Eros and Strife ~ Cat Food

CHAPTER TWELVE -

~ In the Wake of Poseidon ~

- chapter index -
pg. 1 - Eros and Strife | pg. 2 - Peace: A Beginning | pg. 3 - Pictures of a City
pg. 4 - Cadence and Cascade | pg. 5 - In the Wake of Poseidon I | pg. 6 - In the Wake of Poseidon II
pg. 7 - Cat Food | pg. 8 - The Devil's Triangle | pg. 9 - Garden of Worm
pg. 10 - Peace: An End

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"The subject becomes so swallowed up in individual feeling processes that to the observer it seems as though there were no longer a subject of feeling but merely a feeling process. In such a condition feeling has entirely forfeited its original human warmth, ...and in the worst cases appears definitely hysterical.
In so far as feeling is, incontestably, a more obvious peculiarity of feminine psychology than thinking, the most pronounced feeling-types are also to be found among women. When extraverted feeling possesses the priority we speak of an extraverted feeling-type. Examples of this type that I can call to mind are, almost without exception, women."

- C. G. Jung 1921/1923

And the characters in Cat Food are, without exception, women. Significantly, Cat Food occupies track one - side two of In the Wake of Poseidon , the same position, on the first album, occupied by Moonchild . It is not a coincidence that both songs have only female characters. These are anima figures. The moonchild is a positive anima and the ladies of Cat Food are negative anima figures. Moonchild is an expression of higher, spiritual Eros, Eros as muse and inspiration, and Cat Food is an expression of lower, fallen Eros, the Eros of "I desire".

"One of the things that the story of Rapunzel points out is that whenever we desire something or someone, this desire irrevocably brings up the Hag in the psyche. The moment that we desire a person or a promotion or a piece of property, or even when we desire to create something like a child or a work of art, in that instant we propel ourselves into the domain of the Hag."

- The Hag and the Dark Feminine

Both the positive and negative anima are manifestations of the same Goddess.

"The Goddess is a lovely, slender woman with a hooked

nose, deathly pale face, lips red as rowan-berries,

startlingly blue eyes and long fair hair; she will

suddenly transform herself into sow, mare, bitch, vixen,

she-ass, weasel, serpent, owl, she-wolf, tigress, mermaid

or loathsome hag. Her names and titles are innumerable.

In ghost stories she often figures as `The White Lady',

and in ancient religions, from the British Isles to the

Caucasus, as the `White Goddess'."

- Robert Graves, The White Goddess

The ladies of Cat Food are modern day "harvest hags" but Peter Sinfield has also painted them in such a way as to remind us of other negative anima figures.

"Lady Supermarket with an apple in her basket"

"Night after night she pored over books of magic and witchcraft and sorcery. Finally, she thought that a bright red apple would appeal to Snow White. So she filled half an apple-the reddest half-with strong poison made from a recipe in the blackest of her books. In a third disguise, she returned to the forest."

- Snow White And Other Stories From Grimm, Retold by Jeanne Cappe

"Knocks in the manager's door;
Grooning to the muzak from a speaker in shoe rack
Lays out her goods on the floor;
Everything she's chosen is conveniently frozen.
"Eat it and come back for more!"

Lady Window Shopper with a new one in the hopper
Whips up a chemical brew;
Croaking to a neighbour while she polishes a sabre
Knows how to flavour a stew.
Never need to worry with a tin of 'Hurri Curri':
"Poisoned especially for you!"

Like the "apple", "chemical brew", "croaking" and "poisoned" also allude to the witch as negative anima figure.

"Traditionally, the witch has been associated with what Carl Jung called the "negative anima." Jung believed the human psyche is composed of both male and female elements. According to Jung, the anima (Latin for "soul") in its darker aspects has been metaphorically presented in many stories throughout history as a witch (e.g. Hansel and Gretel). Encountering and integrating one's anima (for a man, anyway) is the beginning of the development of the soul. One must face the negative element as well as the positive so that one may attain mental harmony."

- Thoughts on Faust

"No use to complain
If you're caught out in the rain;"

"What then is the good in us distorted by evil? In the Christian Orthodox ascetic tradition...Eros is the longing of the heart for ecstatic union with God and with all persons and creatures made by God.
In its unfallen, or original state, one can speak of...the power of the Eros.
Fallen Eros, or spiritual hedonism, entails: theft of the gift from the giver, or loss of communion; self-preservation and self-indulgence; meanness and luxury; devouring, or power through the other; impulsiveness and inundation; sloppiness and inertia; unsteady power, vanity, and avarice; hysteric states or..."

"your mother's quite insane"

"...manic-depressive madness."

- The Battle for Person in the Heart

"Cat food cat food cat food again.

Lady Yellow Stamper with a fillet in a hamper
Dying to finish the course;"

Those of us trapped by desire for the things of this world are dying a spiritual death.

"All who desire can see only the manifestation of it;
All who renounce desire can see the mysteries."

- Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

"Goodies for the table with a fable on the label
Drowning in miracle sauce.
Don't think I am that rude if I tell you that it's cat food,
"Not even fit for a horse!"

Of course it would be more logical to eat healthy foods...but people are not always logical...or healthy.

"People eat for taste not for nutrition. Nutrition comes as a by-product of eating the foods we like to eat."

"While hardly a mind-blowing concept to the layman - indeed, it is intuitively obvious to most - this assertion has stirred much controversy in scientific circles. Many scientists appear to deny the central role of pleasure in driving behaviour. In Australia, for instance, nutritionists often claim it is the advertising, not the taste, that drives the consumption of 'junk food'; eliminate the advertising, they say, and the desire for these foods would disappear.

Not so! Desire for food is pleasure-driven and the bliss point is a simple concept that captures the way the human sensory system works with respect to sensory pleasure. It is very powerful and operates every day of our lives."

- Arise - Papers

The mistreatment of our bodies with processed foods mirrors our mistreatment of the Earth in producing these foods. It is no wonder that our "mother's quite insane" . In The Devil's Triangle , the Mother Earth demonstrates just how insane she can be.

"The crone is the wise old woman, the waning moon, who understands death’s mystery. The virgin archetypes are ever popular, for they are pleasing to men. The mother archetype also pleases and serves men, for mothers take care of boys and men and give them children. In Christianity, where the trinity is cast in masculine terms, the goddess survives as Mary, a combination of virgin and mother. But the crone, the most powerful aspect of the feminine deity, has become invisible and unwanted ever since the goddess and her animals were declared profane."

- Io/Isis

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