We are sad to announce that Lou Albert passed away May 23, 2006. He is deeply missed by his family and his many friends
Just before I met Marc Bregman, I had been in Vermont for three years and was a staff artist at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson. I was very happy with the progress of my painting, but unhappy in my life. I had been practicing Buddhist meditation for 30 years but was feeling "stuck" spiritually.
I seemed to have hit a wall both in meditation and in my social life and hadn't a clue about how to work my way through. In my social life the wall appeared as self-consciousness and the feeling that I was "operating" my life instead of living it. I was too much in my head and not enough in my heart. I knew this intellectually but had no idea how to deal with it. I knew I needed help, but was at a loss where to go to get it.
My good friends Bob and Susan Marie were seeing a dream therapist and spoke of him highly. There was even an intriguing tinge of awe in their voices when they talked about, "the work". I had been to see therapists earlier in my life and wasn't impressed with what I would characterize as, "talking head" therapy, (or "listening head" therapy for that matter.) However, a former girlfriend had been seeing a Jungian analyst when we were together and I learned through her to respect the Jungian approach. After about a year of thinking I couldn't afford to see Marc, I finally had enough of feeling stuck and realized I couldn¹t afford NOT to see him.
At the time of my first sessions with Marc I was creating paintings which used either single or multiple horizons. In reflecting on these horizons, I could see that the light in the upper, or sky, portion of the painting always appeared to be on the OTHER side of the horizon. This suggested to me the yearning for some sort of enlightenment in the future, as though a metaphorical dawn was approaching. This was an appealing idea to me, but this was not what was happening. Through working with Marc I realized that the dark below the horizon functioned like a barrier to whatever the light above represented; and surprisingly, I LIKED HAVING THE BARRIER THERE, because it gave me a feeling of safety and protection from the complete openness and vulnerability of a more enlightened state. This realization precipitated a depression that lasted for some, increasingly painful, months. This was because I now understood that while I formerly thought I was working toward spiritual opening in my life, I now realized I had been in fact hiding from it. Safety was more important (unconsciously) than freedom. This was a sobering and disheartening realization.
After six months of depression, which, with Marc's support, I FACED SQUARELY AND PATIENTLY, I found I was carrying around an image of my depression, which appeared as a huge monolith blocking my path. The monolith also blocked the light except for a small amount around the edges. It occurred to me to paint this image and I did so a number of times and also used the motif in several monotypes.
During this time the dreams were pointing to issues relating to my mother and older sister. My sister never felt like my friend and most often functioned like a second mother; a very angry and repressive one at that. Marc started to talk to me about the "Dark Mother". It seems that this archetype functioned to keep me bound to it by making me more concerned with being safe than taking the risks of approaching life more adventurously. Like an overly protective mother this archetype in effect was smothering me, instilling a fear of life that was all the more powerful because unconscious. But as we worked on the dreams and the more I painted the "Monolith" paintings, the more aware of the dark mother I became.
In this way I eventually came to see the monolith as the silhouette of a woman with long hair, which of course, reinforced the connection with the Dark Mother. Finally, I saw the shape as the silhouette of a Catholic nun in her habit. Unhappily, I had been brought up Catholic; it was a poor fit for me and I left the church as soon as I left home at eighteen. It seems this connection of the image of the monolith and my depression with my very early feelings of oppression by the church, was the final connection needed in the chain of associations, understanding and awareness: The depression lifted almost at once and never has returned. In its place is a quiet and steady sense of joy, and a great increase in energy, which is especially evident in my painting and printmaking.
It only adds to the feeling of richness to know that there are deeper realms to discover, more openings of the heart possible, more blind spots to be revealed, through this sometimes arduous, yet almost magical process of working on dreams with Marc.