This piece is a "collage of texts" that combines, above a collage of images--Venus, clouds, and the Earth as photographed from outer space--excerpts from three different written works:

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   1. D.W. Winnicot's "Human Nature" ©1988. Chapter: "Establishment with External Reality," subheading: "Primary Creativity."

 

   2. "Astronomers" ed. Donald Goldsmith ©1991, PBS. Chapter: 
"We Are All Astronomers."

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   3. The Master's and Johnson's "Sex & Human Intimacy" reference text ©1998, from the entries on fantasy. 

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The photo of the Earth taken from space came from the stunning collection: "The Home Planet" ed. Kevin Kelley ©1988.

 

An attempt to explain the piece: 

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"Through fantasy, a person can transform the real world into whatever he or she likes, no matter how briefly or improbably." These lines are taken from a reference text on the subject of sex, the most primal and universal expression of the creative force in humans.  

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In the Winnicott text, the author explains the infantile psychology at the moment when the infant first reaches for his or her mother's breast, on the impulse of primal hunger. When milk and breast appear, according to Winnicott, the infant must conclude that his or her hunger was the source of that which satisfied it. Therefore, the infant experiences him- or herself as a creator. 

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However, "we as sophisticated philosophers know that" The Mother*, nurturing and responsive, is the actual source of the satisfaction. She gives to her child what is needed. Yet in her sweet love and generosity--as well as the fact that the infant simply cannot even hold in his infant mind the concept of mother--she allows the child to go on believing in its imagined creative prowess.  

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Finally, through the power of fantasy (imagination) which she enables within us, we can each "pretend that we are all astronomers": We can look up and discover The Mother. 

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For a typed-out copy of the collaged texts, see this page within my writings tab. 

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*Venus: Roman goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory.