| SPINBUSTERS |
| "Coniunctio: Changing of the Guards" |
| Part two of twelve |
| For a short time in the Sixties youth -- American and otherwise -- hammers at the doors of the Powers -- and the doors shake, and groan, but stand. Many young men and women, not yet propagandized concerning gender issues, and not yet addicted to the system's material rewards, demand (and expect) far more than superficial reorganizations of gender roles and lower-level political power. They insist on a new world -- one in which sexuality is not controlled by material, social, religious and political interest; one in which the exclusivity, ownership, and artificial boundaries of our relational patterns and institutions are abandoned; one in which the planet is nourished, honored, and loved as a living, sentient, struggling being. In short, youth was offered the original choice -- power or love. The narrator and his Sister-love reconnect in a stanza of bliss, authentic female and male energy fused, and the world teeters on the brink of sanity. Certain figures in what is popularly called our collective unconscious stir. Then, as in the culture at large, forces of power, selfishness, greed and vengeance reassert themselves. The nation, frightened by the looming face of god, reverts to fundamentalism and maternal psychosis. The Millenium is quickly chewed to pieces, burger one-trillion-and-one at McDonaldland. Central to this human self-betrayal is the re-assertion of mass control on male behavior by the Empowered Witch and Toxic King, playing turf games with the species' soul. Masculinity in all forms is demonized and criminalized. Air, water, soil and relationship toxify. Internal War breaks out. Momentarily-liberated sexuality is driven underground and, as in countless historical precedents, erupts distorted and perverted by repression into masks, culturally created monsters -- the porn industry, sexual harassment mania, mass molestation fabrications, �recovered memory syndrome,� campus "interpersonal activity" codes (the codification of passion and eroticism, gesture by gesture), sexual assault hysteria. Another chapter in the sad and sophomoric history of American sexual repression and dysfunction is etched into the bodies and minds of its citizens, with males the scapegoats for the stocks and stake. The nation fractures. Offered manna, again we turn and feed on ourselves. With sexuality returned to contexts of coercion, materialism, barter, and social control, the battle again goes to the Toxic King and Empowered Witch, confirmed in rule. No attempt is made to reform and authenticate the Paternal � instead, the Father is merely annihilated, and the culture rushes headlong downwards, into the psychosis of the Perfect � and inviolate -- Mother. Down the rabbit hole we went. And there we remain. The last third of TUIB chronicles the destruction -- abdication, actually -- of New Eden. Fundamentalist elements in the culture converge from "opposite" ends of the ideological spectrum, and join forces as unconsciously as twin Theban plagues, employing propaganda, censorship, and malice with fervor and moral certitude as absolute as it is insufferable. The Boot comes down, repressions fall like hard raindrops, and the sacred marriage is called off -- again. The patient is not yet prepped, the stew yet undercooked. Back into the crucible we go. The foundation for the leading construction industry in the Land of the Free -- prison building -- is laid. Resolve tested, the Sixties pseudo-radical opens a crystal shop, moves to the suburbs, picks up an MBA, gets married, draws the shades and channelsurfs sitcoms. The "revolution in the air" referred to in TUIB remains in the air, does not light to ground. Dylan commentator Chris Rollason puts it this way: "For a brief time it seemed that anything was possible." What then haunts TUIB's narrator, and certain others who experienced the Sixties, is the gnosis that anything really was possible, and still is. Dylan translates in "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar": "I see people supposed to know better/standin' around like furniture." This "groom" is authentic male energy, underground for decades now in American culture, standing before the altar of the sacred marriage, waiting for his Sister to compose herself. TUIB ends with the sacred vows still unspoken, the spirit of the Sixties crushed for the thousandth time. The narrator labors under this grief of redemption snatched, yet still determined to reconnect with his love, aware that his sole hope, and perhaps that of race and planet, hinges on this re-integration. He sees through the false hearts of his contemporaries -- the betrayers of the movement -- and their lives of comfortable transparency ("All the people we used to know/they're an illusion to me now/some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives"). He can only "keep on keepin' on," shamanic birdman circling until the Wheel revolves and offers another chance at human transcendence of history, at matter raised and spirit grounded. "Changing of the Guards," the second track on Greatest Hits 3, transports the listener into the inner sanctum and cauldron of gender relations, calling powers ancient and novel to the coniunctio in which GenderWar finally croaks. COTG is perhaps Dylan's most complete, and accurate, guide to the apocalypse, backstage pass for caterpillars. It closes the songcircle opened by Sumer's post-diluvian "Epic of Gilgamesh" (history's first full narrative) and updated by the Hebraic "Song of Songs," ("Song of Solomon", or "Canticles" in the Latin Vulgate), last of the five "poetic" books of the Old Testament. "Tangled Up in Blue" (TUIB) and COTG harmonize the "Song of Solomon" with modern events and attitudes. The "Song" may be read as original dialogue between authentic male energy, the Philosopher King, mage Solomon, and authentic female energy, the Dark Queen, the Shulamite. They seek bona fide love in a sham world of politics, power, egotism, possessiveness and greed. The �Song� tells the tale of how the Shulamite -- "one who has found peace" -- is rebirthed on earth as result of the conflict and settlement of GenderWar between men and women. Shulamite, in Hebrew, is the feminine noun for "Solomon," indicating the integration of gender, our Edenic state and destiny. "I am black but beautiful" asserts the singer/co-narrator near the beginning of this lovepoem. She is the beloved of Solomon -- Shekinah, Black Queen, Kore, feminine aspect of God. She is the heart of spiritual Israel. For love of the Shulamite, Solomon constructed the Temple, with Her at it center, in the tenth century B.C.E. It was divided into four zones, anticipating the cubist hyperdimensional physics, the fourth dimension explorations, of our moment. The Temple housed the Ark of the Covenant. It was rebuilt in 20 B.C.E. and razed by Rome in 70 C.E.. Much of Ezekiel's prophecy concerns the reconstruction of the Temple in the new era, as abode of the living God, who will not again depart from Earth, according to scripture. |