This document is a collection of poems and passages from Heather Ferguson's presentation "Conversation" on various topics. The poems discuss growing up, relationships, coincidence and synchronicity. One poem describes a childhood experience of being dared to endure a paper clip being scraped on their hand. Another reflects on having thoughts of someone constantly on one's mind. The passages discuss Carl Jung's concept of synchronicity and its influence from conversations with Albert Einstein in the early 1900s.

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3. Heather Ferguson

4. Arts and music
Presentation
“Conversation”
(Twitter, Facebook, info@thequestion.ca)

5. THE NEWS
Listen, before I go on…I just have to say that you are a freshly spackled wonderful
You’re smile is a showhome community…And your eyes welcome everyone at the door,
and give them a brochure
And your nose is a perfectly fitted bungalow…Your glasses aren’t going anywhere, like old
money
Your eyebrows are a majestic eagle overhead…With still gliding wings that only flap once
When I tell you the news… The NEWS!
I have to tell you the news…But just so you know
The news I have to tell you is NOT like your smile…It’s gated off and stares at you through
a security booth
Its nose is narrow sharp and steep…Its glasses keeping jumping off the bridge
But hey, this news also soars overhead…Though, it’s a different bird entirely
But, before I get to the news I have to tell you…I just have to comment on those lovely
elbows
They bend as beautifully as a corrugated aluminum rain spout…And your laugh is as
round and whimsical
As a little rock garden in the center of a cul-de-sac…So, just understand that when I tell
you the news
You’re going to want to walkout…Like the basements in units 11 through 15, overlooking
the golf course
Because the news…Like your corrugated elbows, is easily bent
And like your rock garden laugh, is smack dab in the middle of the community…And the
news just signed up to be the neighborhood watch
And even though you’re not a threat…The news is kind of itching to kill someone
So when you encounter the news I have to tell you…Don’t move too suddenly
And maybe don’t wear anything dark…Keep smiling that block party smile
And between you and me…Like don’t tell the news I have to tell you that I told you this
But fuck the news, right?...And just, before I tell you the news,
Let’s just agree to take it with a grain of salt…that hasn’t been removed from the roads yet
even though its June
And first lets just acknowledge how perfectly you’ve staged the living room…Of your
disposition
And if your counter arguments are anything like your counter tops…You don’t have a
thing to worry about with the news
But the news is…The news is, I’m moving in with the news at the end of the month
The news gave me an incredible deal…And it’s all included so I don’t have to think about
anything, you know.
I just don’t have to worry…I mean I’ll have to worry, because you know I’ll wake up every
morning
And there it is, at the table, the news…Wearing those pajamas, talking about “The future”
And of course I’d rather stay here…But it’s just, It’s time to start thinking about something
a little more
Distant, you know, and a little more…Removed, you know
Just something a little closer to the news,…but a little further from the news, you know?
Thanks, I knew you’d understand.
You always know how to take the news.

6. SKYSCRAPERS
Skyscrapers are made of thick, meaty beams…Built from galvanized steal and reinforced
concrete
They've got optimal resistance to all compression related stresses…Skyscrapers can
withstand winds of up to 500km an hour
You could survive, in theory, by hanging out in one of their stairwells…during an F5
tornado, and
Skyscrapers have ultra-thick glass…I bet it's bullet-proof... At least, on the executive floors
I bet a rhino would have trouble breaking through
You know, the point is, you won't outlast it…You won't lose that shoulder tension by
throwing punches
And making impacts against it…So if you're holding out, you're just holding in
Till some poor fuckers going to see what happens…I get it, I get it
You got that Jagger-Hate and that Nozzle-Nose…But you won't outlive the towers
That's just the way it goes
Skyscrapers are built to last…Longer than your life's long stored up stash
Skyscrapers are built to last…Longer than your average home
Skyscrapers are built to last…Longer than your laminated parking pass
And skyscrapers will probably last…Longer than even the etchings on your granite
tombstone
Skyscraper foundations are dug deep down into the bedrock…Sometimes up to 200 feet -
The length of your favourite ice hockey rink
And skyscrapers have never collapsed…You know, saving some intentional acts, like...
Systemized implosions, or systematic terror attacks
You know, the point is, long after you've lived and gone…And long after even your
passed-down generations have also passed on…And long after everything you given into
it
And the dreams you've built into your limbs into it…Have been forgotten and erased
Skyscrapers leave a trace
But. You can't take that out on the cabbie…Don't spit in his face
Don't take it out on a random…Don't take it out on a race
We don't call this belt line…Because we want people belting on each other all the time
Don't you make nobody's mother cry.

7. DEPRESSION ERA FETISHIST
All you depression era fetishists…You better save your rubber bands
You're going to be getting your way soon…You'll be blogging black blizzards from the
dust bowl
Better save your rubber bands…And don't you dare go over on your data plans
All you depression era fetishists…You better learn to entertain new friends
Download some parlour tricks and games…You’ll be drifting from windowsill to windowsill
Better learn to entertain new friends…Sniffing out fresh baked pies
And something fresh and social to send
Yeah it’s gonna be the dirty nerdies…Cyber-punks in bread lines
Hopping in and out of boxcars…Holding up their phones for free Wi-Fi
All you depression era fetishists…You better tune up your Banjitars
You’re next big ballad’s coming soon…You’ll be crooning little whimpers from the dust
bowl
Better tune up your Banjitars…Nothing but dirty rocks and worn out rock stars
Yeah, we’ll all be in our nerdy thirties…Bumbling through the Beltline
Hopping in and out of upstarts…Holding up our phones for free Wi-Fi
We built a lot of imaginative dreams…With a lot of imaginary money
Yeah, we may have gone a little overboard and messy…Slamming back too much milk and
booze and honey
We woke up on a strange couch, all disheveled…With just some foggy recollections
We looked outside and everything was leveled…The only things we were left with were our
vices and devices
You better save your rubber bands…

9. Have you ever had something like this
happen to you?
Have you ever wondered why?
Have you ever had anyone say to you
that “things happen for a reason”?
What was your first response?

10. COINCIDENCE
A remarkable or unique
concurrence of events without
any apparent causal
connection.

11. *Completely possible
*
*
*
*Completely proven
*
*coincidence?
*
*Completely crazy

12. SYNCHRONICITY
A remarkable or unique
concurrence of events that
are not connected by cause
but may be connected by
meaning.

13. SYNCHRONICITY?

14. SYNCHRONICITY
PART I

15. CARL JUNG SIGMUND FREUD
1875 – 1961 1856 - 1939

16. FREUDIAN CONCEPTS
Free association
Transference
Repression
Fixation
Oedipus Complex
Libido
Id/Ego/Superego
Defense mechanism
Pleasure principle
Penis envy

18. Carl Jung

20. JUNGIAN CONCEPTS
The Collective Unconscious
Archetypes
Introversion/Extroversion
Complexes
Persona
Anima and Animus
Individuation

23. Einstein and Jung
1909 - 1913

24. Jung on Einstein
“Professor Einstein was my guest on several
occasions at dinner. . . These were the very early days
when Einstein was developing his first theory of
relativity, and it was he who first started me thinking
about a possible relativity of time as well as space,
and their psychic conditionality… His genius as a
thinker exerted a lasting influence on my own
intellectual work…I pumped him about his relativity
theory. I am not gifted in mathematics and I went
fourteen feet deep into the floor and felt quite
small… More than 30 years later, the stimulus led to
my relationship with the (quantum) physicist
Wolfgang Pauli and to my thesis of psychic
synchronicity.”

25. Einstein and Jung
1909 - 1913

36. nh

38. Where and how do
archetypes exist in space
and time?
How do archetypes enter
our unconscious as
“companions” to our
normal human instincts
and actual memories ?

39. 1909 – 1913 1913 - 1916

40. THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

42. How open are you to the idea that coincidental
events really do happen for a deeper reason?
Does the historic connection between Einstein and
Jung (physics and psychology) inspire a new way of
thinking about coincidence and synchronicity?
Can you think of a personal story of coincidence
that you might now question in a new way?

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46. THE MARK ON MY HAND
I have this mark on my hand…And I wonder it gives away?
Birth mark?,…Fist scrape?...Stab wound?...Flood gate?
Grade eight, classmate…Back of class, desk straight
Ahead, he turns to instigate…To boy to boy initiate
To out of boredom mutilate…With a paper clip in a fishhook shape
He used the weight of words as bait
Hey, you ever heard of a wuss test?...I scrape this paper clip back and forth across your hand until
you scream cry or pull away.
The longer you last, the less of a Wuss you are.
Something about that wasp word Wuss…Had a buzz so loud in my insecure ears
I lived in fear of those who would sting pin-prick holes…Into every thing I had to learned to puff up
over the years
*POP* Wwwuuusss…
So, dutifully I gave my hand…For as long as could stand
5.2 slices of a second hand…Because the mark of man, so I was told then
Was sopping up blood with foolscap paper…And dreading the sting of disinfectant in silence
The brave gladly trade chunks of flesh for social gain
Only Sissies use paper clips to hold paper together…Tough guys use paper clips to hold reputations
together
But as the rules entail…You don’t ever really PASS a Wuss test
You just see how far you get before you fail
- 5 seconds? That’s pretty weak, dude, like… that’s really meek dude, like.
Hey, what’s with your red your cheeks, dude?...You gonna cry a little blue creek, dude?
The only defense to see red…I blew out of my desk
And gave one two hands…To his chest to push him over
The only proof I though I had left
But there will always be another Wuss test trying to hook you in…If you ever aren’t the he and him
And vicious whims, embattled limbs and battle hymns …Someone will be waiting on the banks with
a word for you
In the hopes to twitch a nerve in you
These days, in my head…I’ve got paperclips full of newspaper clippings
Of every time boy challenged boy to a game of angry young men
I’ve got paper clips full of newspaper clippings…He hit him to death over the head, drunk at a party
Later found out they were both refugees from the same country
I’ve got paper clips full of newspaper clippings…They had a blade brawl behind a beat bar
I’ve Paper clips full of newspaper clippings…He was only eighteen
The altercation was one clipped shoulder
One paper-thin apology …And an ambush in the alley
In the quote from the father, he said of his son…“They beat him so bad, I could only recognize him
by his hands”
And, I wondered, what the marks were that gave him away…You don’t ever pass a Wuss test, you
just decide not to play

47. HAVING YOU ON MY MIND
Having you on my mind is like having no mind at all…Fuck Zombies, if anything is going
to eat up my brain
It’s these scenarios, scenarios, scenarios, I keep playing out, oh…But it’s scary though,
and very much so, to be staring down your own stereo-Types of love…And I believe it to
be that you make my heart beat-fast
Which is to actually say that it’s been starving itself of is thumps
And yeah, sometimes these flings are just things…That only amount to a movement in the
corner of your eye
Just there long enough to startle you…But by the time you actually look, it has already
said goodbye
But “why oh why oh why oh why”…Is such a disrespectful question to ask of another
person’s will
You can’t praise the beauty of choice only when it chooses you…Then turn and curse that
beauty when choice doesn’t stand still
Nine clothespins on a string…Strung above your bedroom window
And there’s a meaningful photo clipped in each one of them...But I’ve always preferred
that one of you and me most
Nine photos on a string…But I know if you ever need room for a new memory
That photo of you and me would be the first to go
Having you on my mind is like having no mind at all…I try to be present because my
friends all deserve it
But I just cannonball, and cannon ball, and cannon ball, and can’t involve…And it goes
deeper though than those deeper goals
And I sure haven’t seen everything, no…But I’ve been to a few of the corners that you’re
going
And I could offer friendly warnings, but I guess that’s the point…Me telling is not the same
as you knowing
So play the shit out of it, girl…None of us are wedding marches
The times in life are few…That the music waits until you’re ready
And doesn’t stop until the moment you do
And I don’t know what to make of my luck…When things go south, I can always talk
myself into not giving a fuck
But is that really dodging the bullet…Or is that missing the duck
Hey, if I promise not to ask the question…Will you promise that the answer won’t suck
Play the shit out of it, girl (repeat)
And I will buy you more clothespins…And I will gift you more twine
I understand why you stopped calling…Just, please, still keep me on that line

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