Images that Awaken

Primitive

How do we awaken our slumbering soul, that part of us that lies almost entirely in shadowed mystery, the parts we are unaware of or barely familiar with; the archetypal Wanderer or Hero, the playful child or the nurturer. Unless we are awakened to what’s beneath the surface, we won’t get to know those unfamiliar allies, much less have the access we need to speak of things that bear the stamp of original thought. It’s in that below-the-consciousness level that our creative imagination concocts the epiphanies, which rise to the surface and delight us.

The soul is essential to coming into our full humanity – for many reasons. It is the gateway that stands between our interior and exterior landscape, the threshold that allows us to interface with the world around us. And according to some, it contains the “language” which allows us to commune with all that is spiritual.

I recently finished an audio book that reignited my desire to understand my own soul and to make a concerted effort to bring it to bear on my conscious thinking. Leonard Mlodinow’s book, Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change is not primarily about our soul or creativity. It’s about the critical need for humanity to approach problem solving from a framework different from the analytical norm we are accustomed to, and to break free of frozen thinking. Mlodinow encourages tapping into out-of-the-box and imaginative thinking because some of the problems we’re faced with can only be approached with innovation, creating something that has not previously existed.

Mlodinow describes this “bottom-up” thinking as located in the right side of the brain along with creativity and the generative capacity for non-linear insights that spring up from somewhere below the conscious level. The left brain, that analytical, linear-driven, executive side, though necessary for navigating our way through life, does not readily give room for the more free wheeling unconscious part. So how can we effectively referee?

For the next several weeks we’ll look at awakening and how we might welcome the unconscious part of our souls into partnership with our conscious selves. John O’Donohue, in his book Anam Cara, encourages a deep respect for the hidden nature of the soul and suggests exploring our inner world with a candlelight approach rather than a glaring neon light. Some of the “candlelight” tools we’ll talk about are image, nature, dreams and myth. There are surely many other avenues to consider; contemplative practice, music and poetry to name just a few. The world of the soul has a deep beauty and a boundless nature and so its friends are many.

Image holds vast potential for the kind of “candlelight” awakening we’re considering. The primitive nature of images taps into an ancient part of ourselves. The older images like cave paintings and pictographs elicit from us something more than a response to their aesthetic beauty. They arouse a mysterious nostalgia having to do with origin. The distant and vague nature of these ancient images and symbols woo us gently into an imaginative quest and hold promise for unexpected discoveries.

Contemporary images, any concept represented in graphic form, can be just as evocative. Image is like a primitive message, which only our soul can interpret. Images in our culture, in other cultures and the images that are part of our daily lives have been known to “be worth a thousand words.”

What does the image of a barn evoke, or a golden ring, or a carousel? When we engage in this way, it’s as though the gatekeeper of linear thought has been circumvented and we have at last been liberated into a space in which our imagination is free to go where it will. What would happen if we let our gaze settle into the freedom of image, if we immersed ourselves in it? How might our souls be awakened with images that are beyond words?

What messages are coming to you from the images in your surroundings?

Writing Prompt For The Week: Primitive