Tag Archives: imagination

November 23, 2011 · 8:02 pm

… tuning into your unique frequency …

Are you ambivalent about spirituality? There are countless paths, tradition, groups and teachers to follow … but since authorities and hierarchies have become suspect, for good reason, spiritual advice, like any other advice, can seem like a cacophony of white noise. There is a collective expansion of consciousness gaining momentum that challenges each of us to come into resonance with our body, and a deeper aspect of our mind, the heart. It is through the heart that we can open the channel to your unique frequency, and receive guidance from the truer Self in us, our eternal witness that connects us to the source.

The rose, a potent symbol for the Self, appears in various transpersonal practices. The visualisation below is a variation of an idea used in Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis and the Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan. You can elaborate on the words and guide your own journey silently, or have a friend read it out, or record your voice and listen back to it. The intention behind the practice is to become receptive to the core of you, to tune the heart to the love you are, we all are, in essence. Practising this visualisation opens a channel to your inner guidance that will attract the outer circumstances you need.

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Find a safe place. Close your eyes. Be aware of your body and simply follow and feel your breath until its rhythm settles. After a while, bring your attention to your heart, whose spiritual counterpart exists as your true identity in another sphere. Make a space for thoughts and images that arrive. Don’t reject anything, observe, don’t bother to label, judge or follow links. Instead, face and feel whatever arises, let it pass, and simply return your attention to your breath. You may need to stay with this process of accepting and releasing thoughts and images for a while.

Once your mind and body have calmed and you feel receptive, allow the image of a garden to emerge, your private garden. Visualise this special garden … notice a rose bush with a bud still enveloped by its green sepals. The bud draws you close to witness its opening.

See the shielding green sepals stir and offer you a glimpse of the colour beneath. Now the rose receives the light of your attention, its petals slowly turn outwards and open in a fluid movement, like the arms of a dancer. Observe this opening dance. Sense the same unfolding also happening deep within you. Fully absorb the hues and the tenderness of the rose leaning towards the light, behold its perfect beauty and inhale its delicate scent.

Now allow the rose slowly to expand … until it grows into a transparent rose temple filled with light and large enough to step into. Move directly to the centre and rest there for a while. Become the rose temple. Absorb the gentle atmosphere, the hues, the rhythmic grace, the sound, the fragrance, the splendour and continuous unfolding towards the light. Absorb the sensation completely … be at one with all your multiple selves … at peace within your essence, your wholeness, your true being. You are your own unique lover and your own unique beloved.

Now rise and step away from the centre. Leave the rose temple behind. Turn and behold its magnificence once more, and then adjust its shape to a small rose that fits into the palm of your hand … Place that rose into your heart … Know it resides there, maybe closed, but ready to open whenever you  use your intention to connect to the wonderful feeling of wholeness. All you have to do is remember, and the symbolic power of the rose will evoke the presence of your timeless Self.

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November 17, 2011 · 12:18 am

… all time is now …

A day, whether six or seven years ago or whether six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why? Because all time is contained in now.

Meister Eckhart

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Time ago I visited Lamorna Cove, an enchanted spot at the Cornish Coast. A friend, who is into solid walking, dashed ahead, while I stopped to contemplate a group of rocks that faced the Atlantic like sentinels.

An impulse inspired me to offer an invocation. That very moment a family with a bunch of kids and their exuberant cacophony of shrieks changed the ambience of the place. I let it be. Home in Surrey, before yielding to sleep, I was reminded of my unfulfilled intention, went back to Lamorna Cove in my mind’s eye, and did my invocation:

 … towards the one, the perfection of love, harmony and beauty, the only being, united with all the illuminated souls who form the embodiment of mastery – the spirit of guidance …

My presence was ‘being there’ descending from another sphere, in synergy with a poignant moment more real than real, in the place rooted in my imagination. Beyond time, even the tiniest thing impressed deeply can be re-embodied in awareness. As in the process of analogue photography, where an image exposed to light is developed to its fullness in the darkroom.

The elements our bodies and the cosmos are composed of mediate and record what was, what is and what will be. I come to this conclusion through my practice of psychotherapy, finding that memories held in body and place easily circle in time and from a wider perspective allow us entry points, so we can adjust misaligned perceptions, as well as project blessings towards wholeness. In other words, we can change the meaning of the past, the now, as well as the future through fresh perception. Maybe this is what resurrection is really about.

I used to think synergy was difficult to achieve in the virtual world, the simulation of the collective psyche made visible through words and images. I changed my mind, it happens through the imagination. Events once fully sensed and experienced can be recalled, invoked and re-created. Why would we otherwise take physical form, we might as well remain angels. Proof me wrong  …

The internet can be overwhelming during phases when we live from the outside in, accumulating and soaking up information, less so during phases when we live from the inside out, creating new mythical realities. At best we do both in some kind of balance. I have come to appreciate the virtual web for staying in contact with friends all over the world. A few days ago, two of them, unknown to each other, were in Hong Kong.

Melanie, adept in the field of astrology http://www.melaniereinhart.com/  has been my friend for over thirty years. Presently she conducts a lecture/workshop tour through Asia.

Here is an image of Melanie blissed out at Kowloon harbour … fell in love with this beautiful wooden  in boat with red sails … She says she was exhausted. How images attune to perception …

I’m totally enchanted with this image.

A relatively new friend visited Hong Kong at the same time. Quenntis is a writer and dancer I met through the Harper Collins Authonomy website. We collaborated as part of a small group of poets living in all corners of the world towards manifesting the publication of ‘Rambling Poets at Café Cyber.’ I hope Quenntis doesn’t mind that I pinched the tiny feet of his daughter.

He wrote on face book about his visit to Hong Kong … attending my first ever international poetry reading event – over 4 days of constant poetry – pure chaotic bliss – i think my brain is a balloon and it has popped a few times already from over-expansion …

Another bliss, I look forward to these experiences being filtered, embodied and shared here: Dancing with Words: http://quenntis.wordpress.com/

These are two of my friends, one I hug rarely, and the other I might never hug, unless I travel to Taiwan. But it occurred to me that all my friends, far or near, have individual passions. Individual passions provide a structure wherein the most unique becomes the most universal.

And in that universal sphere all time is now. This inspires …

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The invocation above is my slight adaptation of what constitutes the advent of a universal worship ceremony created by Hazrat Inayat Khan, but can be used to begin any event. If your life includes using prayers go here:  http://www.cheraglibrary.org/

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October 18, 2011 · 7:46 pm

… sculpture park …

Dreams in stone, fairy horses, quills that use earth as ink, see-through elephants, surprises in the ponds, ghosts, flowing stone, water magic and mysterious circles …

Inspirational hours with my son and his partner at the ‘Sculpture Park’ in Surrey, near Churt.  So  close – and yet I had never visited the place. Like the man behind the bar in the pub opposite, who worked there for many years and not once stepped through the gate across the road. Makes me think of worlds we miss by the blink of an eye.

Here are some images of the place …

magic circles to other worlds …  

If you’re in the area, don’t miss it: http://www.thesculpturepark.com

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September 20, 2011 · 10:11 pm

… the point is …

think of the skills acquired in a single lifetime …

 

to crawl, walk and feed yourself

to withhold gratification

find the balance to ride a bike

sink a nail, hit a goal, use force subtly

know the measure of things

sample tastes and combine

ingredients towards a delicious meal

respond to sounds, rhythm, colours

that animate and make your spirit soar

acquire the sensual intelligence to dance with objects

avoid danger – physically, emotionally

and intellectually – and not

swallow everything that is fed to you

 

look through the charade

and be your own person

form your unique worldview

make yourself understood

get what you want without begging

dig rules and learn to play

and win a game

 

reciprocate

be patients

act and flow with the wave

realise the power of expectations

the beauty of ideals

and their futility …

 

find wisdom in small things

intuit the flow of energy

recognise the power of the thought

you hold in your heart

 

What happens to the realisations

of a lifetime when you die?

What if you knew

that every understanding and accomplishment

is recorded on earth and in higher spheres

to enhance the past, present and future of lives to come?

 

 

 

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August 13, 2011 · 12:26 pm

… what do we expect? …

And what do we project?

It has become a trend to encourage positive thinking, like: we can achieve anything we want – we are what we think … yes … but … trouble is, we need to first accept were we actually stand in the physical world. Without analysing and accepting ‘what is’ the magic cannot take root.

Example: Russell Brand writes in the Guardian, 11th August, ‘Big Brother  isn’t watching you … dismissing rioters as mindless is futile rhetoric. However unacceptable the UK riots, we need to ask why they are happening.’

 I quote one sentence I can totally relate to:

 …  ‘If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together …’’

In recent years the following happened in my immediate surrounding:  A spiritual community centre which offered inspiration and healing to hundreds of people and which I supported and worked from half my lifetime was sold. I witnessed schools selling their football fields, a great number of small shops folding up, three post offices dismantled within a radius of 10 miles, local people mortgaging their houses to buy their own community centre or their only village shop, funding cuts to charities, bus services, train-travel becoming unaffordable … and so on.

Places in my environment where people can meet, relate, share, collaborate, reciprocate services and practice values are disappearing faster than I can blink. So this is happening, and seen in this light, the scum (as the young rioters are called) are actually making a collective statement, a statement that is immature, unsavoury and mainly unconscious, but which the government cannot afford to ignore. Because it highlights a truth:

We are living in fantasy land.

Even gods don’t have the power humans have, to act as the bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds. Why? Because we are psychological beings, we can potentially create the future from where we stand congruently, by accepting and engaging with what is.

Sadly, when fear of losing face clouds reason, any analysis of self and society, of what is really needed, becomes biased – and what is attracted across the bridge of the psyche is more fantasy.

Listening is vital, to self and others. What are the real needs I have, you have, young people have, our planet has – today? A variety of perspectives will allow the bridge to be swept clean of fantasy – and allow insight, inspiration and synchronicity across from the spiritual sphere.

If our projections into the future, personally and collectively, are grounded and embodied in actual situations, then real imagination can unfold.

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Incidentally, the bridge features in my novel.

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The image here was taken in Cambodia by Yeshen Venema. I supplied the clouds, taken in Rhonda, Spain.

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June 28, 2011 · 1:50 pm

what makes a photograph arresting?

My son, Yeshen, shares one of my passions, photography. Here are three of my many favourites. Still life of the chair …

This is exquisitely composed, I love everything about it, the light and colours, the shadow at the right corner (it wouldn’t be the same without the shadow in the right corner), the space … it’s difficult to define what makes an image special, the best I can come up with is –  I love looking at it, I can rest in this space. I would like to have a large print of it.

This scene of a street in Vietnam has a different quality, a cyclist passing before the door and the bricks that will survive him, a fleeting moment, and again, there is something about the colour tones and the composition, the lines, that pleases the eye. Notice the light spot on the stone next to the door? not sure what it is, it could be a tiny flame, and it adds something to the whole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bridges are powerfully symbolic. They appears prominently in my novel ‘Course of Mirrors’. This double-arched bridge at Waverley Abbey is dowsed in beautiful light, which gives it a mysterious and dreamlike quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are two sites where Yeshen’s images appear:

http://500px.com/yeshen

http://yeshenvenema.com/blog/stelae

 

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June 16, 2011 · 11:59 pm

how my dad was attacked by a tree

Here some random thoughts, interspersed with more random thoughts as well as random quotes and random links, all to do with ideas about TRUTH and REALITY …

To start with – a piece written by my son when he was, huh, quite young, describing a true experience. He gave me permission to share it.

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On Tuesday the 3d of May 1989, at eleven o’clock, me and my dad set off to Driebergen, about 20 miles from Amsterdam. It took us 45 minutes to get there. We went to see dad’s old house and it looked still the same as when he had lived there 16 years ago. Then we drove to a tennis club, called Manger Cot’s (Cat?). Dad went to the club house to meet some of his old friends, like his tennis trainer, Bill, and his father, can’t remember the name. Then we had a look if the squash club was still there, but it wasn’t, so we had some lunch. After that we went to a music shop, and I mucked about on the drums while dad talked business with the shop keepers. Later we went into the woods and walked about.

On the way back, dad was brutally attacked by a TREEbrandishing a knife stained with blood from its previous victim. Dad fell over and when he got up he looked like Frankenstein with a massive cut down his forehead and blood dripping all over the place.

Dad said it didn’t hurt, but we still went to Peter’s house (a friend of my dad) to wash off the blood. But Peter wasn’t there, and neither was his wife. So we had to walk back to the car and drive to the music shop to clean up the wound. Then the shopkeeper said he knew where there was a surgery, so we went there. When we got there, dad went in to see the doctor, and I waited outside in the lobby. Dad came out with three stitches in his forehead and a big plaster over it.

By Yeshen

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The etymology of the word TRUTH indicates – good faith, fidelity, sincerity, veracity – and agreement of fact or reality. TRUTH has been subjected to many theories and definitions, here are some of them:

1        Correspondence Theory: In the words of Thomas Aquinas, ‘Truth is the equation of things and intellect.’

2        Coherence Theory: Truth is only what is coherent with the whole system.

3        Constructive Theory: Perceptions of truth are viewed as contingent to convention, human perception and social experience, in other words, every truth is socially constructed.

4        Consensus Theory: Whatever is agreed upon …

5        Pragmatic Theory: Truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one’s     concept into practice. It is self-corrective over time.

6        Kierkegaard says – ‘Objective truths are final and static. Subjective truths are continuing and dynamic.’

7        Nietzsche thought untruth is better than truth if it has life-enhancement as consequence.

8        Fromm held Truth to be a functional approximation of reality.

9        Foucault refers to ‘Regimes of Truth’ that shift constantly throughout history.

10    Baudrillard: The simulacrum is true because it conceals that there is no truth.

11    Lao Tzu: Words of truth are always paradoxical.

12   A mystic, Hazrat Inayat Khan, expressed TRUTH like this: Those who see the truth uncovered, abandon reason and logic, good and bad, high and low, new and old … As water in a fountain flows in one stream but falls in many drops, divided by time and space, so are the revelations of the one stream of truth. Not everyone can comprehend the idea of different truths being derived from one truth. Common sense has been so narrowly trained in this world of variety that it naturally fails to realize the breadth and subtlety of a spiritual fact so far beyond the reach of its limited reasoning.

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May 14, 2011 · 10:01 am

… on awareness …

Magic or what? According to the Hindus everything is food, including sounds and visual vibrations – all kinds of impressions: stories, architectural proportions, union of forms and colours, harmonics and rhythms, dissonance, conflict and all the ideas with which we come in contact. All this, absorbed mechanically and mostly without awareness throughout the day, has made up our being and continues to do so, unless we wake up to this process and adjust our rituals.

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Psychological laws: excerpt from ‘The Act of Will’ by Roberto Assagioli M.D.

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1   Images or mental pictures and ideas tend to produce the physical conditions and the external acts that correspond to them. Every image has in itself a motor element.

2   Attitudes, movements, and actions tend to evoke corresponding images and ideas; these, in turn evoke or intensify corresponding emotions and feelings.

3   Ideas and images tend to awaken emotions and feelings that correspond to them.

4   Emotions and impressions tend to awaken and intensify ideas and images that correspond to or are associated with them.

5   Needs, urges, drives and desires tend to arouse corresponding images, ideas and emotions.

6   Attention, interest, affirmation, and repetitions reinforce the ideas, images and psychological formations on which they are centred.

7  Repetition of actions intensifies the urge to further reiteration and renders their execution easier and better, until they come to be performed unconsciously.

8   All the various functions, and their manifold combinations in complexes and sub-personalities, adopt means of achieving their aims without our awareness, and independently of, and even against, our conscious will.

9   Urges, drives, desires and emotions tend to and demand to be expressed.

10   The psychological energies can find expression: 1. directly, through discharge and catharsis, 2. indirectly, through symbolic action, 3. through a process of transmutation.

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After carefully contemplating these laws you will draw your own conclusions.

Here some practical examples:   Having experienced Feldenkreis work, and practices deriving from it  –  after doing a gentle physical exercise and repeating it in my imagination only, with eyes closed, the same physical reactions happen in my body. This  explains why active imagination can affect mind and body at a deep level and change physical symptoms as well as states of mind.

When I hit my toe, elbow or head on an object, I repeat the exact contact and, in my imagination, send the impact back. There remains hardly any pain and the usual swelling is mild or does not occur at all.

Therapeutically, if a tense or hurtful part of the body is listened to and  allowed a voice, the result can be  instantaneous,  much like when you lower yourself at eye-level to a toddler who has a tantrum, and do nothing else but acknowledge the rage, surprise, surprise, the tantrum stops.

What seems like magic, is actually simple and applies both ways: physical activity influences mood and mind,  active imagination influences mood and body.  Many of our modern-day ailments derive from people not being able to listen to their bodies and/or not being able to use their imagination in a constructive way.

Reading and, even more deeply, writing, are indirect symbolic expressions of psychological energy, which explains the incredible power of stories 🙂

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April 20, 2011 · 10:43 am

learning to use their imagination should be mandatory for politicians

A UK government spokesman says, ‘… it takes a lot to grow a business.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/17/environment-green-laws-red-tape

It takes a lot more to grow human beings … since the last century we have mindlessly implemented deep and longterm damage to our planet’s self-regulating system. Such power requires the moral and ethic responsibility to take the wellbeing of future generations into account.

A diverse gene pool provides the resources to survive adverse conditions. Effects that cause a loss in genetic diversity risk extinction of whole species – including us.

Put the red tape where it belongs. Why, for example, does a council fine people for having a sack stick out of a wastebin yet allows businesses to pollute our water and air, and destroy for generations to come the ecological balance of the one body we are all part of ?

you can use your vote …

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/dont-scrap-environment-laws

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