I asked the servant Leo why it was that artists sometimes appeared to be only half-alive, while their creations seemed so irrefutably alive. Leo looked at me, surprised at my question. Then he released the poodle he was holding in his arms and said: "It is just the same with mothers. When they have borne their children and given them their milk and beauty and strength, they themselves become invisible, and no one asks about them anymore."
"But that is sad," I said, without really thinking very much about it.
"I do not think it is sadder than all other things," said Leo. "Perhaps it is sad and yet also beautiful. The law ordains that it shall be so." – Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East
I think that we (could) live in interesting times, when we could analyze in a post-post-modern way what imagination and “the law” is made of. That is, if politics and the environment aren’t messed up beyond repair.
Have you given consciously given over to reverie, or fallen into it? What was its effect? I remember doing this naturally a lot as a kid...but not so much lately. Do we adults have the same capacity as children do?
Free Webinar: Conversations between a Psychologist and a Poet: The Healing Power of Language - Robe…
In this live webinar, Robert Romanyshyn, psychologist and Jungian psychotherapist, and poet Brian Michael Tracy will engage in a conversation moderat…
You sent me down a trip down memory lane on YouTube watching movie trailers this morning, Aleks and I realized how much of the experience of movies I like is really induced by the music. For me, that's a great way to induce reverie and creativity....
After learning how to access reverie easily by using the techniques I learned at The Monroe Institute, I now find that I can access this spot on demand to help with making decisions, choices, and letting wisdom flow through me. However, I find reverie almost a blissful state when it opens up in meditation or while awake and was not directed by my intention. To reach this point though I have found that you must be open to the experience. Each individual is open to different extent. An experience I would like to share is one that happened while I was at a weekend workshop with Brandon Bays and meditating with a large group of people for peace in the Middle East. During this guided meditation, I became aware of hundreds of people lining up in front of me, making a walkway for me to go through. I realized that these people were my ancestors from many, many different ages and were all warriors, military, etc. They were recognizing the spiritual power I held and how they honored this "new" way of making changes in the world instead of killing. The insight then showed all of them laying down their weapons before them in honor of me. It was one of the most powerful, very real experiences I have ever had. I couldn't stop crying for a long time afterwards, which is always a sign to me that I had tapped into something very pertinent and honest.
I won’t talk here about insights per se because I still need to assess their quality.
From the weekly poll: “How often do you deliberately allocate time to spend in reverie?” I’m pretty sure we’ve already been asked this question. It’s interesting how many ways and angles are equally good for talking or asking about the same thing. I’m glad to see in DPA the world of Jung’s (and other people’s) ideas coming into life. In everyday life one can see here and there people interested in this stuff, but examples (especially outside of psychotherapy) of making decisions and behaving according to daydreaming are rare.
There was a moment long time ago when I was going home and exited a bus. That indoor/outdoor change triggered something strange. The sun was shining differently, there was even something different in the air I was breathing. I don’t know exactly what, but I felt something intense and beautiful all around me. Sometimes when I walk a longer distance in a town with many people, something happens with the border between me and the surrounding. I feel then like a part, an organ. It’s like when you go out fast in a street full of people after watching a 3D film and when the space around you becomes fuzzy.
I appreciate the quote and your response Ed. That image of opening the door rather than waiting for the pounding on its frame resonates for me--at least leaving the door ajar, makes sense!
Entering and inviting the waking dream helps me feel into this call to reverie by Romanyshyn: a call to allow the unconscious material, it's energy, creativity, and compensating impulse to enter the work. The more time I spend in using a Jungian framework for my life, the more I find myself creating some ritual space to honor the unseen and liminal movements of psyche.
I remember before I entered the depth psychological framework with any consciousness, there was a particlarly busy and chaotic period in my work and family life where i had a sense of no time--for anything. It was all allotted and filled up, used up. But...I needed a release valve. So on a daily drive I had I allowed myself just the tiniest liminal space in the form of a walk on a trail by a lake. I brought all the intention and focus I could muster before embarking on those walks to the work of shilding my consciousness from absolutely anything other than what was present on those steps on the trail. It was a life saver and many a time, after getting back into the car and plunging back into the whirlwind of external activity, I would turn to a moment or image from the walk it would save me from overwhelment and extreme stress.
Now that I've spilled that story of that little window of liminal space I allowed myself in those days, it appears to be a very tight and desperate, only perhaps marginal grasp at reverie--dream, wander or rave--but none the less a small restorative and I would say generative waking dream in those days that I think infused and saved the work.
Were the ancestors there? I'll have to think about it. Perhaps in the archetypal images and energy that was generated there in the path?
To allow reverie to offer its gifts, time must be taken. At least for myself, it often takes awhile for the immediacy of concerns to "melt" away so that reverie may speak and also so that I am able to perceive the message(s). In the open perceptual state, synchronicity, insight, and the ancestors are better able to be experienced and valued, at least in my case. Of course, sometimes synchronicity and the ancestors can "smack" us to attention but I would rather designate time to invite them into the room than their needing to beat the doors down. :)
Replies
I asked the servant Leo why it was that artists sometimes appeared to be only half-alive, while their creations seemed so irrefutably alive. Leo looked at me, surprised at my question. Then he released the poodle he was holding in his arms and said: "It is just the same with mothers. When they have borne their children and given them their milk and beauty and strength, they themselves become invisible, and no one asks about them anymore."
"But that is sad," I said, without really thinking very much about it.
"I do not think it is sadder than all other things," said Leo. "Perhaps it is sad and yet also beautiful. The law ordains that it shall be so." – Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East
I think that we (could) live in interesting times, when we could analyze in a post-post-modern way what imagination and “the law” is made of. That is, if politics and the environment aren’t messed up beyond repair.
Bringing this back for another round in honor of the upcoming (Feb. 5) webinar with Robert Romanyshyn (A Conversation Between a P...)....
Have you given consciously given over to reverie, or fallen into it? What was its effect? I remember doing this naturally a lot as a kid...but not so much lately. Do we adults have the same capacity as children do?
Filmmakers do have that capacity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pySXc-6GoU - Tideland trailer
Also, Hesse's books come to mind.
Terry Gilliam: Great filmmaker. That guy definitely has access to something not everyone does.
I also loved Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrAz1YLh8nY.
You sent me down a trip down memory lane on YouTube watching movie trailers this morning, Aleks and I realized how much of the experience of movies I like is really induced by the music. For me, that's a great way to induce reverie and creativity....
After learning how to access reverie easily by using the techniques I learned at The Monroe Institute, I now find that I can access this spot on demand to help with making decisions, choices, and letting wisdom flow through me. However, I find reverie almost a blissful state when it opens up in meditation or while awake and was not directed by my intention. To reach this point though I have found that you must be open to the experience. Each individual is open to different extent. An experience I would like to share is one that happened while I was at a weekend workshop with Brandon Bays and meditating with a large group of people for peace in the Middle East. During this guided meditation, I became aware of hundreds of people lining up in front of me, making a walkway for me to go through. I realized that these people were my ancestors from many, many different ages and were all warriors, military, etc. They were recognizing the spiritual power I held and how they honored this "new" way of making changes in the world instead of killing. The insight then showed all of them laying down their weapons before them in honor of me. It was one of the most powerful, very real experiences I have ever had. I couldn't stop crying for a long time afterwards, which is always a sign to me that I had tapped into something very pertinent and honest.
I won’t talk here about insights per se because I still need to assess their quality.
From the weekly poll: “How often do you deliberately allocate time to spend in reverie?” I’m pretty sure we’ve already been asked this question. It’s interesting how many ways and angles are equally good for talking or asking about the same thing. I’m glad to see in DPA the world of Jung’s (and other people’s) ideas coming into life. In everyday life one can see here and there people interested in this stuff, but examples (especially outside of psychotherapy) of making decisions and behaving according to daydreaming are rare.
There was a moment long time ago when I was going home and exited a bus. That indoor/outdoor change triggered something strange. The sun was shining differently, there was even something different in the air I was breathing. I don’t know exactly what, but I felt something intense and beautiful all around me. Sometimes when I walk a longer distance in a town with many people, something happens with the border between me and the surrounding. I feel then like a part, an organ. It’s like when you go out fast in a street full of people after watching a 3D film and when the space around you becomes fuzzy.
I appreciate the quote and your response Ed. That image of opening the door rather than waiting for the pounding on its frame resonates for me--at least leaving the door ajar, makes sense!
Entering and inviting the waking dream helps me feel into this call to reverie by Romanyshyn: a call to allow the unconscious material, it's energy, creativity, and compensating impulse to enter the work. The more time I spend in using a Jungian framework for my life, the more I find myself creating some ritual space to honor the unseen and liminal movements of psyche.
I remember before I entered the depth psychological framework with any consciousness, there was a particlarly busy and chaotic period in my work and family life where i had a sense of no time--for anything. It was all allotted and filled up, used up. But...I needed a release valve. So on a daily drive I had I allowed myself just the tiniest liminal space in the form of a walk on a trail by a lake. I brought all the intention and focus I could muster before embarking on those walks to the work of shilding my consciousness from absolutely anything other than what was present on those steps on the trail. It was a life saver and many a time, after getting back into the car and plunging back into the whirlwind of external activity, I would turn to a moment or image from the walk it would save me from overwhelment and extreme stress.
Now that I've spilled that story of that little window of liminal space I allowed myself in those days, it appears to be a very tight and desperate, only perhaps marginal grasp at reverie--dream, wander or rave--but none the less a small restorative and I would say generative waking dream in those days that I think infused and saved the work.
Were the ancestors there? I'll have to think about it. Perhaps in the archetypal images and energy that was generated there in the path?
To allow reverie to offer its gifts, time must be taken. At least for myself, it often takes awhile for the immediacy of concerns to "melt" away so that reverie may speak and also so that I am able to perceive the message(s). In the open perceptual state, synchronicity, insight, and the ancestors are better able to be experienced and valued, at least in my case. Of course, sometimes synchronicity and the ancestors can "smack" us to attention but I would rather designate time to invite them into the room than their needing to beat the doors down. :)
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