JUNE BUG AT THE WINDOW

Raven is pecking at the cap of a pen.

Rave, you’re pecking pensively, I think.

“Idly is more like it. The Devil finds work for idle beaks, and all that. By the looks of things, there must be millions of idle folks out there.”

Oh no. Does that mean more scandals?

Raven scrolls through the news headlines in La Jornada.

“The usual suspects, that’s all. Invading Venezuela. And hundreds of thousands of venezolanos marching to protest US intervention and Plan Colombia.”

What else?

“More torture pics. Three Iraqi journalists who work for Reuters denouncing that they were picked up and tortured by US soldiers. Oops—there’s a June Bug here—just flew in the window.”

Is that a news item, guy?

“Don’t be silly. I am talking about a real bug. Don’t you see him there on the table?”

Well, yes I do. And it’s only May. Wonder what it means.

“They always start revving up in May. What do you mean what does it mean?”

Don’t you remember the Jung story, where the patient dreams about the scarab beetle and goes to her session with Jung and there’s a scratching at the window and it’s a scarab beetle wanting to get in?

“No.”

Jung uses that scarab apparition to talk about synchronicity—that everything in a a given moment has the properties of that moment.

“In that case, we’re in deep doo-doo. Look at the moment we are living—chaos, torture, perversion all over the planet. Your species running amok and dragging the rest of us down with you. And a long list of etceteras. What would Jung make of that?”

Probably he would say that the unconscious—the unaccepted shadow exemplified by the dark deeds in Iraq and other places—has exploded into consciousness, and has taken over. He saw that happening before both World War I and World War II.

“And the June Bug? Where does it fit in?”

I suppose as a harbinger. of something. The scarab is also a symbol of rebirth in Egyptian cosmology.

“And in Mesopotamian cosmology?”

Probably it’s about the same, given the cultural overlap.

“So that means we’re on the way out, right? I mean, you have to die before you can be reborn.” Raven looks doubtful.

‘He not busy born is busy dying’—in the words of Bob Dylan.

“I don’t see a whole lot of emphasis on being born right now, do you?”

No, dying seems to have the upper hand.

“He should have been a cockroach.” Raven pokes at the June Bug with one talon.

How do you know it’s a he?

“We lower animals have not lost our ability to relate to other species.”

Okay, and why should he have been a cockroach?

“Those guys are not about being busy dying and being born again. They are about being busy surviving. Hunkering down and just getting through it. Which is what we probably should be doing.”

Oh, Rave, I don’t know. I think I’d rather go write my will. All things considered.

“All things considered, I don’t think you need to bother.”

Raven has to have the last word.