Letter from the Editor—Intensification
For the next six weeks our publication will be examining the theme of intensification as creative response to cultural crisis. Intensification implies a new way of seeing—not at objects but through them. Transparency is a mode of perception that involves us in the world and permits that world to speak to us, perhaps with us as we also learn to listen. It may apply to any creative, artistic, intellectual or physical activity.
The cultural philosopher and poet Jean Gebser used the word “intensification” as a marker for growth, being, and presence. Distinguishing it from mere expansion, which implies an event or process that can be measured or quantified, Gebser saw an intensification of consciousness as one that led us back to our own primordial and spiritual natures and forces us to pierce through the limitations of the rational mind. Intensification implies clarity, transparency—seeing through without the need to dissolve the boundaries that constitute our lived experience—and most of all, diaphany.
For the next seven weeks—as the political election heats up and our world’s political and ecological crisis continues to come into focus—Metapsy will explore this theme through writing, artwork, and mixed media.
Unguided Meditation
Creative director Marco Morelli offers a signature note for Week 1 with this piece, an “Unguided Meditation” if you will. “The Loneliest Road (Intensification)” is an experimental soundscape invoking planes of ambience and conversation, memory and monologue along solitary roads. Some of the voices sampled are fellow Metapsy editors, speaking to the importance of art, meaning, chaos and “a-perspectival” creativity as forms of reply to seemingly insurmountable crisis and complexity. If the problems we face are ineffable, perhaps it is the role of “intensification” to invoke that ineffability in ourselves.
Genesis
Perhaps it is poetry, rather than essay, that better speaks to intensification. We begin our publishing cycle with author, philosopher, cultural critic, and poet John David Ebert’s “Poems of Genesis.” Some readers in our community are already familiar with Ebert’s prolific output of books spanning mythology, religion, philosophy, pop culture, cinema analysis and his YouTube lecture channel spanning hours of content. If you aren’t, go check them out right now. Of special relevance to Metapsy’s editorial mission is Art After Metaphysics. In his featured poetry, Ebert lends his voice to an intensity of consciousness:
what is the birth of a sun or a living form to you and I?
We are made of fire and blood
Woven out of earth and sea
And we swarm
Over the earth
Starlight burning in our veins.
Submissions
We are, as always, accepting submissions around cycle themes. See our dedicated page for Intensification – Call for Submissions, then go ahead and read our submission guidelines page. Artists, writers, and scholars—we look forward to hearing from you!
Creatively,
JDJ
Editor-in-Chief (aka Mutation Engineer)
Metapsychosis Journal
