She been washed, she’s been “in and out of the garbage pail” (apologies to Fritz Perls) – yet she’s extant, as she is. Here is Great Beauty.
Ron Dowd
Great Beauty
Ink and acrylic on paper, 53 x 68 cm
From an article about Gestalt and Perls:
For Fritz, self-actualization is to be all that one is. He saw a big difference between “…SELF actualizing and self-IMAGE actualizing.” (p.20 Gestalt Therapy Verbatim) Or, as he said in In and Out of the Garbage Pail: “Leave this to the human—to try to be something he is not …to be cursed with perfectionism so as to be safe from criticism, and to open the road to unending mental torture.” (There are no page numbers in In and Out of the Garbage Pail.) Fritz felt only humans and some domesticated species try to be other than what they are: “…no natural animal and no plant exists that will prevent its own growing.” (p. 30 Gestalt Therapy Verbatim)
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Have you read “The Demon Box” the title story of a book of short stories by Ken Kesey in which he and Neil Cassidy (Kerouac’s hero of ON the Road) encounter Perls at Esalen? Kesey likes to champion madness and madmen, (Kukoo’s Nest etc.) and he may have been a bit hard on poor Fritz, but nonetheless it is a hilarious tale in which fun is poked at the hypocrisy of the 60s self realization, be here now, touchy feely, hot tub, etc. movement.
Thanks Reuben, I always like your additions to my posts! Yep, by all accounts it was a heady time (and place – we in our neck of the woods were somewhat behind the US I think) and Fritz was making the most of it.