Musings on the Mouse of God

The Mouse of the Lord
One Christmas many years ago, I was a young, twenty-something Euro-rambler. My college chum and I had set off on a grand adventure to travel and work in Europe (and farther abroad if we could make our funds last). Our very loosely planned itinerary brought us to the Ecumenical Institute at Chateau de Bossey in Celigny, just outside of Geneva, Switzerland, at the end of November.

Clifford Swanson, the college pastor at St. Olaf, whom we knew personally, was on leave from the college for the year. Cliff was serving as pastor at the Institute. He and his lovely wife, June, a voice teacher at St. Olaf whom we also knew, and his three children were all staying there for the term. It seemed appropriate to make contact with them.

We called ahead from Geneva, so our arrival was expected, however, it was not without incident. We set out from Geneva in a snowstorm — an endless, wet, heavy snow, not unlike the snow I see out my window today as I write this. Visibility was low and the snow piled up very quickly, so it was impossible to tell exactly where the small country road was at times as we drove past small farm houses. I just tried not to drive into a ditch. One turn was a little tricky in the slippery mess, and the car ended up nose-down in a small ditch against an embankment. “Oh, great! Now what?” we thought. (There were no cell phones back then.) Not two minutes later around the corner puttered a small black Renault. It stopped. Out popped two men dressed in black with black stove-pipe hats. The car was loaded with the tools of their trade. They appeared to have just popped out of “Mary Poppins”. They were chimney sweeps! They spoke no English, and we spoke next to no French, but obviously our situation needed no explanation. They cheerfully picked up our car and put it back on the road. (This was not the last time we would be thankful for a light-weight car, although the argument might well be made that had our car been heavier we would not have found ourselves in the predicament in the first place.) The sweeps waved cheerfully and went on their way.

We pressed on, looking for signs to tell us where in the heck we were. We were lost in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm, and it was getting late. We wondered if the folks at the Institute would be sending out dogs to find our frozen bodies under the snow. Then, as dumb luck would have it, we came upon a farm house, where we promptly got stuck in the farmyard. The owner came out and graciously gave us directions and helped us on our way by giving us a push out of his front yard. He must have been shaking his head over these two imbecilic neophytes out in the storm without a clue where they were going. (Years later, I remain convinced that God protects fools with a frequency that is really quite astonishing.) We toodled on.

Eyeing an open gate and the buildings of the Institute just across the open space, I assumed (incorrectly as it turned out) that this was the road to the Institute. I turned right. We found ourselves in the middle of a farmer’s field in snow up past the running boards of our little Citroen deux cheveau. (We had already begun to call it our deux petits lapins — “two small rabbits” — by that time, because of its propensity to lurch and hop forward instead of accelerating smoothly). There we sat not 100 yards from the Chateau, which we could see clearly through an opening in the trees on the other side of the field. We walked to the Institute, embarrassed to admit our faux pas and ask for help. Help was immediately and charmingly provided by two foreign theology students, who virtually picked up the car between them and hauled it to the road.

We were invited to dinner where we were introduced to the rest of the academic staff, the thirty or so theology students and ordained ministers taking post-graduate course work, the wait staff, and the manager of the Chateau facility Mdm. Beguine. We were given a small dormitory room for the night, since driving back to Geneva in the dark in the snowstorm would have been hazardous. I suspect that Cliff Swanson, after talking to us about our plans to work and travel, surreptitiously made the suggestion to Mdm. Beguine to hire us at least temporarily as staff in exchange for room and board. Thus, my friend and I joined the ranks of the “Blue Angels”, young women who were the scullery maids, dish washers, waitresses, and toilet scrubbers at the Institute. We were the only American “Blue Angels”; others were from Austria, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

The Chateau was a lovely French-style farm, with several out buildings, a small chapel, a large vegetable garden, and a long, broad sward that swept down to Lake Geneva. We were told that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton lived “just over there” down the road by the side of the lake. Among the academic faculty of perhaps half a dozen highly respected theologians from around the globe was Dr. Wolfe, a very dignified and brilliant scholar from Germany.

Christmas came. Dr. Wolfe led the worship service in the small chapel on Christmas Eve. Students, academics and I (perhaps the sole Blue Angel in attendance) were packed into the small, tight space. I was in the very back, listening in the candlelight to Dr. Wolfe’s deep voice and thick German accent as he proclaimed the words of the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah. An atmosphere of holy sanctity permeated the small crucible of a space. All was well until the familiar words, “For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” were read. Unfortunately Germanic speakers have difficulty pronouncing “th”, so what was heard was a sonorous, “For ze mouse of ze Lord has spoken it!"

That did it. The beatific numinosity of the worship experience went, “Poof!” To my utter chagrin and everlasting mortification, I began to giggle uncontrollably. Desperately embarrassed, I tried every which way to stifle my laughter. I faked a cough. I covered my mouth, hung my head, sucked in my cheeks, all the while making strange humming noises. I suppose some charitable souls thought perhaps I might be ill. I bent over with my head in my lap, holding my sides, gasping for air in that ludicrous position. I desperately tried to focus on the service in an attempt to retrieve some semblance of decorum. “Should I get up and leave?” I thought. Getting up and walking out would only have drawn more attention to myself. I was absolutely certain that people must be thinking, “How utterly rude that American girl is! Has she absolutely no sense of propriety or reverence for the solemnity of the moment?” I tried swallowing; I sounded like a cat struggling with a hairball.

Now, I agree, that it is absolutely boorish, juvenile, and rude to laugh at someone’s accent. In my defense, however, I was not laughing at the esteemed Dr. Wolfe’s accent but at the image that had suddenly popped unbidden into my imagination. In my mind’s eye I saw the foot of the throne of God, with God’s robes flowing to the ground — almost, but not quite, covering one of God’s feet — and a tiny little mouse peeping out from underneath the robes of the Almighty next to God’s left foot.

I do not think that it was because of my inexcusable behavior at the Christmas Eve service that Mdm. Beguine shortly thereafter found a position for me in the home of Michael Blumenthal, the American ambassador to the GAT talks in Geneva. I became the live-in nanny for the Blumenthal’s three girls, ferrying them to and from school and to after-school activities in the family’s old Mercedes. I helped them with their homework. We played ball in the expansive front yard with Chrissy, the Blumenthal’s black lab. We climbed trees. I took the girls and Chrissy on an excursion to the Ecumenical Institute in Celigny. I became friends with the Blumenthal’s Spanish butler and their French cook, neither of whom spoke a word of English.

The Blumenthals were very generous to me and once took me with them on a one-day family ski trip to Chamonix. I don’t ski, but I was perfectly content to ride up and down the mountain on the tram, enjoying the absolutely spectacular views both ways and from the top of the mountain. I fondly remember playing tiddlywinks (the ambassador’s idea) in a restaurant in Chamonix with the ambassador, his wife and the girls.

At the ambassadorial residence, the Blumenthals shared their table with me, and Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal always “dressed” for the dinner that was served by the butler. Dinner conversation primarily focused on expanding the girls’ knowledge base and quizzing them about their school work. After the girls were in bed, I would climb the stairs to my tiny room, an aerie on the third floor of the ambassadorial mansion: high enough to see Le Megeve and, on a clear day, Mt. Blanc, from my open window — but not so high that I ever again saw the mouse of the Lord. . . . Until now, that is. (Wilor Bluege, November 2010)

The Mouse that Ate the Cat
Speaking of mice, for the last several weeks I have been experiencing a problem with a mouse. No, I’m not referring to the little critter that occasionally leaves its tiny turds in our basement. I’m talking about the other kind of mouse, a computer mouse. In the last several weeks our computer mouse suddenly began to act as if it were “possessed”: running amok, darting around the monitor screen as if bewitched, refusing sometimes to select what I want, and then erratically highlighting in hyper-speed mode the entire document instead of the single word or phrase I intended. More often than not, the mouse was acting like some capricious demiurge, completely autonomously. It had me in its power.

As my frustration mounted, I found myself screaming irrationally at the mouse: “Why are you acting like this? I haven’t been giving you anything bad!” But the mouse was performing as if it were on methamphetamine. “Perhaps it got into some meth-arella cheese,” a friend suggested. I was worried my mouse was terminal, or that some other vermin had gotten into my computer. I looked for answers on the internet. Then, I asked my husband’s son, a computer geek, what might be the problem. He suggested, much to my relief, that the problem might be due to a “dirty laser light” and that all I needed to do was clean off that light. Lo and behold, inspection of the laser light under the mouse revealed a sizable quantity of cat hair and dander obfuscating the laser light. Amazing! ! My mouse had eaten a cat and was suffering from a hairball!

Now that the hairball has been removed, the mouse is no longer acting so god-almighty-like and is behaving and acting in a civilized manner once more. The cat hair had been preventing the correct and normal operation of the computer mouse, so in effect a “cat” had caught the mouse by the innards when the mouse ate the cat!
I found all of this humorously fascinating, for reasons I will now explain. This real-life experience with the computer mouse seemed to resonate curiously with two writing projects I was currently working on: an anecdotal piece of humor I entitled “The Mouse of the Lord,” and a more serious exposition on some dream material, in which bewitchment and laser eyes figured prominently. As I typed along on these two writing projects, my computer mouse was, to put it mildly, misbehaving. So naturally enough, in my explanation of part of the dream material, I used the erratic and bizarre behavior of my computer mouse as an analogy to describe how an unconscious complex behaves, how it operates behind the scenes, and how it shows up in human behavior. I wrote about bewitched complexes, describing the behavior of a bewitched anima or animus as similar to the actions of my “bewitched” computer mouse. It is also, I wrote, precisely how the fourth function (the inferior function) acts: fitfully and erratically, and in outbursts loaded with exaggerated affect — (like screaming at my mouse, maybe?) (For more information on the inferior function see Jung’s “Psychological Types” and Marie Louis von Franz’s “Lectures on Jung’s Typology”.) Coincidentally, I was also placing much time and effort into the explanation of the “laser eye” motif that figured prominently in the same dream.

Most people, I suppose, would not give these odd “overlaps” a second thought, but I found these “coincidences” to be quite extraordinary. I have found from over 25 years of experience working with dreams that one ought to pay close attention when presented with such correspondences between the outer world of matter and the inner world of the psyche. I have also found it enormously fruitful to treat these odd, synchronistic occurrences as “waking dream” material, interpreting them as I would interpret a nighttime dream. I have decided to treat this “god-mouse business” as a waking dream in an attempt to extract some psychological meaning from it.

The sheer delightful silliness of the mouse coincidences indicates to me that the tricksterish nature of the unconscious is at work. When the Trickster appears in both the physical and psychic realms, that is to say, in a synchronistic happening, one can expect that a transformation of consciousness is on the threshold. (See “Loki’s Revenge” 2009.)

One could say that the god-mouse “ate” the cat hair and was choking on a hairball. It would also be correct to say that the computer mouse got cat hair in its laser light “eye” which was occluding its vision, its discriminatory function — effectively blinding the mouse and interfering with its operation. The mouse simply could not tell what was what. It could not discern a thing and was left, for all intents and purposes, “blind”. These two ways of formulating the mouse’s problem with the cat hair, whimsical though they be, are nevertheless apt analogies of what happens in the psychic realm when one complex is either stifling (“choking off”) or obfuscating (“blinding”) the expression of another complex. In either case, there is one complex that is interfering with another.

Whether one prefers the “hairball” analogy or the “blinded eye” analogy, notice that it is but the tiniest bit of castoff detritus of cat hair and dander that causes the problem for the mouse. In a woman’s dreams, a cat is frequently the symbol of the animus, albeit in a “bewitched” (non-human) form. In our mouse’s drama, it is just the tiniest remnant of bewitched animus that has been obfuscating and interfering with the discriminatory function of “mouse consciousness” (the laser light “eye” of the mouse). Thus, we conclude, that a small remnant of bewitched animus has been destroying the effective operation of whatever the “god-almighty-mouse” symbolizes psychologically speaking. Now the ego comes along and, with a wipe and a couple small breaths, blows away that which was disturbing the proper function of the mouse. If by some misstep, I had poked a stick in the eye of the numinosum, I have now removed the offending material.

To recap: The mouse ate the cat, suffering a reduction of normal, effective functioning (gag response and blinding). Now that the cat material has been “surgically removed” by extraction and the breath of the ego, the mouse can “see” clearly and function normally once again. There’s just one problem: how could a mouse eat a cat?

Well, if we look at the psychological situation in a different way, i.e., from the point of view of collective consciousness, we catch a different sort of “cat-and-mouse” scenario. Looked at from the standpoint of the logos (masculine) consciousness that dominates western life and thought, the cat is a feminine symbol of unconscious narcissism and comfort-seeking indolence that blinds and chokes off the functions of the mouse. (Is there anyone who doubts that narcissism and comfort-seeking indolence plagues much of our society?) So, how could a mouse eat a cat? Well, if the mouse were a small part of the almighty God, it could no doubt eat a cat. Is this the “mouse of the Lord” I’ve not seen for forty-five years? (See my essay, “The Mouse of the Lord”.) Might we consider that the “mouse of the Lord” is perhaps (speaking psychologically) just the tiniest bit of the archetypal Self, clothed in the form of one of God’s lowliest, humblest, and most timid “warm-blooded” creatures?

Mice (real mice, that is) are extremely sensitive and perceptive. With eyes, ears, noses and whiskers that are over-sized in comparison to their bodies, they can see and feel their way in the darkness; they can sniff out small bits of food and hear enemies stalking or insects crawling. They would symbolize, therefore, the rejected, despised inferior function of collective consciousness, Intuition. Intuition is a value that is sorely needed in our age of grotesquely rationalistic and over-blown logos consciousness. We need what the mouse represents: that part of God which western consciousness rejects: Intuition. We need to hear what this “mouse of the Lord” has to say, because it has highly sensitive perceptual abilities — abilities to see, smell, and feel things that are beyond rationality to explain but not beyond what human hearts can know and feel.

If you look at the image I drew of the “Mouse of the Lord”, what dominates is an image of the old paradigm of the God-head, the god Yahweh of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures. The “throne of God” and the massive foot of God completely dwarf the small mouse that peeps out beneath God’s robes — robes which veil and obscure the image of God’s humanity. The mouse, who appears as a servant of God in the drawing, is clearly speaking, albeit humbly, to the God-head. If the “throne of God” image is the cultural dominant that reigns in its god-almightiness in heaven far away, then the mouse is God’s eyes, ears, nose and whiskers that are closer to the ground, i.e., more humanly and earthly related. This mouse is reporting back, with pitiful, tiny squeaking voice, what it perceives intuitively to a remote, unconscious God image in need of transformation. In fact, the mouse is an interlocutor between God and humanity and represents the intuitive stirrings coming from the “foot” of God, i.e., the lowliest part of God himself. That most humble part of the God image (and the most despised of human values within the collective western psyche) has the dual role of “speaking truth to power” and imparting divine intuitive wisdom to humankind.

I have been, of course, toying with you (and having fun doing so, too, I might add) but for a serious reason. The old paradigm of God is bereft of immediacy and efficacy for many people today. That paradigm has crumbled and is changing. The stirrings of the intuitive voice (the “mouse of God”) within the collective may now, it is hoped, be heard.

One more thing and then I shall be finished (for the time being) with the “mouse business”: As with all images arising from the unconscious, the mouse can be looked at from many different angles, which is what I have tried to do in this piece of writing. There is still another way, a more personal way, of looking at the mouse image. The mouse represents, for me personally, that tiniest, most despised part of myself I need to acknowledge: my own mousey diffidence, hesitancy, timidity, and reticence that has been holding me back from daring to share my experience with dream material and the process of individuation. My timidity has been choking off and blinding the proper functioning of the rising creative spirit. Recognizing the strange correspondences between my two writing projects and the erratic behavior of my computer mouse as meaningful coincidence — a synchronistic phenomenon, I chose to consider the synchronicity seriously, despite its patently silly nature, and this led me to a fuller realization of a psychological dynamic that might not otherwise have been brought to consciousness. In the process, I have become a little less hesitant and timid than before. I feel energized and inspired to press forward — the “mouse of God” willing. (Wilor Bluege, November 14, 2010)



The Mouse God, Apollo Smintheus
Imagine my surprise at learning that in archaic times, long before he was the god of the rational intellect, Apollo was associated not with the bright solar consciousness of the Helenes, but with the lowly mouse! Apollo’s earliest appellation was “Smintheus” (sminthos = mouse; theus = god) who was originally an oracular mouse god! The ancients revered the mouse and considered its vocalizations to be inspired by the vapors that rose from the earth, the feminine element, and thus mice were attributed with prophetic powers associated with feminine intuition. Their squeaking carried intimations from the underworld regarding things unseen, hidden from the light of day, i.e., away from human consciousness.

Coins as well as several statues of the god near the town of Sminthe in Asia Minor (near ancient Troy) where Apollo was probably first worshipped depict the god with a mouse: sometimes held in the god’s hands and sometimes under his foot (kind of like my drawing of the “Mouse of the Lord” above). When the earlier matriarchal culture of Asia Minor was usurped by the patriarchal society which came after it, prophetic qualities and human feminine qualities were systematically devalued. Apollo’s epithet changed from “Mouse God” to “Destroyer of Mice”. The fear, hatred and violence with which the patriarchy devalued the feminine were reflected by the change in epithet.

While civilization owes an enormous amount to the development of Apollonian consciousness, the earth and humankind have paid a heavy price. The bill has now come due, and we are paying dearly for the total eradication of all feminine qualities in modern life, particularly the intuitive, prophetic, and feeling values. The earth has been ravaged. Men and women alike have been ravaged by the grotesquely overgrown rational intellectual bias. Whenever normal human values are shoved down into the unconscious and not given a place in consciousness, they turn negative and erupt with incalculable violence. This is what is happening all over the place in the world today with wars and revolutions.

Author Laura Layton Shapira believes that intuitive prophetic insight is the predominant unconscious value that is being compensated today. (“The Cassandra Complex”, p.52). Apollo Smintheus is making a return, but in a much darker and dangerous form because he has been shoved down into the underworld for several thousand years.

Author Toni Wolff, (“The ESP Experience: a Psychiatric Validation”, p.35) says that, “the medial woman is carrier of collective values and is the interpreter of the Zeitgeist.” Positive intuitive potential is rarely recognized or understood. Thus, it has come up negatively all over the place in movies, books, entertainments, games, etc., in the form of evil wizards, alien invaders, witch-like power-driven, sexually rapacious females, dragons, vampires, devouring lamia, and the like. It has also come up negatively in the neuroses, illnesses and addictions of our time.
(Wilor Bluege, February 2011.)

Getting In Touch With the Inner Mouse
For me, getting in touch with the inner mouse of God has been a lifelong venture looking under the leaf litter in the woods of the unconscious. Sometimes I have heard it under the leaf litter as I sit basking in the last warm rays of the last warm day of fall. I have become accustomed to being ever alert to any and all of its diminutive rustlings and squeaks. Why, therefore, am I surprised to come upon this creature so often as I turn over the leaves in my mind? I don't know, but I am always surprised and mostly delighted. I hear its soft scurrying through the shadows of my mind just before rising or just before falling asleep. I may not see it well then, but frequently I see it darting about shyly between plant stalks on a summer day looking for food or taking cover under a rock ledge. Like many creatures of the woods, it is rather shy and would prefer not to be noticed. But I have noticed it there under the detritus of my rational thought processes. It doesn't want much: just a bit of food and a warm nest. But I have it on good authority that, contrary to its rather timid appearance, this particular mouse is a creature of great personal valor and astute perception.

With eyes, ears, nose and whiskers that are over-sized in comparison to its body, the mouse can see and feel its way in the darkness; it can sniff out small bits of food and hear enemies stalking or insects crawling. This quality of being able to see in the dark and being able to "sniff out" what is out of sight to normal perception is the quality we attribute to the intuitive function. Most people consider the mouse vermin. A mouse would symbolize, therefore, the rejected, despised inferior function of collective western consciousness, Intuition. Might we consider, then, that the "mouse of God" is perhaps (speaking psychologically) just the tiniest bit of the archetypal Self, clothed in the form of one of God's lowliest, humblest, and most timid warm-blooded creatures? Intuition is a value that is sorely needed in our age of grotesquely rationalistic and over-blown logos consciousness. We need what the mouse represents: that part of God which western consciousness rejects: Intuition. We need to hear what this "mouse of the Lord" has to say, because it has highly sensitive perceptual abilities — abilities to see, smell, and feel things that are beyond rationality to explain but not beyond what human hearts can know and feel.
(Wilor Bluege, January, 2011.)

Christopher Smart, a schizophrenic resident of a mental institution in England, wrote a series of poems some of which were subsequently used by Sr. Benjamin Britten in his festival cantata, "Rejoice in the Lamb" (1943). I had the privilege of singing this work in the Chapel Choir under Kenneth Jennings at St. Olaf College back in the 1960s. I remember several of the sung poems word-for-word and note-for-note. One of them was this:

"For the mouse is a creature of great personal valor!
For this is a true case:
Cat takes female mouse; male mouse will not depart but stands threatening and daring:
'If you will let her go, I will engage you, as prodigious a creature as you are!'
For the mouse is a creature of great personal valor!
For the mouse is of an hospitable disposition."