Apocalypse,
or New Age?
The Emerging Perinatal Unconscious
Book
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by Michael Derzak Adzema, M.A.
PART THREE: APOCALYPSE?
OR NEW AGE?
Chapter Eleven:
Dreaming Out Loud:
"Nothing But Perinatal"
Nothing But Trouble
Perinatal Elements
Multilevel Feelings
Atman Projects Versus Surrender
Solutions
The Message
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Chapter Eleven: Dreaming
Out Loud: "Nothing But Perinatal"
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NOTHING BUT TROUBLE
A Perinatal Flick
A film of recent times, available at video rental outlets, "Nothing
but Trouble," is an especially potent example of both the different heroic
response and of the rising pre- and perinatal influence in the media
that is allied with it. It is all this, plus a twist -- as a comedy
it represents an unlikely approach to such material and themes.
More about that later. It was produced and written by Peter and Dan
Aykroyd and stars Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy.
The Lure Into the Underworld and Call to Adventure
The perinatal adventure of "Nothing but Trouble" begins innocuously
with the main characters "leaving the beaten path" on a rather ordinary
trip out of the city. Interestingly, the Brazilian couple
who have forced themselves on the main characters of Chevy Chase
and Demi Moore in making the trip act as impish other-worldly instruments
in the change of route.
Joseph Campbell pointed out that the "call to adventure,"
which marks the beginning of the descent into the transformative nether
regions, may be instigated by the merest chance or blunder.1
Also, he writes that the heralds of such a rite of spiritual passage
are often loathly and underestimated characters. The Brazilian
couple -- as gaudy, overbearing, quirky, and from "down under" --
perform just this function of luring into the underworld. Thus, they
remind us that it is the quirky yet underestimated element in our
familiar daily experience that opens us up to the process whose
ramifications are huge by comparison.
The Merest Blunder, The Adventure Begins
Sure enough, this innocent-appearing outing is soon disturbed.
The merest blunder of map reading results in an ominous tour of
an eerie town and its somber and menacing-looking inhabitants.
This is followed by a high-speed car chase as the police attempt
to pull the innocents over for a bogus traffic violation. In the
tour of the town, it is as if the ego is shown getting a preview
or having a precognition of what lies ahead and attempts to flee
back into its safe familiar environs. But of course, this emerging
piece of unconscious material will not be denied and is able to
capture the fleeing ego that we see safely ensconced in its trappings
of status and power -- symbolized by the BMW with car phone.
At this point the main characters, representing the ego, are led, under
guard, into the bizarre town of Valkenvania -- the encounter with unconscious
perinatal begins.
PERINATAL ELEMENTS
The Junkyard of the Psyche
Campbell says that in the unconscious deep, to which one is beckoned,
"are hoarded all the rejected, unadmitted, unrecognized, unknown,
or undeveloped factors, laws, and elements of existence."2
Likewise, the set in "Nothing But Trouble" is replete with refuse.
Bits of history -- of rusted and broken refrigerators, automobiles,
kitchen appliances, assorted junk, and pieces and parts of all the preceding
. . . the wreckage of the past -- are strewn about as well as heaped
in clusters to construct the architecture and delineate the outlines
of the drama. The correlation with subconscious remnants of
forgotten memories and past emotional experiences is obvious.
Thus the drama evolves in the dumping ground and junkyard of the psyche
-- where all the rejected tidbits of experience have been relegated.
Stripped of Ego, Perinatal Begins
After being separated from the automobile -- i.e., the ego stripped
of defensive trappings of status and worldly position -- the characters
are rather quickly shuttled into encounters with a myriad of perinatal
elements. A few of the obvious ones are as follows:
Mr. Bonestripper, which is a roller-coaster type ride whose entrance
is a large vagina dentate mouth that swallows, chews up,
and kills. Notice the roller-coaster ride aspect of Mr. Bonestripper,
which reflects the emotional extremes and changingness of perinatal,
specifically Basic Perinatal Matrix III (BPM III), events.3
The chutes inside the house and of Mr. Bonestripper indicate birth
canal symbolism.
Sexual elements, indicating BPM III influence, are manifest in the
scantily clad heroine and the penis-nose of the judge.
The dark foundry symbolizes the foundation work of the psyche as
well as the ominous and eerie aspects of perinatal experience.
The slave labor surroundings represent similar feelings in the enforced
and helpless character of doings just prior to and at the time of
birth.
Notice that the body (the car -- the "Beamer") gets trimmed down,
the excess removed, symbolic of the cutting away of past attachments
and concerns of a worldly nature, one's "status" reduced.
Chevy Chase as the main character is at one point forced into a marriage
with a huge woman, who is tellingly androgynous in that she is played
by John Candy. In her threatening and suffocating embraces
we see symbolism of the crushing womb.
The entire site of these doings is surrounded by a watery trench.
This obviously reflects the amniotic surround in the womb.
Police and guns point to the authoritative character of perinatal
doings -- i.e., do, or else!
Death/rebirth symbolism of the perinatal exists in the form of skeletons
and huge piles of skulls and bones.
Scatological, i.e., fecal symbolism is seen in the "bat-room," which
contains an enormous pile of wet bat-shit (excuse the wording, but
it really is shit and not feces).
The arbitrary nature of justice in the courtroom speaks to that perinatal
feeling that one tiny thing, event, or action, has huge and horrifying
ramifications.
Big Babies
The most obviously perinatal element, however, is the gargantuan and
grotesquely flabby infant twins in diapers. Perinatal feelings
are indicated in their extreme crying neediness. Their freshly
newborn quality is evident in their fleshiness, which reminds one
of the overweight appearance of some newborns, which is usually lost
a little later on in infancy. The glossy, waxy sheen on their bodies
is reminiscent of the skin of a newborn, which, fresh out of the
womb, is wet and slippery, covered in amniotic fluid and cervical
mucosa.
A Transpersonal Interface
An interesting aspect that indicates the transpersonal interface with
the perinatal is an attic room -- a higher mind of memory, kind
of like an Akashic record -- where all past IDs (identifications)
and reports of them (newspaper clippings) are displayed. Though,
interestingly enough, in true perinatal fashion, a macabre lens is used
to view these lives -- only the reports of their tragic disappearances
are seen. I believe that this is a wonderful depiction of
how transpersonal information is distorted by perinatal material
-- the implications of which are far reaching for the pronouncements of
so-called spiritual (or psychological) authorities who have not dealt
with their perinatal undersides.
MULTILEVEL FEELINGS
Just When You Thought . . .
However an important element in this movie, which is different from
artistic representations that deal with only the personal or psychodynamic,
is the way the ending opens up under it to a new level, a whole
new arena, of issues. Those of us in experiential therapies
or breathwork are only too aware of how the perinatal opens up to
one, revealing a greater expanse and pervasiveness of dis-ease, at a certain
point after dealing with the personal and the psychodynamic.
This layered, or multilevel quality of the movie is shown when the
main characters, having heroically escaped through personal effort,
find themselves returning to the perinatal realm. Thinking
that they have the forces of authority and light on their side,
they expect this time to be able to put the evil away once and for all.
But When All Seems Lost . . .
To their immense surprise, it appears that the whole world has been
conspiring against them -- a telling perinatal feeling. The
evil is discovered to be pervasive, as if infiltrating every corner
of the universe -- another perinatal feeling. Even the thoroughly
trusted elements of light turn out to be on the side of the darker forces
-- a vantage point that is part of the hopelessness that characterizes
the classic no-exit BPM II scenario. And just like
in the womb, then, when all seems lost, something new happens, an
explosion or eruption of sorts, which brings down the old world and its
structures in a violent conflagration.
ATMAN PROJECTS VERSUS SURRENDER SOLUTIONS
This hopeless and futile aspect of the perinatal realms (as opposed
to the merely personal or psychodynamic ones) lends itself to its
distinctive response -- which is surrender, not resistance.
Unlike the hero of Campbell's hero's cycle whose task is to slay
the dragon using the sword of analytical or cognitive powers, the correct
solution here at the perinatal is to let go of all designs, manipulations,
and attempts at control and to put oneself into the hands of the
seemingly irrational and chaotic Universe, come what may.
How Can You Be Borne Up, If You Won't Let Go?
The Universe's response in the movie -- the upsurge of fire from below
the earth that brings down the evil structures -- demonstrates the
theme of being saved by higher forces when one finally is able to
surrender. In the same way, in our perinatal experiences,
we find ourselves "borne up" and elevated when we once are able to
submit to the upsurge of fear-evoking perinatal emotion.
Indeed, when Chevy Chase is seen rolling and setting fire to barrels
of oil in a superhuman nick-of-time rescue attempt -- in typical
"hero's journey" style -- I had an odd disjointed sense that we
had switched modes. The element seemed incongruous.
Say "Good Night," John Wayne
But, then again, not so. For the movie shows that the successful
escape performed through one's own effort is, in actuality, futile.
In perinatal terms, such heroics are illusory "atman projects" that
ultimately fail against the onslaught of perinatal material, which
must be surrendered to, not heroically resisted or conquered.
Interestingly, the eventual surrender solution is echoed earlier
on when Chevy Chase is about to go through the chomping jaws of
Mr. Bonestripper, the devouring womb. His response, at the
prospect of his imminent failure, is to pray -- to call on higher
forces.
Trusting in Higher Forces
Amazingly, the machine breaks at that moment, signaling the response
of such "external" or higher forces. He alone, of all the others
who have faced that fate, goes through the machine unscathed.
Notice also that he says "Thank you, Lord" afterwards. Thus
it is not on one's own powers that one makes it through perinatal material,
rather it is by the relinquishing of such attempts at control and the relying
and trusting in higher forces.
THE MESSAGE
In the next chapter, we will use another contemporary film to expand
on these themes. This will allow us to fill out an emerging pattern,
as we then compare it with "Nothing But Trouble" and other perinatal evidence.
So let us watch, now, as the pattern, like a photo emerging in solution,
reveals to us its features, thus delivering to us the message it has come
to bring.
CHAPTER ELEVEN NOTES
1. Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a
Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, p.
51. [return to text]
2. Ibid., p. 52. [return
to text]
3. As a reminder, BPM III events (Basic
Perinatal Matrix III events), using the typology set forth by Stanislav
Grof in his many works, are the events surrounding the actual birth struggle
of the infant during delivery. These chapters on the perinatal in
film make mention also of BPM II, which is related to the time of
severe compression and constriction of the fetus in the latter stages
of pregnancy and prior to the actual onset of delivery -- which
are characterized by feelings of "no-exit"; of BPM IV, which is
concerned with the feelings of release, triumph, being saved, and
whatever else occurs immediately after delivery; and of BPM I,
which is related to the state of the fetus earlier in pregnancy -- prior
to compression -- which is often conceived to have "oceanic" and
"blissful" qualities, though not always. [return
to text]
Copyright © 1999 by Michael Derzak Adzema
Comments? E-mail me by clicking on: mickel@primalspirit.com
Mickel Adzema
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