engaging with the imaginal
what is this time of year REALLY for?
I’m coming in hot with a re-frame today.
I’m starting this message by naming something that has to do with corporations, but don’t worry, pretty quickly we’ll get to the imaginal magic…
I was going to call this post “why no one needs another gift guide”, but after meditating, something way cooler came through.
On account of being a sentient human with a “smart” phone, I am totally aware that corporations REALLY, REALLY, REALLY are into stimulating us into purchases at the moment. They don’t care if we are mad, sad, frustrated, confused or scared because those states of being combined with this time of year make us “perfect” consumers.
While corporations by and large are a major determining cause of many of the major systemic problems our world faces, that’s not the kind of problems they are interested in solving. However, corporations are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY ready to “solve” the “problems” of the holiday season for us.
Which brings me to our main point today - there is a sacred purpose to this time of year; and it is NOT just buying things. (btw - I am not a minimalist and I do enjoy buying gifts for loved ones. My admittedly unoriginal point is that there is MORE to enjoy during this season. If shopping makes us feel scarcity, engaging with magic puts us in touch with true, natural abundance.)
Magically, the end of the year, is a natural time to check in with ourselves AND check in with the energies of life.
Likewise, whether we are in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, solstices (and equinoxes!) are also natural, rhythmic “check-in” moments - where we recognize where we are in the wheel of the year AND then tune in and see what we can learn.
So, right now, we are on the verge of the end of the year and, as we approach the Solstice, I want to point us all towards the powerful practice of engaging the imaginal.
Where, maybe, we are on a tight budget for things to buy at this time of year; I also want us to know there is no scarcity of imagery for us to be working with and learning from. Images are abundant.
I think it is obvious that 2025 is going to be uncharted territory - how might we feel about that if we take the time now to work with imagery to solidify our true dreams and goals; and match then those up with some wisdom and vision?
BOTH the Winter and Summer Solstice meditations are available on the Free Page. Normally they are $5 in the shop, but I really wanted to make Solstice experiences free for everyone this December. I did the Winter Solstice meditation this morning and true to form, it provided abundant insights for me to work with.
Even more than the insights though, that 20-minute meditation experience re-connected me to the wisdom of stones and plants and the heartbeat of the earth. It also delivered some expansive seasonal feelings that had been deadened by too much time on my phone.
I love all the equinox and solstice meditations we have on the site because each one really does set the magical tone for the new season. These are the kinds of experiences that make us feel and see things differently than we had only moments before.
A normal “small business person” would definitely not give away Solstice meditations on the Solstice. But, I am not normal, and you will find both the Winter and Summer Solstice meditations on this month’s Free Page.
IF you do one of these meditations (or any others), I’d like to encourage you to bring whatever imagery you receive back out of meditation and into your real life. This is what I mean when I use the phrase “engaging the imaginal”.
TIPS for ENGAGING THE IMAGINAL
1. On the table rather than under the table
This is what I refer to as “having the issue (that’s driving the action) ON the table” rather than “under the table”. If you’ve got a hot topic, name it either before or during your meditation. Once we’ve named something we’ve already begun to “right-size” it. And, once we’ve named something, we can get to know it and start to work with it.
2. Cleanse yourself, settle down, then meditate
It is harder to be magical if we are clogged and scattered. It does not take that long to clear ourselves (ring a bell, light a candle, etc.), ground ourselves (breathe energy through our system and then back into the earth) and THEN… tune in to our meditation and start receiving images.
3. Engage with whatever imagery you get.
However it is, it is. Don’t let the ego try to “sugarcoat” or “improve” the imagery. Magical people understand that we often get more from our “villain” parts than our “hero” parts anyway.
I love the phrase - “Isn’t that interesting?” I use it for whatever imagery comes up that my ego doesn’t “like” for whatever reason. “Isn’t that interesting? That "x” is coming up right now, I wonder what that means?…” This is such helpful framing because instead of getting really wrapped up in generating a lot of thoughts and preferences about the imagery, we can just be curious and investigative about it. The more we can do this, the more insight we can allow in.
4. Once you are firmly in the vision and receiving imagery, ask – “is this coming from the highest frequency of love?”
Not everything we see in meditation is meant to be taken at face value. Just like in the outer world where lots of beings clamor for our attention and we have to practice discernment; so too in our inner realms, we have access to a lot of energies or “characters” and it is our magical right to ask them all - “is this coming from the highest frequency of love?” If you find out that some imagery or messages are not coming from the highest frequency of love; continue to work with (or play with!) the imagery until you get to the part that IS coming from the highest frequency of love.
It all has a seed of love in it, sometimes we do have to filter what we find until we access that seed.
5. Record your visions simply, date the page
Keep watch in daily life for synchronicity and confirmation. It is so easy, especially with imagery, to forget and/or downplay the positive effect it ended up having. For instance, if we work with imagery specific to a “hot topic” and then that situation heals, we might forget that the imagery helped it heal. The more I record what I saw in meditation, the more I believe in my abilities to work with imagery, the more powerful I become.
6. Rinse and Repeat
Meditate often in this end of year time, and through the beginning of the new year. I cannot guarantee that when 2025 arrives you won’t regret all the time you spent staring at imagery on screens. But I can guarantee you won’t regret any time spent exploring the inner realms and all the images, symbols and insights you’ll gather at this special time of year.
Thanks so much for being here. I intend to continue to post here on the next two Tuesdays (even though they are technically “holidays) because this really is such a precious time of year for the type of activities we talk about in this space. Next week I’m going to be talking about how to create and refine our inner cosmologies in the coziest way.
And of course, I’ll be posting as usual through the holidays in the paid Friday space; this week featuring a popular meditation called Golden Scales. Join us in that space for a little talk and a little meditation each week for $5/month or $50/year.
Engaging with imagery can happen in the inner realms (as in meditation) AND in the outer. For instance, if you are out walking today and see a hawk, use the same “steps” described above and engage with that image!
Until next time,
Jess
All quotes today are from Robert A. Johnson’s book Inner Work. I love this book and refer to it often. Most of what Johnson says in Inner Work about Active Imagination holds true for the images and characters we encounter in our meditations and visions.
“Active Imagination is a special use of the power of the imagination developed by Jung…
Essentially, Active Imagination is a dialogue that you enter into with the different parts of yourself that live in the unconscious. In some ways it is similar to dreaming, except that you are fully awake and conscious during the experience. This, in fact, is what gives this technique its distinctive quality. Instead of going into a dream, you go into your imagination while you are awake. You allow the images to rise up out of the unconscious, and they come to you on the level of imagination just as they would come to you in dream if you were asleep.
In your imagination you begin to talk to your images and interact with them. They answer back.”
- Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work
“Through Active Imagination it becomes more and more clear that the images that appear in imagination are in fact symbols, representing deep interior parts of our ourselves. Like dream images, they symbolize the contents of our unconscious. Because these interior beings have ‘minds of their own’, they say and do things that are new to us - startling, often enlightening, sometimes offensive to our egos.”
- Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work
“Whenever I start a person on Active Imagination, I get a series of questions: ‘How do I know that I’m not just making all this stuff up?’ ‘How can I talk with someone who is only a figment of my imagination?’ From my experience I am convinced that it is nearly impossible to produce anything in the imagination that is not an authentic representation of something in the unconscious. The whole function of imagination is to draw up the material of the unconscious, clothe it in images, and transmit it to the conscious mind. Whatever comes up in the imagination must have been living somewhere in the fabric of the unconscious before it was given an image-form by the imagination.
… When you being to see your imagination for what it really is, you will realize that it reflects the inner world of your unconscious as faithfully as a highly polished mirror.”
- Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work
“Any quality within you can be personified and persuaded to clothe itself in an image so that you can interact with it. If you feel an inflation, you can go to your imagination and ask that inflation to personify itself through an image. If you vaguely feel a mood controlling you, you can do the same. It is the image that gives one a starting point. You can then enter into dialogue; you can interact; and you can move toward some kind of understanding.”
- Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work
WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE MAKING UP SOMETHING
“A new patient came to do analysis with me. He was an intelligent man - but I could sense that he was also a rogue. You could feel it when he walked in for his first session; there was a certain look in his eye.
For the first few sessions nothing happened. He could remember no dreams, and there was no significant discussion. I wondered why he was interested in analysis at all. So I taught him about Active Imagination, thinking that this would be the way to unlock his unconscious and find out what was going on inside him.
At first nothing happened. No Active Imagination. I explained the four steps and said: ‘Go do something in your imagination - anything! Just record it in your journal. We will start from there.’
The next week he returned, and he had that gleam in his eye again. I knew he was up to something. He put down a couple of pages of Active Imagination. It was hair-raising material. It was pure melodrama…
After that, week after week, he brought his pages of Active Imagination. The events got more intense, more desperate. It was huge battles of darkness against light, villains and victims, persecuted heroines, scandalous intrigues, and betrayals. The poor girl was jumping from ice flow to ice floe with babe in arms, crossing the river with the villain in hot pursuit.
Week after week this went on and I said very little. It was registering, but I watched to see where all this inner drama was leading, what was going to distill out of it.
One day he came in and dramatically threw down the last installment of the Active Imagination. There I read a terrible, but also marvelous, denouement of the plot that had been developing all of this time. When I finished reading he said: "‘There, you bloody idiot! I’ve been pulling your leg this whole time. I’ve been making the whole thing up just to make a fool out of you. There wasn’t a word of truth in it!’
I said nothing, but I thought: ‘Well, not the first time someone made a fool of me.’ Then I just sat and waited. I looked at him, and I’ll never forget the change that came over his face. The triumphant expression changed slowly to one of horror. Tears came to his eyes. He said: ‘Damn you, damn you, damn you! You tricked me. It was all true, and I didn’t know it.’ Then he just fell apart.
You see, even when he was trying to conjure up his ‘fake’ story in order to fool me and ridicule the whole process, that ‘fake’ story had to come out of his own insides, his own psychological ‘guts’, as it were. While he thought he was inventing something he was spilling out the secret contents of his interior being.
That horrible villain in the story was none other than the rogue who gave him the sly gleam in his eye, who controlled him so much from hidden places - the same rogue who believed the whole point of analysis was to make an ass out of the analyst. The persecuted heroines were none other than his own inner feminine side: His inner life and feeling life were consigned to the ice floes. All the intrigues, innocent victims, tragedies, and adventures, were an involuntary reflection of the horrible conflicts that raged within his own soul.
He had tried to fake it. But, accidentally, in the process he did his Active Imagination. He experience the symbols from the unconscious. Finally, his Active Imagination brought him face to face with his inner self. He was never quite the same again.”
- Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work
HORSE-TRADING
“Horse-trading is the most practical, down-to-earth use you can make of Active Imagination. It begins with recognizing that you are made up of many parts, that each part of you has its own needs, its own life to live, and wants to participate in your conscious life. When you truly see this, you also begin to realize that many of the seemingly ‘insoluble’ conflicts that irritate you within your day-to-day life are actually simple arguments between different parts of yourself who don’t happen to see things alike.
Sometimes, when you can’t arrive at a synthesis between the two parts that are arguing inside you, when you can’t transcend the conflict, it becomes a matter of interior negotiations. You have to work out some kind of compromise.
Sometimes people are put off by this approach to Active Imagination. It feels too sordid or mundane to use this high art to work out a compromise between the part of you that wants to get your work done and the part that wants to go to parties every night. But the practical fact is that there are times when the only way you can keep functioning is by doing some good, honest horse-trading. At least it sets up a communication between the different parts of yourself that haven’t been speaking - and eventually that communication leads to a synthesis.’
- Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work
This is beautiful and helpful; thank you! Can't wait to do the winter solstice meditation. <3
Thank you for the gifts of you words, wisdom, kindness, vulnerability, authenticity & LOVE!