red- or blue- hues that we use. But even among educated professionals — whose job it is to bring robust, creative thinking, fresh connections and ideas to the pressing issues — there’s a pattern I find alarming. It’s an apparent inability even to formulate questions, ideas, possibilities or thoughts themselves beyond or beneath the label and filter of “who and what am I, and how and what do I think about this, as a ‘conservative,’ ‘liberal,’ member of the elite, populist, night-person, extravert, dog-person, vegan (fill in the blank)?” Stories depicted in the left column above largely focus on the theme of Tribal Colors discused under backtalk below.
🔷Particularly from the newShrink depth psychology and soul standpoint this raises the other, near-dire, concern that I’ve titled Interior Space. That is the vital question of how, given such current limitations, we are to function individually and collectively as a nation of laws and a nation of ideas — both of which are essential and foundational to our American democracy. (Primarily depicted in items illustrated in the right column above.)
These are three organizing themes to watch for in all items below. Those that refer to specific images are numbered and note location on the illustration. Images are stock photography unless otherwise cited.
Celestial Chaos: a handful of headlines
#1. A "cannibal" solar ejection heading straight for Earth could bring northern lights as far south as Illinois and trigger power voltage issues (CBS News. Stock photos from NOAA and NASA’s Bob Hines.)
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#2. President Biden’s signing of the Inflation Reduction Act (Photo by Mandel Nigel/AFP Getty Images, in center column).
The new law marks a massive Biden legislative-agenda accomplishment in an evenly divided Congress. It brings progressive benefits in negotiating drug prices, massive action on climate change, at least some reduction of the deficit and new funding through more equitable taxes on certain corporate revenues. (See heathercoxrichardson.substack.com daily coverage for excellent details and perspective on the scope of this.)
Biden Signs Expansive Health, Climate and Tax Law
The president returned briefly from vacation to sign a bill that passed the House and Senate on party lines after more than a year of fraught negotiations. (The New York Times)
Biden signs a historic climate bill. So what will it actually do? (Christian Science Monitor)
The new Wall Street tax key to Inflation Reduction Act
Corporate stock buybacks were illegal until 1982, but the law just signed taxes the transactions to pay for President Biden’s climate and health-care agenda. (The Washington Post)
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#3. FBI document-search of former President Trump’s Mar a Lago home. (Stock photos at bottom-center of Mar a Lago, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.)
In addition to the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and NPR I recommend political historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American and lawyer-progressive activist Robert Hubbell’s Today’s Edition for excellent day-to-day coverage on this critically important case. It’s one in which intensified far-right partisan rhetoric, incendiary threats and violence have been noisier than the legitimate cautionary questions as well as the substantial legal and procedural grounding of the actions taken by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice.
Here is The New York Times’ late-week update. Included are links and audio updates on the previous week’s coverage of the actions and issues that began with the execution of the search warrant on August 11.
Judge May Release Affidavit in Trump Search, but Only After Redaction (NYT)
The possibility emerged after news organizations sought to unseal the affidavit submitted in support of the search warrant. Any public version of the affidavit could be heavily redacted.
Here is a fine Newsweek piece offering perspective on the latest decision by the same judge who had issued the search warrant after reviewing the affidavit — and who has been receiving death threats ever since. By all available review of Reinhart’s bio, he’s eminently qualified by education, experience and apparent temperament. And while his judicial position is not a political appointment, his political-support leanings have long been demonstrably even-handed toward both parties.
Judge Bruce Reinhart's Decision on Trump Search Affidavit Explained (Newsweek)
This past week Mick Mulvaney weighed-in on the op-ed side of this issue.
But in recent weeks Mulvaney, former Trump White House acting chief of staff who earlier left his U.S. House seat to run Trump’s budget office, has made news. As a long-hard-line fiscal conservative and formerly a vocal Trump-loyalist his agreement to testify cooperatively before the U.S. House Jan. 6 Committee was indeed news.
Mick Mulvaney, ex-White House acting chief of staff, testifies before the January 6 committee (CNN, July 29, 2022)
Coinciding with that decision, Mulvaney has been visibly seeking in the wake of Trumpism to redefine his “conservative” credibility/brand (whatever that is or is to become), regain political relevance, and perhaps redeem his reputation. He has been waging what is clearly a proactive public-relations campaign in the only public forums currently available to him: As an op-ed-writing/TV-, podcast- and radio-opining pundit.
Mulvaney’s current activities in these multiple different roles — and his intensely partisan, who-is-wearing-what-tribal-colors rhetoric — make him an interesting case for backtalk reference below. He’s a great example of why it’s important with opinion commentary to know who is presenting it and a bit about where they are coming from and their life experiences that certainly play a part in their viewpoints. To me most important is how aware and open they are about owning, disclosing and integrating them with their presented positions and arguments.
Speaking of disclosure: I have never met Mick Mulvaney and have not shared his known political actions, policies or positions. But I have met and spent time with his delightful wife Pam through very dear lifelong friends (and readers), who have a special loving relationship with the Mulvaney family.
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backtalk: those Tribal Colors
First, another disclosure, this one a sweetly funny association with the term backtalk. One of my late adored-and-adoring dad’s favorite teasing terms of endearment for me was “Miss Bessie Backtalk, the Beggar.” (His other two tended to be a warmly heartfelt “Prucious” or “Tishie”… so it evened-out.)
This first piece is a lighter look at how our attachment to tribal colors can play out in many situations and at every life stage. With this story it’s one that’s profoundly age- and developmentally spot-on in the ego-personality-forming years of college-age, late adolescence and early adulthood. (In Jung’s terms the literal tribal colors of clothes and identifying accessories represent the persona masks, “public faces” that are “worn” by our ego-personality self. And the less securely defined the ego-self is, the more essentially the persona “clothing” is needed.)
Much of Jungian James Hollis’s field of expertise has been mapping and working with both an earlier, ego-self-defining first adulthood and the later second, soul-Self-claiming second adulthood. For another Jungian, the late Edward Edinger:
… the task of the first half of life involves ego [conscious personality] development with progressive separation between the [conscious] ego personality and the [soul] Self. By contrast, the second half of life calls for a surrender, or at least a relativization of the ego personality in order to experience and relate to the [unconscious/soul] Self.
My take on Edinger’s point here is that maybe we are supposed to experience and do this stuff in youth… then later in adulthood be growing bigger, deeper and beyond it? With James Hollis I’ve been fortunate to experience first-hand his wise teaching and his wry take on this: That basically we’re to spend the first half of our adult lives creating, building and carefully defending/preserving the sound fortress of an ego-self in the world… only to spend the second half not so much tearing it down but softening it, allowing it to become more resilient, permeable, spacious. (Oh, and mind you, this is only if we are lucky, and only if we respond to, rather than avoid, the terrifying challenges it entails. I say terrifying because at each threshold when this “relativization of the ego” stuff is underway, our ego personality — our self as we know it — feels like we are dying. This, btw, is part of the “depth” piece of depth psychotherapy.)
The New York Times story here is a well-reported and detailed visit with a Southern university where an already enormous, pervasive, quite over-the-top Greek sorority culture has now gone viral.
#4. Paranoia and Pastels at Bama Rush (NYT. Photos by Jill Frank of The Times.)
Fears about TikTok and rumors of a secret documentary swirl around sorority rush week at the University of Alabama.
Illustrated above at top left, that is the enormous, elegant Phi Mu sorority house — known as the White House (in Tuscaloosa, not DC). The young women called PNMs (potential new members, not “rushees”) shop for signature wardrobe items of “recruitment” (not “rush”) season.
The story could in so many instances have veered over into smug-toned outsider snark. To me, even with extreme and funny examples, it — refreshingly — doesn’t.
Here’s what may be my favorite quote of the week (italic highlights are mine.)
The women are also not allowed to bring their bags or, notably, their cellphones into the houses they visit. When they attend their parties, which are essentially pinterview sessions, rushees abandon their belongings on the sidewalk or the grass outside the houses, leaving the impression that a particularly pastel rapture has occurred.
I recommend it as an interesting cultural and trend piece and a fun read.
For me it’s also both a vivid contrast, and yet eerily similar, to the advanced, more entrenched and even sinister versions of tribal colors in our deeply divided politics and cultural life.
For time and space reasons this next series of left-column images and items is largely a visual tour without much additional commentary.
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#5. “Where have all the “real” Republicans gone?” (imagined to the tune of the iconic Pete Seeger song, the earworm that hijacked several of this week’s runs while this topic was working me.)
Along with non-Trumpist politicians and pundits striving to regain or retain relevance, this question — often implicit but sometimes stated — shows up a lot with friends and family members. They may describe in the past having voted or more strongly identified as “R/Conservative,”(or “D/Liberal/Progressive”) or they have idealized memories of parents or whole families who did.
The question I’d like to pose instead is not facetious, nor does it apply solely to Republicans, conservatives, or any other one party or affiliation. It is: Why are we talking only in labels (hats, tee shirts, tribal colors) and not getting at the far more complex ideas, principles, laws, etc. that form how and why we wear so many different ones? These labels are “clothing,” not genetically or permanently coded into us! And for me at least, real conversation and problem-solving essentially halts the moment labels are substituted for delving into pesky ideas.
Here’s an MSNBC interview this week with U.S. Rep. Adam Kinsinger, R-Illinois, who opted not to run for re-election after voting to impeach Donald Trump. A devout Christian and self-identified conservative, he has since played a visible, often eloquent, statesman role in the House January 6 investigation and proceedings.
“The Republicans have become a cult. I’ve been kicked out of my tribe, and that’s OK.” (NBC news footage.)
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#6.Mid-term election primaries.
Now we have a wild-wild west of midterm primary results affecting incumbents, Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Senator Lisa Murkowski, as well as a return showing from former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Liz Cheney Invokes Lincoln and Grant in Impassioned Concession Speech (NYT)
Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin Survive Primary Battles, but a Democrat Breaks Through (NYT)
Murkowski and her Trump-backed challenger advance in Alaska Senate race (NPR)
Three takeaways from the Alaska and Wyoming elections (WAPO Commentary/The Fix)
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#7. Opinion writers and pundits reaching for tribal colors.
Given the week’s news emphasis on Republican primaries and other traditional “R vs Trumpist” stories, the tiny mug-shots here are of well-regarded longtime “conservative” editorial writers. There are plenty of similar examples when the news topic and issues at hand mainly involve “D” and “liberal” or “progressive” and fiercely “I” “independent/libertarian” causes.
Here from the New York Times are Bret Stephens and David Brooks, from the Washington Post Kathleen Parker and George Will. These are columnists who have not supported Trump and have for awhile worked — sometimes explicitly in their writing — to define and retain their “conservative” brand identity in various ways. (Generally speaking, the usual excellence and impact of their writing and arguments falters when they do this via calling on tribal-color tropes.)
Below is a particularly egregious example, in which George Will works so hard — and so illogically — to be the noble “conservative” lambasting lawless-liberal Democrats that he effectively demolishes his own “traditional conservative Republican” reverence for the rule of law. I was spitting coffee over this one.
Opinion/Garland has a political duty to explain the circus perpetrated at Mar-a-Lago (George Will of The Washington Post)
I was soon relieved that it hit at least a few other WAPO readers as it had me.
Opinion/WAPO Letters to the Editor say George Will too quickly blamed the FBI and Garland
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Finally in similar vein, we return, largely chronologically, to
#8. Mick Mulvaney, op-ed writer.
OPINION/'Things could get very dark for the former president,' writes ex-Trump aide Mick Mulvaney
The star witness in Tuesday's 'surprise' hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, briefly worked for me in the White House. I do not claim to know her well, but I found her testimony eminently credible.
(USA TODAY op-ed by Mulvaney on June 28 following the U.S. House testimony of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.)
The following is an opinion piece with a lot of fair and accurate factual history of Mulvaney’s time in the Trump administration. The piece’s impact is weakened by the writer’s obvious intense disdain for Mulvaney.
OPINION/Mick Mulvaney wants to be seen as credible (which isn't possible)
Mick Mulvaney has launched a public-relations campaign of sorts, hoping to be taken seriously as a credible observer. I’m afraid it’s too late for that. (Steve Benen, MSNBC producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show” on July 6, following Mulvaney’s the U.S. House testimony of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.)
Mulvaney, this time touting Cassidy’s tribal color-cred:
“She’s a lifelong Republican, used to work for Ted Cruz…” (Mulvaney on CBS News July 22, 2022)
And here was another coffee-spewer for me, this one amusing in tribal-colors-identity terms. He describes himself “only as an outsider looking in” on the Trump White House.
Right.
OPINION/Mick Mulvaney: What I learned from testifying before the Jan. 6 committee (From The State, Columbia, SC, August 5, 2022)
And finally, this one from The Charlotte Observer last Friday, August 12. (Bold and italic highlights are mine.)
OPINION/Mick Mulvaney: As a conservative, I want to have faith in the FBI and DOJ. Right now, I don’t.
In reponse, one legal expert’s letter to the Observer cited the essential need for all Americans regardless of political persuasion to defend and uphold the rule of law and closed with a summation that effectively beats-me-to-the-punchlines here about political tribalism:
“‘Conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ have a duty to join in encouraging respect for our courts and their lawful processes.”
Yes! A nation of laws…
… and also a nation of ideas.
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#9. Ken Burns. (bottom center to middle right column stock photos.)
Awhile back, the 4.24.22 newShrink “Imprints and Blindspots” quoted a lot from a wonderful interview with the documentary filmmaker. The full quote from the above abbreviated version bears repeating:
It’s the genius of the founding fathers: “The pursuit of happiness” is not the pursuit of material objects in the marketplace of things, it’s about lifelong learning, they all felt that. The pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of improvement in a marketplace of ideas.
For this essential pursuit of improvement — or really, for ideas themselves to bear fruit — it seems obviously to require a mature conscious ego able to withstand and relax defense against our being, or ever even feeling or seeming, “wrong” or ignorant about anything.
Which brings us to the focus of third-column items, for time and space reasons mostly a look at the illustration.
Interior Space: the soul and depth psychology piece
The Jung statement is a revisit from a previous edition. Here he reminds of the importance of allowing the other person’s argument to matter — as necessary for both our ego ability to relate to the more expansive soul/Self and for productive human community.
And here is the full quote from L. L. Whyte, a favorite. When reading some pundits’ articles, particularly shorter ones, I’m often reminded of his observation about partial ideas. (highlights are mine):
The central principle of the history of ideas — that all ideas are partial — is perhaps the most important single fact that human intellect has yet discovered… and the foundation of wisdom: the mind must be modest. Even if it does not, and probably cannot, know its own limitations, it can be aware that they exist. Does this principle seem obvious? Alas, it is not. One of the dangers of our age, more damaging than ever before, is total obsession with partial ideas.
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#10. Double-lotus Zen puzzle… with Buddha-shaped interior space
For depth psychologists the lotus image can be a favorite in the psychotherapy setting. (I’ve long had them displayed in my consulting spaces.) The delicately beautiful lotus flower cannot thrive, or survive even a day, without its roots’ nourishing deep connection in fertile unseen muck.
Similarly this image, dazzling white or delicate pink flowers floating on tranquil water surface, can be useful and simple illustration of interior relationship — and utterly nourishing, life-giving connection. It’s relationship between the ego personality we consciously know and present to the world and that unconscious, unknown interior space of the soul.
Edinger’s wonky term for our connecting “root” to this vital source is the “ego-Self-axis.” Once formed and attended-to, it is our link to both the soul or psyche within and the surrounding external psyche in which we can live. The lotus image is like a map of the archetypal human capacity to seek and experience the numinous, ie. the sacred or divine.
It’s also just a pretty lotus! And this one’s on a cool puzzle. Early in the week, on receiving happy news — I had become a “great-aunt-cousin-Tishie” overnight — I spotted it on the shelf and put it together, sort of a celebratory meditation. The puzzle had been a gift from my “nephew-cousin” and his wife, new parents of firstborn boy. (We are a Southern family with an oddly large batch of only-children, so we tend to turn everyone we can into close-as-possible sibs, aunt-cousins and such.)
The puzzle was not only meditative but humbling. First I was lightning fast and confident assembling and “wrapping-up” the “big-picture-logical frame” of border pieces. But then this tiny puzzle took me four times longer to fill in interior pieces, one at a time (from my shadow side, I suppose.) This is total contrast to my left-handed, 6-year-old lightning-fast whiz-kid of a jigsaw puzzling granddaughter. She works from the interior pieces, outward.
Then a little surprise when I pulled up these process photos to use in the above visual and close with a welcome to the new little one.
Only in this enlarged version did I notice unintentional “interior space” in addition to the Buddha one in the pictures: The puzzle’s final completing left frame border piece is missing. I’d unconsciously used it to elevate white-owl soul figure Grace in order to see her eyes. (And here I’d thought I had this tiny 49-piece puzzle under control!)
I’ll leave you now on this note of welcome-tribute: To baby boy Logan Edward…
And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.
🦋💙 tish
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”