All Dressed Up With Everywhere To Go Part 3: Ritual Behavior

 Prelude

Let's hop off that two-edged sword of discernment for a moment ((it can be really, really sharp!), stuff it in our backpack and take a stroll into the landscape of the Imaginal.  But, one may ask, how do we get to that terrain in the first place?  Here we are in our day-to-day real world, paying bills and making lunch and driving to work; the thousands of mundane and often irritating tasks in that shared world which constantly draw our attention, feed our anxieties, lure our desires.  Getting from the here and now of phones and computers, news and gossip, risks and responsibilities, to the Imaginal Realm seems at the least daunting, at most a pipe dream.

Putting aside the obvious fact that we go into the Imaginal naturally every night in our dreams, we'll have to look for hints and clues, perhaps even obtain a roadmap to help us on our journey.  But even with a roadmap in hand we will need a vehicle, a means of transport.  There is a clue available for us on that quest - that symbol that the Imaginal Realm passed on through the dream I referred to, the one that initiated this discussion.  Namely, the white tuxedo.  In that regard I'll reach back into my backpack and snag that black bow tie of discernment again (if you're gonna wear a tuxedo you're gonna need a bow tie), and... voila!!... all dressed up with everywhere to go.

I spoke in a previous posting of the possible symbolic associations that a tuxedo engenders.  There is one I hinted at yet somehow couldn't quite nail on the head at the time, and it's that association I want to explore more clearly now, the one I'm hoping will possibly transport us to our destination.  I'm talking here about an important clue the symbolic tuxedo gives us - the notion of ritual.

Fugue

One very common use of the term "ritual" is, simply put,  habitual action.  I have a morning ritual - I get out of bed, make a pot of coffee, turn on my computer and bring up a weather site.  This happens pretty much every morning without thought.  It's a simple routine without mysterious meaning or depth, yet it serves a function - the coffee perks me out of the night's slumber, the weather report helps me plan what I will wear that day, how my intended goals will be effected by rain or snow, cold or heat.  I imagine we all have many such rituals throughout the day, rituals we hardly notice.

At the other end of the spectrum is my dictionary's primary definition of ritual - a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.  This type of ritual might simply be for some a method to bring a community together, a bonding, or a networking tool of sorts.  It might, for those so inclined, actually trigger an Imaginal experience - a vision of Jesus or Mary at church; a conversation with spirit guides during a peyote ceremony in a sweat lodge; an eruption of bliss and ecstasy while chanting mantra on a yoga mat.  These are all legitimate forays into the Imaginal Realm, usually by individuals though occasionally shared by many or most of the community in attendance. 

In any case, it's a prescribed event with rules and methods, sometimes evolved and formulated over eons of traditional practice, and which by the nature of repetition can become nothing more than habitual action, remaining on the level of a networking event, a fun Friday night psychedelic trip with buddies, a soothing chant during meditation to help relieve anxiety and lower blood pressure ( all legitimate activities, but not forays into the Imaginal).

Between semi-conscious habitual actions (like my morning ritual) and prescribed ceremonial actions (like ingesting peyote in a sweat lodge) lie a whole range of ritual-like activities.  After my morning ritual I oftentimes  engage in a series of what is popularly known as yoga exercises.  My intent is very particular in this regard.  I'm not a student of Hatha Yoga, in which case these exercises might be a very solemn affair among other practices with the intent of achieving Satori, or Moksha, or Kundalini activation.  Rather, I simply want to take care of the body, make it more limber and agile in its actions within the world.  I have a book describing these exercises in word and picture, and these are indeed prescribed instructions I follow.  In this case the ritual also engages a process, in that repeated sessions over time gradually achieve my aims.  Yet in no way am I looking to explore the Imaginal Realm through these methods.

At least not as a primary process.  There is a secondary process that seems to tag along in parallel on its own.  When I'm done with the exercises I'm more relaxed yet highly focused, more open and receptive in the sense of beginner's mind.  This changed state of being just might, at times, open doors to the Imaginal.  A similar thing happens when I go to the gym 3 or 4 days a week.  I perform the prescribed activities dictated by the various machines,  ritually following a specific order every time.  Once again the primary process is oriented toward the body, to improve strength and endurance so as to to increase effectiveness in the world.  Like yoga I come out focused, relaxed, etc. (though I have yet to exit the gym to see faeries dancing in the evening sky).

All of these actions I've described are prescribed rituals, whether religious or secular, Imaginally purposed or practical.  They have their structures presented to the practitioner by a traditional institution of one sort or another, the parameters developed within a culture over time.  Sometimes they achieve their goals, sometimes not.  Sometimes they have secondary processes at work, sometimes not.  But what if you were to endeavor to develop unique rituals for yourself, rituals not handed down to you by the Upanishads or Planet Fitness, especially if your purpose was to create a vehicle to transport you to the Imaginal Realm?  How would you start?

To be continued....

All Dressed Up With Everywhere to Go Part 2: The Black Bow Tie of Discernment

Prelude

White tuxedo, black bow tie.  That was the odd costume I suddenly found myself wearing at the emergence of the Big Dream from the confused chaos of the seemingly mundane small dream that night.  I say "odd" because I have only one time in my life worn a tuxedo (at a brother's wedding decades ago) and that is not the sort of attire I aspire to;  blue jeans and a t-shirt will do just fine, thank you.  Even so, the black bow tie especially stands out for me as a symbol for the simple reason that I have owned only one tie of any sort in my entire adult life.  I find them vaguely repulsive at worst, strangely silly and superfluous at best.  The only one ever in my possession was a signed Jerry Garcia psychedelic tie given to me by Mr. Garcia himself in thanks for my volunteering at a fund raising event he had participated in.  I never wore it, and eventually gave it to an aging Deadhead I was acquainted with.  Thus, you can probably imagine just how odd it was for me to find myself in that  black noose while in the imaginal dream world.

Obviously a strong symbol here, so what would one associate with such a specific article of attire?  A few things come to mind - tradition, formality, constriction, pageantry, celebration, novelty, authority, sternness, silliness...hmm, some contradictions showing up here (btw, a bow tie also reminds me of the mathematical symbol for infinity, but I'll put that aside  for now).   If we're to tease this out it seems it's time to bring in the context of our destination, or more precisely the territory of our journey; the where amid all the every-wheres waiting in potential.  And that, of course, is the Imaginal Realm.  In that context an entirely new word symbol comes to me, one born of a particular necessity while traversing the various islands within that island nation - that is, the term discernment.

So now we have the black bow tie of discernment.

Fugue

I'll point out here that I'm not advocating the black bow tie of skepticism; or disbelief; or worse yet, cynicism.  To quote my dictionary:  to discern is to detect or perceive with the eye or intellect; to discriminate.  One might say, to discriminate between truth and fiction, to perceive what-is without agenda born of hidden or unhidden paradigm fixations.  Most skeptics and cynics can't see outside the box they've built around themselves, the paradigm they cling to.  I have a small story to illustrate this.

This story played out during the time of the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, close on the heels of 9/11.  The Bush administration was making a great effort to convince the American public of the necessity to embark on that war.  Colin Powell, a man respected and trusted by many from all sides of the political spectrum, was called upon to make the case.  At one point in a presentation to the presidential press corps he displayed a satellite photo of two trucks parked by a road in the Iraqi desert, stating that U.S. intelligence believed the trucks were carrying missile launchers armed with weapons of mass destruction capable of hitting Israel and even parts of Europe.  Later that evening Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, was asked by a reporter what he thought of this evidence presented by Powell. Annan replied "All I see are two trucks in the desert".

Kofi Annan was using discernment.  He saw trucks in the desert.  Colin Powell saw missile launchers with weapons of mass destruction.  It turns out Annan was right - no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq.

One might ask in this light what the uses of discernment are within the Imaginal Realm.  After all, discernment is to a great degree a function of logic, a cognitive skill which some suggest does not apply to the island of the dream world, much less the island nation it inhabits.  Nonetheless, I would suggest discernment is an important tool to carry in your backpack on that journey.  When traveling among faeries and dead people and ascended masters a healthy dose of discernment just might be illuminating, and by default a bulwark against hazards.  And hazards there are.  When a channeled entity is met, one who has taken over the mind and body of a living person, are we to trust the message even if we accept the truth of the channeling?  I have personal experience meeting a self-proclaimed channeler who evaded questions and dissembled left and right.  Was he actually being channeled?  I have no idea.  But my bullshit detector, a great tool of discernment, was sounding the alarm.  I later found out his closest followers eventually abandoned him.  To use the analogy, they had been seeing weapons of mass destruction, then finally saw trucks in the desert.

But it's a two-edged sword, this tool of discernment.  It can, if not being used carefully, blind us to possible truths outside our hidden paradigms.  As a friend once suggested, in the Imaginal Realm one sits on the edge of that two-edged sword.  Does it cut our butts, or tickle them?

To be continued...

All Dressed Up With Everywhere to Go Part 1: Imaginal Entanglements

Prelude:

To begin with I'd like to explain  the genesis of the title of this new blog series.  It began with a dream, one in which a recently common theme of obstacles, frustrations, misdirections and confusions in  my dream world inhabited an apparently necessary journey I was embarked upon, a journey with uncertain intent or destination.  In other words, a mostly mundane and forgettable nocturnal adventure.  But then the scene suddenly shifted, and what had been what I sometimes term a "small dream" began to morph into its flip side, what I term a "Big Dream".  With this shift I I found myself in a large, brightly lit room, perhaps a ballroom.  To my surprise I noticed I was dressed in a white tuxedo and black bow tie.  I began wandering through the room, now peopled with a number of equally well dressed guests.  I passed close by a woman I recognized who, upon seeing me,  commented with a smile "You look like you're in love!".  This seemed rather odd on its own, yet as I passed by another female acquaintance a few steps on she repeated the same declarative, "You look like you're in love!".  This scene repeated itself exactly several times more as I wandered through the room, which confused me since I am decidedly not in love with anyone, nor have I been so since my young adulthood (unless being "in lust" is synonymous with being "in love").

And then the dream abruptly ended as I woke up to the blare of my alarm clock.  As I fumbled out of bed to make coffee I pondered over this strange string of identical comments, puzzled but mildly amused at the disconnect to my real-life amorous condition, or rather the lack thereof.  Just then a thought popped into my mind, one practically as disconcerting as the dream comments from my female dream interlocutors - I realized that what they meant was not that I looked like I was in love with someone, but that I was IN LOVE, or more precisely I was WITHIN LOVE.

I was absolutely certain of this new revelation of the meaning of the dream message, but it had a peculiar feel to it.  I have never, as far as I can remember, thought or felt or intuited that I was "within love".  This characterization of my life condition is one I've never expressed, nor is it one  I would anticipate embracing in any foreseeable future life condition evaluation.  It had the feel of a message from something outside myself, or perhaps from some strange and usually inaccessible region of my interior self.  In any case, I knew this to be the real content of the nocturnal message.

Later that afternoon I had occasion to email a friend on some matters and, knowing he appreciates the slip and slide of our dream lives, related to him the content of my dream and the sudden revelation of its interpretation.  His reply was immediate. "Knowing you as I do, Jeff, I would add another meaning implied in this dream - you are all dressed up with everywhere to go!". 

And so the title of my new blog series.  Which begs two questions.  Firstly, where does one go when everywhere is in play?  And secondly, what does one wear that qualifies as "all dressed up" when embarking on that journey?  I think these questions are closely related, though for now I will begin with a discussion of the second.

Fugue:

If one is to embark on a journey, appropriate attire is called for.  You might say a tuxedo is appropriate for a wedding, or a splashy event like the Oscars.   It is decidedly not appropriate for an exploration of the geosphere, like a hike into the Grand Canyon.  Nor for exploring the biosphere, as in a trek through a tropical rain forest.  It is apparently appropriate for a dream journey, which is by definition a journey through the noosphere, the sphere of thoughts and ideas, dreams and reveries, culture and creativity.  The noosphere is vast, yet mostly invisible.  You might call our dream life a little island in the vast landscape of the noosphere - a very special kind of island where linear causality in time is rather loosely held, where stories have a beginning, and another beginning, and another; where the middle is sometimes the end: where the end is almost never.  

Let me rephrase that.  Our dream life is an island within an island nation within the noosphere.  Recently I stumbled upon a name for that island nation, one that is derived from a Sufi notion and expanded upon quite beautifully by the author Cynthia Bourgeault.  That name is the "Imaginal Realm".

First off, I don't mean by that name, imaginary.  We don't imagine our dreams, like we might imagine what it would be like to get rich, or play professional baseball, or suddenly score a date with that hottie down the next row of cubicles at work.  Dreams happen to us, and in that sense they are real (at least when we're immersed in them).  Yet they are not real in the same way our normal everyday waking life is real.  They exist within the imaginal realm, and are real in that realm -  an island within that island nation.  And it's the contours of that island nation that I want to explore in order to figure out, at the least, what the appropriate attire is for that journey.  To begin that exploration, I'll quote from Bourgeault in her book "Eye of the Heart".

The term "Imaginal Realm" has its original provenance in Islamic mysticism, but the idea itself - if truth be told an archetype more than idea - is common to all the great sacred traditions.  It is traditionally understood to be a boundary realm between the worlds, each structured according to its own governing conventions and unfolding according to its own causality.  In traditional metaphysical language, it is the realm separating the denser corporeality of our earth plane from the progressively finer causalities which lie "above" us in the noetic and logoic realms.

I say "boundary", but the imaginal world is more of a confluence, for the word "boundary" suggests a separation while what is really at stake in the realm is an active flowing together. 

Experientially received within one's own quiet subjectivity, it appears as an allusive aliveness, a meaning presenting itself in "glimpses and visions", a  foretaste or reminder of a higher order of being to which the human heart actually belongs and to and from which it responds, with infinite tug.  The imaginal nudges us, beacons us, corrects us as we stray from our authentic unfolding, rewards us with dazzling glimpses and reassurances of that "other intensity" to which we truly belong, and in whose light the meaning of our earthly journey will ultimately be revealed, like the treasure buried in a field. 

Pretty much everything she says here does, or at least can, apply to dreams.  But like I said, dreams are one island among many in this island nation of the Imaginal Realm.  The Imaginal Ream can pop up in everyday life in the form of synchronicities, intuitions, creative epiphanies.  Just as importantly, it can show up as visions, voices, precognitions, clairvoyance.  It can appear as a dialogue from a disembodied entity as in channeling, or a message from a deceased loved one, or simply as a sculpture of the Goddess in the form of a twig at one's foot.  

I suspect all of us have experienced the Imaginal Realm in one form or another, even if we won't admit it to any but our closest loved ones (if even them).  But it's there, it's real.  I experience it almost daily in my creative work life, in those moments when something appears in the work that is decidedly not me, but of me in some strange and mysterious way that I can't rationally explain, that is somehow outside the causality of the normal world I usually inhabit.  As I've also related, I have occasionally encountered it vividly in my dream world, in the "Big Dreams". So, to get back to my original question, if I want to explore this realm further, what is the appropriate attire?

And in that, I will refer to the dream I related at the beginning of this blog post.  Dreams are saturated in symbolism, and the symbol that pops up most strongly for me in my dream attire is the black bow tie I wore.

To be continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confessions of an Explorer, Part 6: On the Nature of Faeries (And Mermaids)

"Every once in a long while a fisherman reels in a mermaid." - comment by a friend after hearing my story of the blue circle.

There's something curiously Faerie-like about the art making process.  We've all heard descriptions related by novelists of how they plan a story idea, work out the outlines and structure of the tale, frame the attributes and personality of each character - all of this only to find as the writing proceeds that the characters start to write their own dialogue, changing the direction of the narrative seemingly to suit their own purposes.  All of this culminating in the author questioning who exactly it was that wrote that novel.  I imagine improvising musicians often have a similar feeling, as well as musical composers - Johannes Brahms spoke in an interview in the early 20th century of how he felt that his best music arose when he was able to hand over the work to a higher power and just get out the the way.  In other words, let the Faeries do their work.

I've written before in this blog of my finding those moments when, after finishing a piece, I could think back and remember every step, every decision, every nuance - yet still wonder where the heck this thing in front of me came from.  Some call this almost typical creative experience an intuitional breakthrough, perhaps one facilitated by a letting go of the small egoic self that allows the usually veiled higher self to move to the center and speak.  The experience is quite magical, yet something the creative agent can grasp, can own.  Let's call this a borderline Faerie experience.  

In contrast, the experience of the blue circle is of another order.  I set up the conditions - the circular panel, the grid laid out to accentuate a spherical effect, the failed attempts that led to a thick layer of blue paint to establish a new starting point.  That was the extent of my input, and as I explained, when I left the shiny-wet blue circle laying on a table to dry I was more than a little discouraged.

Then something I can't account for happened overnight and I returned to discover a masterpiece; a totally unexpected, unimaginably sublime message from some source outside my experience, conscious or unconscious  This was a real, full-on Faerie moment.

Which begs a question - what exactly do I mean by the term 'Faerie'?  As you may have surmised, I'm using it in a generic sense pointing to the possible existence of realms or dimensions outside of our usual rather limited 5-sense perceptions and equally limited cognitive abilities.  I could use the term spirit world, or inter-dimensional realms, other-worldly habitations, or just simply the ghostly realms.  The word Faerie was suggested to my by my Irish friend, that being a term meaningful to her culture.  Another might say Angels, or Daemons, or Spirit guides.  I like Faerie because it's so in-your-face goofy.  It directly challenges the rational mind-set because it's so silly in a way, so childish - think of fairy tales, or Peter Pan's Tinkerbell.  We've all grown out of that, haven't we?  No one over 8 years old believes in Santa Claus....right?

But then a blue circle happens, and suddenly Faeries seem perfectly reasonable, or at least reasonably possible.  I mentioned that encountering that artwork immediately gave me a sense of otherness, of forces outside my day-to-day perceptions. Is there something, or some things, or energy, or entities that exist beyond our usual abilities of detection?

For the off-the-cuff doubters out there, I simply suggest they examine the dream world they inhabit every night, remembered or not.  I'm not speaking of psychological analysis, as valuable as that method can be.  I don't think I'm at all unusual in having found myself, on occasion in dreams, within completely other-worldly landscapes among other-worldly inhabitants; places and 'people' of shape and form and mysteriousness such as I have absolutely no reference in the waking world, including Hollywood.  Even in the most common dream we might fly, or breath underwater, or hurtle off a cliff in a car headed to a deep river valley below, only to slow down and finally hover safely over the raging waters just feet away.  Where could this all possibly come from, on a nightly basis?  Is it such a common experience that we mostly ignore it, mostly lose any sense of wonder about how it could be?  How many times have you told yourself "It's just a dream"?  And you think Faeries are silly and childish?

For the rest of us non-doubters, or at least non-dismissers, the idea of a Faerie realm is an intriguing possibility, if for no other reason than most of us have experienced at various times in our lives experiences so unusual that no reasonable explanation cuts the cloth.  In fact, reasonable explanations can be completely irrelevant.  But it's hard to admit these experiences, given the usual ridicule they illicit.  I know.  Who seriously believes what I've described as my Kundalini experiences?  Not many, sadly.  I can't blame them; at times I can hardly believe it myself!  Yet there it is. And there is the blue circle, hanging right now in my new exhibition space in my studio, which I've titled " Fairy Portal".

And so, what do we make of the nature of Faeries?

To be continued...

Confessions of an Explorer, Part 5: Mystery Appears

Something happened in my art studio recently.

I had been working on a large circular panel, laying out with thread a grid of squares and then painting over that grid with layers of color.  Other than the intentional nature of the grid as a starting point I had no firm idea of where the piece was to go.  As is often the case, I was simply content to let the process take me where it wanted.  Unfortunately the sneaky fella (can we speak of an artwork as a fella?) took a wrong turn and before I caught on we had hit a dead end in the form of a pool of quicksand.  A little discouraged, I decided it was necessary to retrace my steps and get onto firm footing  I spray painted a rich blue color over the entire circular surface, laying the paint on heavy to assure that I would end up with a solid blue color field as my new starting point.  It happened to be late in the afternoon and, realizing the thickness of the wet paint would take quite awhile to dry, I lay the piece on a work table and packed it in for the day.  As I headed out the door I caught a last glimpse of the shiny wet blue circle, hoping with a sigh that the freshness of a new day would indicate a different direction for me to pursue.

When I returned to my studio the next morning I was in for more than a big surprise.  Here's in image of what I found had happened to my blue circle in the dead of the night - in my empty and locked art studio:

 

I was flabbergasted!  Look at these details:

 

 

 

I kid you not, I had no part in this transformation.  I was dumbfounded by the sheer beauty of it, by the absolute coherence that is so evident.  A strange feeling of otherness came over me, the sensation that some alien presence had shaped the paint.  Even today it looks to me like a symbol language, an alphabet with a distinct yet mysterious message which speaks not to the rational mind, but to something deeper, something almost instinctual, something untranslatable, ineffable, yet profoundly moving.

I immediately realized this artwork was finished.  Nothing more for me to do here; it was perfect (which in my book is good enough!).   In fact, one of the most perfect artworks I've had a hand in; yet my part was simply to set up the grid on the circular panel, lay in as much blue paint as I dare apply, and blithely walk out the door.  I had not the slightest inkling that some entity, some spirit, or at least some beyond possible stroke of luck would take over and create a masterpiece.  For my part I was home dreaming of strange dogs following me around as I searched anxiously for where I was supposed to be, which I'd forgotten because the car had spun off the road over a cliff, hurdling at a dizzying speed down to the waiting river below, only to slow down and finally hover inches above the raging waters, which allowed me to leap out of the car into a crowded holiday party on shore where no one could give me directions to my destination because I had forgotten where I was going and WHY ARE THOSE DAMN DOGS FOLLOWING ME EVERYWHERE???!!!

Well, it was a strange dream, but that's what was occupying me as faeries were working their magic in my studio. 

Of course, we all know in our modern, sophisticated, rational minds that there is no such thing as faeries, or Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny.  Ask anyone with a cell phone if they've videoed a faerie, and if they say yes demand to see it. This whole thing was just a natural process - paint resisting paint aided by the winter coolness in my studio which caused a very slow dry time.  So I set out to duplicate the effect, identifying the sheen of the paint, the density of the added pigment, the coolness of the environment.  Making some small panels to experiment on, I tried one combination, then another, then another...and got nothing.  Persevering, I tried different brands of the paint medium, different sheens,  different densities of pigment...and got nothing.  This went on for two weeks, when finally I got just the slightest hint of the effect, but that would be the best I could do.  It was getting frustrating and I was baffled as to why the solution was eluding me.

Then it occurred to me that I was approaching this conundrum from a completely wrong perspective.  It wasn't a matter of identifying causal factors, like solving a chemistry problem.  There would be no solution for me at the end of a physics equation.  The real truth was that I needed to figure out how to communicate with the faeries; and to do that, I might have to translate the message in the artwork.

To be continued...