Active Imagination 7
Staying connected to what energizes me, listening for intuitive thoughts, being careful not to disturb the roots of the idea
Active Imagination #7
On day six I was distracted and wasn’t able to engage with the process. Rather than try to force it, I deferred.
The following is from my seventh attempt at C.G. Jung’s “Active Imagination” technique.
Palo santo burns. It makes a small pile of embers in a brass bowl. The smell brings up memories from 2013 when my son, Stellan, was a newborn. I stayed home while Natasha worked and I’d make a fire in the fireplace everyday through the winter.
It was a time of warmth. Sun would enter through the living room window and heat the hardwood floor. That was the basis for a meditation routine that I still practice daily.
Today, I feel the molded texture of a plastic folding table. The sensation makes me grateful for that I don’t have everything I want. There have been a few times when, after a windfall, I’ve purchased fancy equipment. It always paralyzes me. Since then I’ve learned to embrace lack and sufficiency. Some of my favorite artworks are the result of a ninety nine cent posterboard, a pack of eight Crayola markers, and the desperation to make ideas concrete. There’s something about just getting on with the making.
Text arranges itself in chunks of verse on my computer screen. My hands move slowly. Today, I have more patience to give. I guess it’s sfaith that the images will come, that I don’t have to (and possibly can’t) hurry them. So, I leave room for intuitive thought and find there is rhythm. I feel like a conduit.
Around me are thick reference books: Roget’s thesaurus, unabridged dictionary, book of symbols, rhyming dictionary. They whisper to me.
I ask the first question: What aspect of myself does this project express?
The answer returns. Passion: people, places, things, and ideas that energize me.
The second question: What challenges am I facing?
At revision time, I somehow cut so much from the draft that I lose connection to what originally inspired me. It’s a type of self-sabotage, I think, and I do it over and over. Might I be scared that the creative process will reveal something I don’t like?
Question Three: How does this project affect your larger vision?
No answer.
Last Question: What final alteration do you make and how does that affect this work, and your body of work?
I cut the whole poem, then put back only the stanzas that energize me. Compulsion and intuition are different. I must listen for the quiet voices that are always there guiding me.