Category: Channels

A paean to Albert Murray and his hybrid memoir/literary criticism masterpiece of 1971, South to a Very Old Place.

Fiction, films and search engines meet indigenous names and the chatter of jays; where does our attention wander when it strays on the dappled path?

“Think outside the box,” they say. What if your box is doing the thinking? Where does your thinking end and your box begin? How many boxes does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer may surprise you.

From my very childhood, I’ve always been curious, interested, in a quest to find out what actually life is. What, in fact, is death? Where do we humans come from, and where do we go after death? Or, why we humans are on earth at all, and then die?

Our bodies transform what we eat, and with our minds we re-create and transform culture. Here are some of the works that have gotten our attention recently and feel worth sharing.

“The Second” was written for a speculative fiction writing workshop and very last-minute in its original form. I did the plotting and world-building on the fly, and basically the original idea was “what if the protagonist were trying to save their friend from a duel?”

There are moments when the world comes suddenly to a stop, when the ground withdraws its support, when a schism opens, into which one may or may not fall. The world then employs its archaic sleight-of-hand to remove whatever faith you may have placed in this event. The structure of projection has barely missed a beat, but the schism in your psyche has not actually been sealed…

What does Space mean to you? Do you have enough of it? Too little, too much? How do you make space… for Space? This piece was composed for an evening of Poetic Alchemy held in Boulder, Colorado, in the spring of 2019.

What if you could slow down time? In a distant, not-so-far-off future, humanity has gained the power to alter the localized flow of time at will, enabling new ways of experiencing the universe and operating in extreme environments. Here is an account of the scientific speculation that went into the concept of tempo control in my upcoming novel Plenum: The First Book of Deo.

“Jupiter crash landed into Saturn.” As above, so below. What follows is a short and bittersweet astrological allegory about the power struggles that ensue in the heavens.

We’re doing it. The long dark night of our death-rattled sleep is giving way to visions of publishing grandeur and small pleasures that mean so much more than they seem. A house is rocking at the edge of the sky. Let us go then, all of us… into that …

Metapsychosis editor Mary Thaler interviewed Deniz Ozan-George, an artist based in Boston, Massachussetts. Though she’s recently completed one portrait, Deniz considers herself first and foremost an abstract painter, lyrical, and expressionist.

Susan Evans’s poem “Lucy” appeared on Metapsychosis website in Autumn 2020. During the following winter, we exchanged emails in which Susan told me about her creative process, her sources of inspiration, and what her hopes for the coming year.

Projecting human capability and knowledge into the far future, provided we learn to manage our own planet, it seems possible that humans might learn how to modify stars in ways suited to their future needs. Why might one modify stars? I can think of a …

An artist is actually creating a world rather than just a stationary object. The artist is sailing through universal winds and transmitting truth. It really depends on the artist as to how this truth manifests and is revealed.

Above all, Antoniou’s compressed, theatrical space could perhaps be read as a kind of ritual confrontation, in which the known and unknown, the diurnal and nocturnal, are forced to meet and mix on a stage that allows for no casual avoidance or escape.

Reminiscent of the work William Blake, Max Beckmann, and Hieronymus Bosch—to say nothing of the latter’s medieval predecessors, Antoniou’s images find their singularity in the exploration of the imaginal encounter, the sacred drama.

Metapsychosis contributing poet Andrea van de Loo was recently featured in a State of Mind podcast & radio show episode hosted by Debra Sloss, LMFT. She shares her story of finding love through a reading group on our site. Thanks to State of Mind f …

It starts like this, the intercom buzzes. Nick, the reluctant pet cat, is faking obliviousness, turning around, padding over to the kitchen for a snack. His tail, way up in the air, offers me a clear view of his hypoallergenic pink behind—shorthand for open scorn. “Guess I’m getting it then,” I say, pushing back with my own attitude.

Seconds — those appointed to negotiate and if necessary fill in for the principal fighters in duels conducted by pilots of the Polarin Aerial Fleet — were allowed only one kind of interference: to try and talk combatants out of their folly, or to watch as time ran out and they went to their deaths. This was thought to be a way of reducing the number of frivolous challenges. It had had virtually no effect.

Going inward / I see my grey sleek wolf’s belly / moving forward on long legs striding / free, clear, unassuming / my natural strength carrying me / into the clear space ahead.

The game gives us a satisfaction that life denies us.—Emanuel Lasker ∞ “Tea or coffee, Sir?” “Coffee. Black. No sugar.” I’m on the phone with a market researcher. I try to picture a pretty girl at the other end of the line, but it isn’t working. All I …

I looked at him through the camera. “You have a secret.” His eyes widened. I continued. “It’s not something…bad…but you think it is…. Something about a confrontation with your father. And it has to do with…a female.”

Medb is a novel that draws the reader incrementally toward the mysteries of the human psyche, on its way touching on gender roles, the power of the occult, and the pathologization of difference. It’s a winding, inward journey that begins, fittingly, at …

but i often underestimate my husband / for he pointed out that i actually said schizophrigid / i had a kitchen dresser which contained crockery i never used / over- solicitude is display mothering /

Now is when you are alone, when you have nowhere to be, when promises to the world no longer apply. Nobody knows what happens now except you. This is your own personal history.

I walk casually through the kitchen, preparing a cup of tea, as my gaze is drawn to two photographs placed side by side. I am struck by the resemblance between my young son and deceased father…

What happened, Miss Hooker asked–she meant my shock–so I said, Well, please turn around and take a look at Jesus there and tell me what you see.