You Don't Know

 Personal Experience of the Collective - A relatable moment of connection to the Collective Unconscious
Morning kitchen routine becomes a portal to ancestral wisdom. Ordinary breakfast transforms into extraordinary communion with the Collective Unconscious through domestic ritual and memory. From my upcoming book "Breakfast with Jung." Chapter 1. The Collective Unconsciousness .

Breakfast with Jung

At dawn’s ragged edge, my kitchen becomes
A temple of ordinary prophecies
Coffee grounds like black diviner’s sand
Messages from the dead burned into toast

My grandmother’s hands emerge from steam
Weaving histories into my cup, while outside
Bougainvillaea bleeds its crimson alphabet
Across windows thin as memory’s skin

In the toaster’s chrome, faces ripple:
Great-aunts with eyes of burning coal,
Cousins carrying unborn stars in their teeth,
Children who might bloom from my bones.

Their reflections overlap like hungry ghosts,
All pressing against morning’s fragile glass.
The kettle screams with a thousand voices—
Every cup of tea ever poured flowing backwards

Through time’s copper throat. Even Jung himself
Pauses mid-bite, startled by its prophecy.
A tui splits the sky’s yolk with her song,
Harmonising with languages lost when

Eden’s gates swung shut. Her notes scatter
Like black pearls across my breakfast plate.
Time pools honey-thick in this hour
Between dreaming and day, sweet

With the marrow of memory. My spoon
Stirs ripples in the universe’s coffee cup.
The morning news bleeds through dimensions—
Every headline ever printed rising like smoke

From my coffee: wars, loves, births, extinctions
Spiral into one eternal moment of toast and tea.
Through the window, the bougainvillea
Drops petals red as birth-blood, each one

Carrying messages from the collective heart—
Semaphores from gardens of remembered light.
Watch now—as my ancestors lean in, hungry
For one more taste of morning, their shadows

Drinking light from my cup. Even the sugar bowl
Holds crystals of compressed eternities.
In this kitchen, we are all time travellers,
Breaking bread with our unborn children,

While the dead pour tea with trembling hands
And tomorrow whispers in our marrow.
Tell me then, you who breakfast alone,
Do you see them in your morning mirror—

All the faces time has worn and will wear,
Gathering like moths around your light?
Here at dawn’s clean slate,
Where every breakfast is the last breakfast,

And also the first, we drink our coffee
Black as memory, sweet as prophecy,
While Jung smiles from the doorway,
Knowing that eternity was always this:

A kitchen full of ghosts at morning,
Passing cream across time’s borders.
 
By Stephen Francis Hollins


11/October 2025

Breakfast with Jung

Taken from the debut album 'Lines' released 27 Jan 2017 (http://phonofile.link/charliecunningham). 
Tickets on sale now from https://charliecunninghamlive.com

7 Feb - Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
8 Feb - Aviemore, Old Bridge Inn 
9 Feb - Ullapool, The Arch Inn
10 Feb - Stornoway, The Woodlands Centre
11 Feb - Inverness, Tooth & Claw
12 Feb - Elgin, The Drouthy Cobbler
13 Feb - Aberdeen, Aberdeen Tunnels 
15 Feb - Besancon, Festival Generiq - Eglise St.Louis
16 Feb - Dijon, Festival Generiq - ENSA (National Art School)
17 Feb - Mulhouse, Festival Generiq - TBA
18 Feb - Belfort, Festival Generiq - Le Planetarium
23 Feb - London, Union Chapel 

14 Mar - Austin, SXSW
22 Mar - Paris, Trois Baudets,
24 Mar - Neustadt am Rübenberge, Schloss Landestrost
25 Mar - Konzerthaus Dortmund
26 Mar - Hamburg, Kampnagel
27 Mar - Berlin, Kammermusiksaal Philharmonie
29 Mar - Münster, Jugendkirche Effata!
30 Mar - Cologne, Kulturkirche 

1 Apr - Frankfurt, Heiliggeistkirche
2 Apr - Mannheim, Atlantis
3 Apr - Munich, Carl-Orff-Saal
5 Apr - Vienna, Chelsea
6 Apr - Salzburg, Rockhouse Bar
8 Apr - Zurich, Papiersaal
9 Apr - Stuttgart, Theatrehaus
11 Apr - Brussels, Botanique Witlof Bar
12 Apr - Amsterdam, Paradiso

25 Apr - Madrid, Costello Club
26 Apr - Barcelona, Festival Mil·lenni

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/78CiW0UJbHspFaVuVexOK6
iTunes/Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/album/-/id1164800045
CD & Vinyl: https://charlie-cunningham.backstreetmerch.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charliecunninghammusic
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/cunninghamcharlie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cunninghamcharlie/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Charlie_C_Music

Lines

Minimum

What If We Never Forget

Granny

Wanderer (Expedition Happiness Soundtrack)

Wanderer

Nocturne - EP

Olalla

Pictures

Only For A Moment

Charlie Cunningham has emerged as a truly under-the-radar success story. He has headlined London’s iconic Queen Elizabeth Hall and has become a regular fixture in Europe’s most prestigious concert halls. Splitting his time between piano and nylon string guitar, Charlie creates melancholic yet rhythmically driven songs. When expressed with his warm voice and characteristic restraint, something timeless takes shape.

Despite his dyslexia making it near impossible for him to read music, Charlie earned a music degree and by his mid-20s worked a variety of odd jobs and wrote songs in his free time. Eventually, he moved to Seville, immersed himself in Flamenco music and focussed intensely on his guitar playing. Planning to stay for 3 months, he stayed for 3 years. Once home, Charlie found work playing in bars across London and Oxford ¬—eventually returning to songwriting. Charlie has subsequently released 2 albums and 4 eps which have garnered over half a billion streams.

Next on the horizon is his third album Frame. A collection of lush, delicate pop songs brimming with references to art rock, golden era jazz, and neo-classical composition—all the while maintaining the pared-back and clear-eyed musicality for which he is so well recognised. Throughout the album, Charlie and long-time producer, Sam Hudson Scott, create the fragility, power and tension found in timeless songwriting, reanimated through a modern lens.

Minimum

CharlieCunningham