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829th Week: The Imaginal Realm
I’m sure I’ve written about this many times, but here I go again. Where we focus our attention, what we think about, how we engage our imagination has a powerful impact on the quality of our inner life and on how we behave and act in our world. What we attend to matters. What we imagine matters.
This week I want to share some thoughts about engaging what’s called the “imaginal realm”. When we enter the imaginal realm, we aren’t engaging something “imaginary”. Instead, we touch into a kind of language or communication that uses visual and other sensory impressions rather than strings of words. Our culture tends not to privilege awareness that operates in the imaginal realm and yet it’s one of the most powerful creative forces we have available to us.
For example, spend a moment right now bringing into awareness either an image of some beautiful place you’ve been—a place that touched you deeply, or recall a sound, fragrance, or sensation that moves you in a way that is meaningful to you. Since images are my main language in this realm, I often “see” trees that have touched me, such as the giant Sequoia I’m imagining right now. This image generates a powerful felt-sense of awe and heart-filling expansion, with my whole body-mind responding to the memory of the presence of this magnificent tree. Or, I might bring into awareness an image of one of the cats who live with me doing something amusing, something that fills me with delight and touches my heart, as well as generating a smile and a chuckle.
We know from science that our brains register imaginal experience in much the same way as actual lived experience, creating a full experience in the body (sensations) and psyche (emotional and mental states). The only difference is that these experiences and awareness arise and unfold in the imaginal realm.
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884th Week : Orienting to Frequencies
I’ve talked recently about the importance of noticing the quality of energy with which we resonate, the frequencies we bring into our lives and experiences. This year’s monthly audio meditations on my website focus on frequencies and the subject of the quality and tone of energy comes up often in my work with the people who come my way.
Not only do I think that it is vitally important to track which frequencies we bring into the foreground of our awareness, but I also invite people to notice the tone and quality of the unique energy signature that emanates from their core presence, from that place inside each of us that is our internal home base.
I woke up one morning saying the following to myself: “I am a living expression of radiant health.” What struck me as I heard myself saying this in my mind was the quality of energy inherent in the words, radiant health. Since that morning, I’ve been saying this to myself every day, with an occasional alternate version that goes something like, “I am the living essence of radiant health.” Whichever way I say it, the key is the frequency, the quality of the words, radiant health.
Also, when I say radiant health, I’m not just focused on my physical being. I can sense into radiant psychological health, or radiant creativity, or radiant emotional resilience. For this practice, I recommend using the general statement of being a living expression of radiant health, but be sure to adapt this practice to what works best for you.
My sense is that frequencies, that all frequencies/energies/qualities of being, have a direct impact not only on our state of mind but also on the state of our physical being. Because of this, one of the ways I engage my explorations of frequencies is to call on certain qualities to accompany me throughout the day. An example that I may have shared before was very powerful for me when my mother was alive and needing a lot of support. On days when I would be with her, I would call on the frequency of kindness, what I think of as the Spirit or Archetype of Kindness, asking this quality to fill me throughout the day. What I discovered was, when I remembered to do this, the day would unfold with an experience of patience and kindness in me that were more accessible and easier to express than what was usual for me.
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