symbols, imagery-play
nourishing the best in us
Today I want to talk about symbols, so that means I should endeavor to keep my words brief. (ha ha! Wish me luck!)
I’ll be linguistically brief in the hopes that this will be more of a visceral experience for you - I want you to literally see/feel it for yourself.
At the base of this post I will include a personal example illustrating some of the finer points of this practice through the lens of my own experience. I would love it if you would DO the process and THEN READ my example for further clarification. That way you can have your own, pure experience and insights; and then choose to read about my experience (or not!).
This is a playful process that puts us in touch with something profound.
It takes 3-4 minutes.
Have a pen and paper on hand so you can jot down your impressions.
Here we go…
1. Look at the image above and key into any aspect of it – a shape, a color, a material, a location, a texture – and just contemplate what that might symbolize for a minute or so; writing down notes here and there.
2. Now look at this next image (above) and do the same thing. Find an aspect of it that “jumps” out at you (doesn’t need to make sense) and spend a conscious minute considering what connections you have with that symbol. Take notes.
3. One more step! Look at this third image (above) and - knowing what you know now about the first two symbols - consciously PICK some element in this third image that is aspirational. FIND something in this image that can help heal, regenerate or embolden you in your evolution. Take notes.
Now you can fold your notes up and tuck them away until the thought of them pops back into your mind. Then, go get them and see what those symbols meant in terms of what played out in your life experience, changes you made and so on.
Practices like this, help us re-learn and remember that yes, we can “receive” symbolic communication from the energies of life, AND, that we can “send” symbolic communiques to the energy of all that is.
Attending to playful practices like this one is a fast-track to understanding YOUR library of symbols which allows you to recognize synchronicities and wield higher types of magic.
Until next time,
Jess
p.s. If you like this kind of symbol-play, I strongly recommend meditations like House, Mirror 2, The Exchange, Birds and Boxes or Mermaid (if you are feeling bold…)
* Ok, here is my share - full disclosure - I’ve done exercises like this for a long time and I do them very quickly and don’t “drill down” on them afterwards. I have a “try softer” approach to all divination. Which means I am not editing the following for punctuation, capitalization, etc. I think you’ll still get the drift and that there is something worthwhile in a concrete example of an ephemeral practice.
For instance, if I keyed in on a dark grey tiny little cloud I might write down, grey little cloud, funny little shape, beautiful color, really, looks like a little animal running over the hills, it is small compared to the scale of everything else, etc… Then, if for the second image I keyed in on something shiny in the valley, tiny at the center of the picture, and then zoomed into to see it was a dam, which wasn’t as romantic as my earlier vision, and then I was happy to see the curve of the river behind the dam and then zooming out and marveling that I will always pick a shiny thing (like a magpie) even if it is very small, etc… Then, looking back at grey little cloud and shiny, tiny dam, I pick (aspirationally, intentionally) to key deeply into the emerald green moss or plants that cover the great mountains in the third picture – like a beautiful green undulating blanket. I would key VERY DEEPLY into the magic of the green plant and moss blanket – its individual parts, so small, so delicate – yet can grow on stone and thrive in harsh conditions. I might also take notes and let little grey cloud, tiny, shiny dam talk with and get advice from emerald green blanket of living moss and plants.
As I emerge back into daily life I can bring to mind the feeling and wisdom of green blanket of moss growing well over stone mountain.
I share this only to inspire you towards your own version – I may need the wisdom of emerald moss blanketing the mountain, but you may need wind, clouds, sky… Run towards your own symbols, playfully engage, and then, TAKE NOTES.
xoxo Jess
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“But images, Colette had insisted, don’t take place in ordinary time - and there’s a mystery to that, but it’s true. They appear in an instant, but touch on great depth. They come from a place before logic, a great seedbed of time.”
- Rodger Kamenetz speaking of Colette Albouker Muscat
“Many of us tend to think that more effort brings greater results, but imagery works in the opposite way…
My experience with Colette revealed to me that imagery takes place in an inner realm of existence, free of time and space, where we access a “vertical axis” beyond the constraints of gravity. Spiritual seekers have acknowledged the existence of this vertical axis for centuries, and it is understood through all cultures as the axis of freedom.
Imagery always attempts to put us in connection with this vertical axis enabling us to escape the ordinary limitations of earth-bound living. In practicing this work, you may regularly find yourself on the vertical axis.”
-Gerald Epstein, M.D. also speaking of Colette Albouker Muscat
“To fully understand ourselves is to comprehend our relationship to the abundant forms of life expressed in nature. Humans tend to be both chauvinistic and anthropomorphic. We are sure that we are the most intelligent species, and any concept of supreme being would have to look like us. This limiting notions keeps us from regaining the vast potential for help and knowledge available to us from our relatives in the plant, animal, mineral, and spirit kingdoms.
…Communication with deities, totems, or archetypes is achieved through resonance, based on congruence between ourselves and beings in other dimensions. The song of our own vibration, the chord that we generate through our being, harmonizes with and then joins for a moment the field of the being to which we are connecting. Within this resonate the exchange of information takes place. The moment itself within a timeless, infinite realm outside our “normal”, ordinary reality structure.”
- Nicki Scully
“…once you know your own symbols, you cannot mistake the message. You will know instantly what is being given to you and you will understand it totally. Actually symbols are like shorthand and are much easier to interpret than verbal conversation.
Working with dream symbols might be compared to playing the piano. When you first begin you are certain that this has to be the most awkward and complicated thing you have ever undertaken. But after a routine of regular practice, your new skill becomes a natural, flowing easy part of your life.
…Any symbols given to you - whether in fantasy, meditation or guided imagery - are all the same. They are coded messages from self to self. When you “get the picture” you understand the situation.
…Remember that you are always your own best interpreter. You are the final word on the meaning of a symbol for you. Do not be so gullible that you eagerly accept another’s interpretation. This is giving away power and neglecting the refinement and trust of your own inner resources.”
- Bethany Bethards
”Epistemology is always and inevitably personal. The point of the probe is always in the heart of the explorer. What is my answer to the question of the nature of knowing? I surrender to the belief that my knowing is small part of a wider integrated knowing that knits the entire biosphere of creation.”
-Gregory Bateson
“We say you cannot divert the river from the river bed. We say that everything is moving, and we are a part of this motion. That the soil is moving. We say that the earth draws water to her from the clouds. We say the rainfall parts on each side of the mountain, like the parting of our hair, and that the shape of the mountain tells where the water has passed. We say this water washes the soil from the hillsides, that the rivers carry sediment, that rain when it splashes carries small particles, and the soil itself flows with water in streams underground. We say that water is taken up into of plants, into stems, that it washes down hills into rivers, that these rivers flow to the sea, that from the sea, in the sunlight, this water rises to the sky, that this water is carried in clouds, and comes back as rain, comes back as fog , back as dew, as wetness in the air. We say everything comes back.”
- Susan Griffin
“The effects of working consciously in your dreams are not limited to changing your dream reality. When you change your dreams, you waking consciousness also changes. Conversely, if you make changes in your waking life and consciousness, your dreams will change because dreams and waking life reflect each other.”
- Frances Vaughan
"Beat doesn't mean tired or bushed, so much as it means beato, the Italian for beatific; to be in a state of beatitude, like St. Francis, trying to love all life, trying to be utterly sincere with everyone, practicing endurance, kindness, cultivating joy of the heart. How can this be done in our mad modern world of multiplicities and millions? By practicing a little solitude, going off by yourself once in a while to store up that most precious of golds: the vibrations of sincerity."
- Jack Kerouac