Thoughts on cultivating a relationship to one’s creativity and the imagination...

Within each of us lies an infinite playground, a dark night filled with shooting stars, and a vast sea of mystery. Sitting at the edge of our own infinity, venturing into the waters of the self and it’s rippling imagery, both personal and collective can be liberating and terrifying at the same time. The imaginal realm is the ultimate wild terrain of self.  It is filled with forgotten melodies yearning to be sung, buried moments waiting to breathe again and exotic and sometimes frightening archetypes that demand to be given a voice. This psychic place beneath and beyond flesh and blood that vibrates with sound, color and texture, wants our participation.  

Life is creating us as we are creating it.  Engaging with the imagination without judgement takes an enormous amount of trust. The images that emerge when I song write  both solo and with my students are vivid and rich.  My goal is to be as accepting as possible and to honor what comes. At the same time I attend to the process of putting a structure (song) together from the images that emerge. This can be a very empowering experience for someone who has not spent much time in dialogue with inner imagery.  A person gets to identify with the images by singing them and I am there very much simply to make sure that their critic stays on the sidelines. For the critic should be watched carefully in the play of creation for therapeutic purposes. It needs to be kept at bay. Carl Jung wrote about the importance of “a suspension of our rational critical faculties in order to give free rein to fantasy” (From “Jung on active imagination” by J Chodorow).  

The creative current must be allowed to do what it does; moving in a continuous swelling and receding, spiraling, pulling and lifting manner. One who surrenders enough to the present moment can begin to experience what the unconscious imaginal sea of themselves wishes to say.  This is easier said then done, because often the images that rise from our shadowy depths can to the bobbing surface ego of ourselves, be frightening and threatening. Our ego is all about being in control and our society is all about categorizing, boxing up and shipping off.  But the wild nature of ourselves is more like a fruit tree that keeps giving. 

Cultivating a relationship to one’s creativity and imagination is as much a practice as anything. Images in us will be alive as long as we let them be, as long as we return for nourishment from the unknown mysteries that are larger then us, the abundance continues.  It is for this reason that I believe restraining judgement is an essential practice for artistic and imaginal work. The moment one listens more to the inner critic and begins judging their experience as good, bad, right or wrong, the more one’s inner landscape fades to black and white and the open window into the imaginal wilderness, large enough to crawl through with body, mind and spirt slides closed.  To be cont.....