Activating Your Imagination 2

Last week, I began exploring Active Imagination drawing on the work of Robert Johnson in his book, Inner Work.  Active Imagination is a way of dialoging with energies that are in the unconscious part of our psyches.  It is often used with those people who populate our dreams.  However, it can also be used for other energies that impact our conscious life by personifying complex energies such as fear, worry and anxiety.

In the book, Johnson outlines a four-step approach to using Active Imagination:

1.       Invite the unconscious

2.       Dialogue and experience

3.       Add the ethical element of values

4.       Make it concrete with physical ritual

Johnson also includes a preliminary step before beginning the four-step approach. He recommends deciding on the mode of recording the dialogue when you engage the energy.  This can be pen and paper or computer.  However, he stresses that it is important to record the dialogue in a physical way in order to make it real.    This is similar to recording your dream in a written form in a dream journal.  Johnson also notes that there can be other ways to record your dream such as using art or dancing.  It is also important to have a physical setting which is conducive to this enterprise similar to having an area which can be used in meditation i.e., an area where you won’t be disturbed.  In effect, you need a room of your own to draw on the work by another author.  I will give a brief summary of each step.

1.       The Invitation

In this step, you invite the inhabitants of your unconscious to come into your conscious awareness.  Johnson notes that the object of this is into to control the energy but to engage in a conversation with it and allow the energy to respond as in any conversation.  It is important to allow the energy to take on a personal form.  IF this does not happen spontaneously, you can ask it to do this.

 

2.       The Dialogue

A Johnson describes it, the dialogue is, “mostly a matter giving yourself over to the imagination and letting it flow.”  At this point you record the dialogue as it happens as well as anything else that the figure does.

 

3.       The Values

Now that the image in engaged and in dialogue, it is important to ensure that you do not allow it to rule the roost, so to speak.  The figure may want you to express what it represents and live out its impulses in ways that go against your basic values and even be against the law and customs of our culture.  Your ego is an equal participant in the process and should not believe that the unconscious energy is necessarily superior in knowledge of wisdom.

 

4.       The Ritual

The Ritual step applies to dream work as well as Active Imagination.  To quote Johnson, “whenever you do any form of inner work and bring it to an insight or resolution, you should do something to make it concrete.”  This does not mean that it should be acted out - see step three.  It does mean doing a physical action i.e., ritual which will integrate it into you practical life.

As I noted, this is a brief summary of the process to use in Active Imagination.  For more information, I would refer you to the book or to someone who has experience in this practice.  It may not be for you as no one method is for everyone.  However, it is definitely worth exploring and it may be a blessing on your journey.

Activating Your Imagination

I have been rereading Inner Work by Robert Johnson.  This is one of the classics on how to engage with the energies from the unconscious realm which enter your consciousness through dreams and visions as well as drives and compulsions that can seem to be beyond our control at times.   Johnson is a Jungian i.e., he uses the concepts and approaches developed by Carl Jung to engage and relate to these images, thoughts, feelings and emotions which have a greater influence on our behaviour than we are often aware of.

The book Is divided into two parts.  The first gives a good introduction in working with material that is found in our dreams.  The second part explores the use of Active Imagination which introduces a process to engage consciously in active dialogue with images from the unconscious.  These can be people who appear in your dream as well as impulses and other energy which can be encouraged to take on personalities of their own.  This probably sounds a bit woo woo to someone who is new to this type of work but I hope I can make it make sense if you stay with me.

First, let me explain why we want to do this kind of work.  The goal of the work is to bring the conscious and unconscious parts of ourselves into balance so that we can become more fully the people we are intended to be.  I put this in terms of becoming the people God created us to be but if you are not comfortable with that language you might think of it as being able to reach more of your potential.  First, we have to realize that our lives are influenced to a greater or lesser extent by energy from the unconscious part of ourselves which we have no direct control over.  That energy is, in effect, autonomous and often beyond our conscious control, and even awareness.  As an example, you might think of a time when your reaction to meeting someone was all out of proportion to the encounter.  That could take the form of love at first sight at one extreme or instant hate or disdain at the other.  This is a sure sign that the energies from the unconscious are at work.

Johnson proposes that two important ways you can engage with these energies is through the dreams which come to you while asleep, and through what is called Active Imagination which is a conscious dialogue with personification of the energy either in dreams or inviting the energy which are impacting on your conscious life to take on a personality.  For instance, Johnson uses the example of worry.  He notes that worry is a form of passive fantasy.  Most people have things that they worry about and worry can consume our waking lives at times.  Johnson proposes that in Active Imagination it is possible to confront the worry and enter into dialogue with it and in this way find out what the worry energy will tell us about itself.  It is understandable that people might be skeptical about dialoguing with what might be considered yourself.  However, if you enter into the process the unconscious energy that is taking the form of worry will give you new information about the source of that worry. 

To be honest, I have not engaged in Active Imagination to a great extent.  I tend to work with my dreams and unconscious material in other ways.  However, in my experience it can be very effective.  I think I probably need to engage in Active Imagination to explore why I don’t do it more.  I have had the general idea that Active Imagination was to be used primary with people that occur in dreams.  I have not retained the information that it can be used for energy that manifests in forms such as worry.  When I think of the extent to which people experience significant worry and anxiety which keep them awake in the witching hours of the night, I believe that this can be a significant help. 

I would encourage you to read the book or find other sources that might help you engage with the unconscious energy in your life.  I intend to explore this subject further next week.  It can be a blessing on your journey.

 

Job’s Wonderful life

 At the recent bible study in our parish, I made a reference to an angel getting its wings when someone’s phone rang.  I noted that the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, never fails to bring a tear to my eye.  This did not add to the discussion of Ephesians in which we were engaged, but later my wife, Lorna, mentioned that the plot of the movie resonated with the story of Job in the bible.  I realized that she definitely had a good point (which is not unusual) and decided to explore this idea in this week’s missive. 

It is fairly easy to see the similarities – at least those on the surface – between the two stories.  The two protagonists, Job and George Bailey, both, in effect, suffer the trials of Job, as the saying goes, and lose everything that they possess.  They lose all their ‘property’ i.e., that which is proper to them.  Job is described at the beginning of the Book of Job in glowing terms:

That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 

George was not as prosperous in material terms or property as Job, but he was prosperous in terms of what was ‘proper’ to a person.  He had established himself in the community and had made a difference to the people of the community in more ways than he was aware of.  He had enabled people, who would not otherwise be able to live the American dream of home ownership, to become men and women of property.  He was president of the Savings and Loan, stepping up to succeed his father and save the S&L by selflessly putting aside his ambitions.  He had married the woman of his dreams and had ‘lassoed the moon’ for her reclaiming their dream house.  He built what could be considered a classic American family.  As one review noted, “George Bailey's life, full of love and friendship, is as grand as one could ever wish for.” 

These grand lives are taken away from both Job and George.  In both cases this happens through no fault of their own.  Job is the subject of a bet between God and Satan.  In George’s case, “his selfless nature, by this point of the film, has landed him in a pretty terrible financial situation.”  All seem lost for both and, as noted by Lorna, both wish that they had never been born.  This is a critical similar circumstance for the characters.  In Job’s case, “Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ‘Let the day perish on which I was born,’”. For George, his wish is granted by his guardian angel, Clarence, who notes, “You’ve been given a great gift George, a chance to see what the world would be like without you.”  Job does not receive this gift but George and Job each have received the gift of being made aware of what is to be true to whom he is in his essence beyond the trappings of his possession and persona.  Neither Job nor George stated he wanted to die – rather he wished he had never been born which is a critical distinction.

I should note that Clarence, who is an angel, second class, but definitely not a second-class angel, does earn his wings.  As a result, a bell rings at the George’s family Christmas signifying that Clarence has received his wings – a truly happy ending, if one with a tinge of Hollywood. 

Finally, both George and Job had their lives restored, or perhaps I should say, redeemed.  They were given back all that had been taken from them and more.  The conflict between who the world saw them to be and how they saw themselves to be, and who they were in essence, was resolved.  This was the gift given to each of them. 

As I noted two weeks ago in my first exploration of Job, I hope that you are blessed on your journey to find the essence of who you are.  

Grace for All

The bible study in our parish is currently delving into the book of Ephesians.  Being one of the epistles (letters) of Paul, it begins with a salutation, “To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

At our last meeting we decided to explore the idea of grace.  It is a term and a theological idea which we use regularly as part of the Anglican liturgy but we are perhaps not all that clear about what grace is.  As we were given homework to investigate the concept of grace, I thought I would share some of what I have found this morning.

First, as I noted, grace is used in our liturgy – indeed, in the opening of the service of Holy Eucharist, the presider greets the worshippers with these words:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with you all.

You might conclude from this that grace comes from Jesus Christ and not from God the Father.  Let me explore this further to see if this is a correct assumption.  However, as the salutation from Ephesians notes, grace is from God the Father and Jesus Christ.  I checked a good resource I have on my bookshelf, Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson.  This was a gift from my father which I find to be very helpful in such investigations.  The entry for grace begins;

In general, grace (Latin: gratia: Greek: charis: Hebrew: chen) means favour freely shown, especially by a superior to an inferior.  In the NT, it denotes primarily the favour and kindness of God, freely shown to men (sic) in the incarnation and life and atoning death of his Son (II Cor. 8,9: Phil 2.6 ff). 

So, we are beginning to get a handle on what grace is.  It is freely given by someone – in theological understanding from God through Jesus Christ to all of God’s people or perhaps even all of God’s creation.  Being freely given by the kindness of God as an act of love, we do not need to earn it through our acts or deeds.  However, that raises the question, what does it mean to receive God’s grace.  Also, the definition indicates that grace can be given from anyone to anyone else – traditionally a superior to and inferior which fits well in the case of God's grace.  However, in these times of democratic ideals, surely it can be given from anyone to anyone else.

It might be helpful to consider how we think of grace in respect to ourselves and others.  A gracious person is one who treats others with respect and kindness.  A person may also be graceful (full of grace).  A graceful person moves and acts in ways that seem to fit the circumstances i.e., their way of being in the world is in sync with what they are doing.  As an online definition puts it, “If a person's behaviour is graceful, it is polite, kind, and pleasant, especially in a difficult situation. 

How then do we live out our lives in a way that is graceful?  Perhaps the key to being graceful is to know that we are the recipients of grace and in turn can share that grace with others.  I happen to have been sent recently a podcast which discusses how we can have grace to others.  It is part of a series entitled, The Bible for Ordinary People.  The episode is, How Grace Saves Us which can be found on-line at https://overcast.fm/+cZ2vFThW4.  I found this to be a good exploration of the challenges of grace in the world today and how it is a challenge to show grace to others who do not always seem to be worthy of grace.  These days there seems to be no shortage of people in that category.  But that is the principle of grace: the person does not have to earn it.  In this way it is perhaps simply following Jesus’ commandment to love one another. 

As it happens, Richard Rohr happened to touch on this recently in one of the Daily Meditations and I will close with what he says, in effect, we can be gracious even though we don’t necessarily feel that: 

I must be honest with you here about my own life. For the last ten years I have had little spiritual “feeling,” neither consolation nor desolation. Most days, I’ve had to simply choose to believe, to love, and to trust. In this, I know I stand in good company with Teilhard, John of the Cross, Mother Teresa, and countless other mystics and saints, and maybe some of you.

But God rewards me from letting God reward me:
This is the divine two-step that we call grace:
I am doing it, and yet I am not doing it;
It is being done unto me, and yet by me too.
Yet God always takes the lead in the dance, which we only recognize over time.

May you be blessed to be graceful and gracious on your journey 

The Trials of Job

I have recently been attending a Zoom discussion group at St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in London, Ontario which is using lectures by Northrop Frye on the Bible as Literature.  The lectures can be found here https://heritage.utoronto.ca/content/video/bible-and-english-literature-northrop-frye-full-lecture-1, and I highly recommend them.  Northrop Frye was a great literary critic who explored the impact of the Christian bible on Western Art and literature in his works, The Great Code and Words of Power.  The group is using video of his lectures at the University of Toronto in the early 1980’s in the discussion.

The current lectures are on the Book of Job in the Christian Old Testament.  The Book of Job describes the account of a man, Job, who is the subject of a bet between God and Satan to see if Job, a man who, “was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil,” can be turned from loving God.   Satan bets that if everything that Job possesses is taken away from him, he will curse God.  Satan is, in effect, betting that Job is just a fair-weather friend to God.  With the agreement of God, Satan is allowed to take everything away from Job, his vast possession and his children.  The only caveat is that Satan must not harm Job physically, “Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!”  Even this condition is renegotiated and God gives Satan permission to attack Job’s health and he is, “inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”

After a debate with friends who seem to embody the expression, ‘with friends like these, who needs enemies’, Job demands and receives an opportunity to appear before God and demand the justification for what has happened to him.  God does not answer Job directly but justifies himself by declaring that Job, in effect, has no right to question him as Job was not present when God created the world:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
   Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

God seems to come off looking like a bully and a tyrant – at least at first glance – and this has been the debate among theologians and biblical scholars probably since it became part of the canon of scripture. However, engaging with the scripture as part of the study group I have seen another possibility.  Frye gave me an appreciation of the meaning of property.  He noted that it means what is proper to a person.  Drawing on this, I believe that the Book of Job can be understood as an exploration of what it means to be a human being in its essence.  What is being demonstrated by the author of the Book, is what it means to be a human being.  Is the essence of a person the things which the world identifies with that person – his or her job, his or her possessions, his or her achievements?  Or does the fact that humans are created in the image of God the essence of how the person is?  Humans will identify with the image they present to the world.  Carl Jung calls this their persona.  If that is taken away, they are in danger of losing the identity, their self-image.  Job had all that made him valued to his world.  Even his wife told him to “curse God, an die.”  However, he showed himself to be true to whom he was in his essence.  This was the trial of Job in which he was found to be not guilty.

I do not know if I would pass the trials of Job but I might just take the advice of Job’s wife.  I hope that I will never have to face trials anything like Job’s.  I know that my journey has been an attempt to find out who I am in my essence. 

I hope that you are blessed on your journey to find the essence of who you are.