Wisdom, Art, Balance (Part 4)

We're talking about the development of the art of practising with eros so that it is soulmaking and fertile, working with the imaginal in formal practice and in our life. The wisdom of that -- what does wisdom mean? The art of skilful response. What does balance mean? How do we create the vessels? How do we tend to the fire and modulate the fire and all that? We've already said that we don't want to just alternate between practices of fire and practices of earth, so to speak -- the fire practices, or the fire of eros, and practices of the steadiness of the earth, the equanimity of the earth. We don't just want to move between these and kind of hope that a balance comes out over time with that that will help. Certainly that's important. Practices that bring steadiness, equanimity, spaciousness, strength, rootedness -- these are important when they're done alone, and part of the totality of the path. We've already said this.

But we're also interested in, what I really want to go into, is the question of balance and equanimity, even, if we say that, sustainability, fertility, while engaging with the imaginal, while engaging with the erotic-imaginal. So what I'm talking about here applies to any imaginal perception. We're talking about the imaginal dimension. So it could be something, so to speak, completely intrapsychic, an intrapsychic imaginal figure that doesn't seem to bear any relation to anyone we know, etc. It could be an actual person seen, sensed, imaginally -- the imaginal perception of someone in our life, or someone that we know from history or whatever it is.

For example, someone comes to me, and he or she says, "There's this person, and I'm really attracted to them. I want to be in relationship with him, with her, with them. And it's painful because they have said, they've communicated, that they don't want that. They're not interested in that." The natural inclination, and the taught path there, would be, "Let go of that. Let go. Turn away. Find someone else. Feel your emotions," etc. But in fact, another possibility, and in a way, a more fruitful possibility, a deeper possibility sometimes, is actually go in. This person already exists for you as an image. Go into the imaginal dimension. Allow the image of them to, if you like, be amplified, to enlarge as it would with the eros-psyche-logos dynamic operating. Dwell with that image. Be sensitive to it. Meditate with it. Open to it.

Lo and behold, a person does this, and they often find that yes, what happens when I allow the imaginal, the imaginal will reveal its dimensionality to me. This person becomes much more than the one-dimensional, concrete, actual person. They become alive with dimensions. They become, if you like, huge, or bigger at least, multi-layered. There's a richness, a depth, a beauty, vitality, multifacetedness of the image there. The image, instead of trying to get rid of it, or shrink it, or contain it, or shrink it down to the actual, we're allowing it to open, and ourselves to open to it. The whole thing opens up. The whole sense of the problem, or the situation, or this other person, the self in relation to it, opens up. The problem is the flatness. The problem is over-concretized, one-dimensionality of perception, reification. Then we actually don't see. We think we see, and that the imaginal is not seeing. But we actually do not see. We're not seeing deeply, fully, imaginally, soulfully enough. And therein, in that reification, in that not seeing, in that lack of fullness, is the problem and comes the problem -- flatness, killing, suffocating, strangling, cramping.

Then, if we can open to the image and allow the image to open, we will see -- or very often -- that it then doesn't feel like it's about, it matters much, what actually happens in the one-dimensional so-called 'reality.' We've got something else then. Something else opens up, and it doesn't actually matter. The image is much bigger than that -- much, much bigger. We may ask with that, who is this? Who is this in this image? I thought it was this person that I've been trying to tell that I'm interested in them and I would like to pursue a relationship, whatever it is, but who is it? As I go into the sense of them and allow all the sensitivity, all the resonance, all the opening, the energy body, the beauty, the soulmaking, who is this person? Who is this? The imaginal there. Can I begin to see and sense in the image of them, in the image, in the way they come imaginally alive to the psyche, can I see and sense the angel there, the angel that they are to me, the theophany, the divinity in the image?

So we're really talking about a practice here. When that begins to open, that sense of the angel, the theophany, the divinity in the image, then because I'm actually perceiving that and I'm sensitive, I'm open to it with the whole of my being, the energy body, the mindfulness, the sensitivity, the delicacy, the tuning, then it's as if my being, my psyche, is infused, so to speak, there's an infusion to myself of that angelic nature, of that theophany, of the divinity therein. I don't need this or that to happen. I don't even need this or that to happen in the image. There's an infusion directly. It permeates and penetrates the psyche, and I have something. I have actually much more than I thought I wanted in the first place, much more. So this could be any kind of relationship, not necessarily a romantic or sexual desire. It could be any kind of relationship -- with a teacher, whatever it is. Someone says -- you know, they take it to a teacher, take it to a therapist, they say, "Let go, let go." And of course that's the standard message, isn't it? And it sounds so simple. It sounds so wise. But not all the time is it wise.

What does it mean to let go when there are complex situations? Again, it sounds so simplistic. What does it actually mean? But instead of letting go, there is the possibility, actually no, go into this image. Claim it, if you like. Let it have a claim on you. Let it have its claim on you. Enter in, open to the image, let it open, and there will come in relation to this person that I can't have -- maybe they're dying, maybe they might die, whatever the situation is and whatever the kind of relationship we're talking about: friend, teacher, student, potential lover or not, or whatever it is -- the image opens, and with it comes peace, beauty, soulmaking. The opposite movement of what we thought. Sometimes, for us in certain spiritual traditions, or other traditions (of psychotherapy), etc., we're indoctrinated without even realizing it. The indoctrination there is "just let go." "Let go" is the answer.

[9:20] Can we explore? Can we question? Can we check where we might be indoctrinated, and see what other paths are open to us? But I'm talking about practice here, not some vague idea. I'm actually talking about entering into practice so that we perceive certain things. There's the imaginal perception. They become very alive, very vital, very meaningful, very tangible, very real for us, these imaginal perceptions. So in a way, what's happening here is we're allowing the eros. Another way of saying this, because eros and the imaginal go together, is allow the eros, allow the feeling of the desire, allow that erotic charge, and allow it to increase. Go into the image, allow the eros to increase -- they're slightly different angles in on the same thing, really, if you like. But allow the eros to increase, and what will happen? Because the eros is increasing, it stimulates, it ignites, etc., it starts to expand, inseminate, fertilize the eros-psyche-logos dynamic, the soulmaking dynamic. The mutual insemination, fertilization, deepening, widening, expanding, complicating, enriching of all that, we've been into. It expands. That whole soulmaking expands. The psyche expands. The ideation expands. All of it.

And peace comes with that. This can be a huge surprise if we're accustomed to the usual indoctrination there. Going into the image, opening to the image, opening to the eros, allowing the eros, not cutting it, not trying to stifle it or erase it or put it away, etc. -- peace. Sometimes what happens is one enters into the imaginal other, the erotic object, the beloved other, whatever that is, whether it's a human or animal or some nature or an imaginal figure, whatever it is. There can be a sexual penetration, or there can be just an entering into the being. Because the imaginal object, with the stimulation of the soulmaking dynamic, as we've said before, the image gets deeper, wider, more complex, more multidimensional, more multifaceted. Sometimes, in allowing that to happen, it's as if we enter into the imaginal other, as if they become to us a territory, a soul-landscape. I might enter into them through an imaginal erotic penetration or whatever, a sexual penetration, or I might just enter into their eyes, into their soul, and their soul becomes for me a garden, becomes for me maybe even a paradise.

So the image opens, gains dimensionality, and becomes available for us, and there's peace with that. I have something there. I have something priceless, in fact. So this is all very interesting, and it comes from, as I said, going into the image, opening to the image, not stopping it, not putting it down, not turning away from it, and also the eros, allowing, opening, going into. But there's lots that is interesting here. When there is desire for us as human beings, when there is desire, I would say there's always operating -- whether we're aware of it or not, conscious or unconscious -- there's always operating a conception and an evaluation of that desire. A conception of the desire itself that's present, and an evaluation of it. So for example: it's wholesome or it's unwholesome, it's part of the path or it's definitely not part of the path, it's a defilement, it's holy, it's neither this nor that, whatever. There's always some conception, some evaluation. And either that conception and evaluation of the desire that's operating allows us or supports our trusting the desire, its energy, its movement, allows us to see its beauty, etc., or it doesn't allow that, doesn't allow the trust, doesn't allow the sense of beauty.

That's interesting too. That's something we'll return to. But what's the concept and the evaluation of desire itself operating? I'm going to come back to this a lot. But as well as that, I wonder whether, in some way or another, there's always a kind of projected -- I don't know what to call it -- anticipation or relationship with the having of the object of desire. There's always a projected relationship with the having of it. What I mean is, desire, when we anticipate getting what we desire, or when we anticipate, say, the consummation of a sexual desire or passion or eros, that's quite a different experience, isn't it, than the desire where we project or anticipate not getting it. Or if it's coming from a feeling of lack, and then, if we anticipate, there's a feeling of lack and we anticipate not being able to have this object that I desire, this one that I desire, whatever it is. How does that then shape the whole experience, colour, shape, determine, direct the whole experience?

Those are the two obvious ones, but actually there are many more, in terms of this projected [relationship]. What's my relationship with the idea or the anticipation of getting or not getting, or being able to have or not being able to have? There are actually others which we'll go into -- for example, realizing that I already have it in some way (we'll return to that, and others). But if we take that second possibility there, the feeling of lack, for example, or imagining, projecting that one can't have, one won't be able to have this object, sometimes one possibility is, okay, noticing that's what's happening, and feeling the feelings with that, and feeling the whole kind of psychic constellation with that. Maybe it's frustration. Maybe it's some kind of feeling of inferiority, etc. I want to share something from someone's process that they are allowing me to share. It's a complicated scenario here; I won't explain all the details of it. But this person, he was describing what happened with someone where there is a kind of boundary, and there was the desire, etc.

He said, "I felt a bit trapped." I'm kind of reading and paraphrasing what he said. "I felt a bit trapped," he said, "in a mental and emotional space that somehow reminded me of a teenage feeling or sense I had as a teenager, that I couldn't reach her," this one that was desirable for him, his erotic beloved. "I couldn't reach her, and she seemed" -- in this kind of constellation -- "really together, and kind of cool, and kind of out of my class. She was out of my reach. It was as if a sheet of glass separated us. I could see her, but I was removed. I couldn't touch her. And in this," he said, "I felt inferior somehow." So this was not a very common pattern for him, but he recognized it from when he was a teenager and before. Somehow he felt inferior, not being able to have. She was somehow better than him, out of his class, out of his league. And then he constellated into this kind of -- what he would do is go, as he put it, "on his solitary and lonely way," kind of a bit of a tramp or an outcast, leaving alone, etc.

So there was pain and frustration. Encouraging him to feel it, to really be with that and feel the frustration. He said, he was reporting, "It was really strong in my body, but actually it became, with the allowing of it, it actually became strong eros, as I was with it and felt it. It turned very intense and beautiful," he describes. This is staying with the image, okay, allowing the eros with the image, really feeling it in the body, but staying with the image. The image started to transform. He said, "Like a lion, I wanted to devour her, rip her flesh open with my teeth, tear her limbs apart. None of it angry or destructive." Don't make that mistake here of assuming this is a kind of angry violence, or destructive, or anything to do with rape, or anything like that. "None of it angry or destructive," he writes, "but deeply animal, erotic, holy in its very particular, utterly non-ethereal way." I was reflecting, that word 'devour,' it's probably not etymologically related to the word 'devout,' but there's something we can call -- I'm following Paul Kugler here, an archetypal psychologist^[1] -- there's an archetypal resonance between sort of clusters of words: devour and devout. There's a holiness here. As he writes, "holy in its very particular, utterly non-ethereal way."

So again, remember we were talking about the substantiality, the carnality of the image. This is a really carnal, substantial image. It's not light and airy-fairy and insubstantial. This one is "utterly non-ethereal," he writes. "It's immensely animalistic, a potent, roaring, beautiful force. In the image, I lick her insides, her organs, her blood, tear her flesh, lick her brain -- a lion, dominant, standing over its prey." And again, prey, p-r-e-y, and pray, p-r-a-y. Again, is there some archetypal constellation in the very words here, in the poetry of the words, some connection there in this case? He continues, "licking, gouging, feasting on her flesh and her juices, and fucking her, too, deeply." So there's sexual and carnal, all of it. He writes, "There's a particular kind of loving of her in all this too." So it's, as I said, not violent. It's not just the anger of frustration. Something happened that it opened, and there's a particular -- if, for most people, kind of unusual -- loving of her in all this. Very beautiful. It was very moving for him. "And the previous stuck sense of not being able to reach her, feeling inferior and frustrated and all that, utterly dissolved and was replaced by an intense sense of connection through participating in the lived energetics of the image."

So something through really sticking with what was quite a difficult experience that was constellating, really bringing the mindfulness, really bringing the skill and the art of practice, with some help there, opened up this very carnal but very vital, very beautiful, deep and deeply holy image. Now, it wouldn't have to be -- the image could open up in any direction or with any kind of quality, etc.; we don't know. But there's something here: tracing the emotion, finding the difficulty, energy body, let the eros constellate, let the image fill out, and see what happens.

[21:58] Now, I've touched on another point in relation to all this before, and you'll notice how it applies to that image that I just shared: sometimes what happens with the erotic-imaginal or with eros or with desire in our life, and also sometimes with devotion, is that there's an imbalance and a kind of constriction or block, as we've talked about in different ways, of the eros-psyche-logos dynamic -- or, a better word is a block in a certain direction, causing the whole thing to be imbalanced. I'll explain what I mean. With an image, with working with the erotic-imaginal, and again whether it's sexual erotic, or devotional erotic, or whatever, that whole range of eros, what it needs to be balanced and to be unblocked, so to speak, in every direction of the expansion of the soulmaking dynamic, is not just to see the beauty only of the beloved other, only of the erotic object, of the image of the other. Not just their beauty. Sometimes that's evident enough. Some people have this pattern where that's really evident, clear: there's the beauty, there's the divinity, right there. But also, for the sake of the balance and the sustainability and the opening of the soulmaking dynamic, also we need to see the beauty of the self in that constellation.

Not just the beauty of the other, the beloved other, the erotic-imaginal object, but the beauty of the self, and the beauty of the self's eros, the self's passion. My eros, my passion, is beautiful. Am I seeing it? Am I seeing the beauty of my self in this self/other imaginal constellation? In that way, then, the soulmaking dynamic, the eros-psyche-logos, doesn't collapse. It doesn't contract. It doesn't short-circuit or blow out. In some people, unfortunately, there's almost a habit or a tendency just to see the beauty of the other, not to see the beauty of the self in that imaginal constellation, and of the self's eros and the self's passion. But in order for the soulmaking dynamic and the expansion and the eros to be sustainable, to be stable, to be fertile, in order for that to grow in the ways that we were describing, and expand, and mutually inseminate, and deepen, and widen, all that, this kind of balance, balancing the sense of the beauty of the other with the sense of the beauty of the self and the self's eros.

So it's good to notice if there's a tendency or a habit one way or another. I suppose some people, it would be more sort of self-preoccupation there, and not seeing so much the beauty of the other or whatever. Someone might have, for instance, I just see the beauty and the divinity in the other, and I don't see it in myself, and very quickly those with certain psychological trainings might think, "Ah, yes, well, trace it back to the relationship with the father or the relationship with the mother," whatever it is. Careful of the assumptions. Maybe that has something to do with it. Is it causal? You know, maybe, maybe, maybe. Just, whoa. Let's have this openness of inquiry, please, please. And then, even if that is a part of it, or part of the constellation there, or it is even partly causative, it still leaves open the question, what does it need? What does the soulmaking need? What does, so to speak, 'health' need here?

Sometimes, again, it's allowing the image to do its thing, allowing it its fullness. It's from exploring the image, from entering into it, from having it enter into us, from opening to it and having it open to us, listening to the image. So one thing is just noticing, in fact, giving attention within the imaginal practice. Here's this beautiful, desirable, lovely, even divine other that there's so much eros and devotion to, etc. Can I notice -- I'm not taking the attention off the other, but I'm widening the field of the attention within the imaginal practice to the larger imaginal constellation, to notice and to attend to the whole self/other constellation there, and notice: what is the image of the self here? And can I watch it actually gain dimensionality as I include it in my awareness? Including it allows the self to take on imaginal dimensions, and not be stuck in a certain narrow or concretized image or the usual one. This is, if you like, the natural, organic desire or tendency of the soulmaking dynamic, of the eros-psyche-logos movement. As we said, it wants to expand, deepen, widen, complicate, enrich, multifaceted, all that. But it wants to expand, deepen, and all that, gain dimensions, if you like, in all directions. That means in the direction of the other, certainly, but also in the direction of the self and in the direction of the eros. Yeah?

I'll read you something else, which someone kindly gave me permission to share. This person was on retreat not too long ago. I'll read it. It's fairly long, but it's very instructive and very beautifully shared. She was on retreat, and kind of settling into the retreat. Over those opening days, however, she noticed -- I'll speak in the first person. She says, "I noticed my general experience, the citta, it was like entering a deep well of sadness, a personal and global sadness that I'd been carrying for some time. Here on the retreat, it finally had no distractions under which to hide." She was out walking. A deep lover of nature, this woman. She was out in the forest. "I felt some opening even just to share this grief with the cold air and with the all-so-silent trees."

In our culture, this already would be called an imaginal perception of the nature, to share this grief with the cold air and with the all-so-silent trees. Can you hear how we consider that, in our culture, an imaginal perception? "I stopped to literally hug one." She actually hugged one, a tree. "And to linger there. Its depth and solidity pointed to a resource of strength that wouldn't be diminished by any offering to me." Again, the imaginal perception of the tree, the beauty of that, the resource of that. "Gaining steadiness in movement, it's impossible to describe what a relief it was to go beyond, beyond even the prescribed trails at the property's northern edge. I was finally connecting to something wild -- at least relatively so." She had been working with a teacher with this, with Catherine, in fact. She continues, "As you [meaning Catherine] so helpfully observed in our meeting, the sense of belonging I had with nature was non-specific. Loved I was by the forest, but simply as one of Gaia's countless children -- all precious and regarded with universal affection."

She continues, "Returning that afternoon, properly worn out," she did some sitting meditation, and "there I was offered by my very personal benefactors all the love that was needed and then some." So this is now imaginal meditation with certain imaginal figures from her life (some of whom were dead, but they are living in her as imaginal figures). "In contrast to what I experienced," she continues, "in the forest, the love from these departed benefactors was very specific. My stepfather and my teacher, lover, friend, and my first lover -- these three were there, and they each in turn heard and affirmed me. In all three cases, my lived experience was that they knew and loved the fullness of me -- messy, complicated, wondrous me." So the love there is very particular; not this general love that she had from the earth before. Very particular, very unique to her. The specificity, the uniqueness of herself, is entering into, called into the imaginal relationship at that point with these three, what she's calling benefactors, imaginal figures.

She continues, "Over the next several days, I was vigilant in honouring whatever sadness appeared, allowing it to fully be present, and responding to whatever seemed to be needed. At this point, the forms of sitting and walking seemed not just doable but truly helpful." So she was getting more into the practice, helped by all this, by the way she was practising with these images and with all this, and being open to the pain. So the image is not a running away from the pain; it's a way of actually opening. The image is a way, is a portal to the pain. The pain is a portal to the image, and then to something much more. "The form is truly helpful, though my walking path still had to be outdoors. I began to appreciate my heart for its insistence, its unyielding demand for my attention, and rejection of the forms that would skip over its pain." She was really up for all this.

But she continues, "Now my extended walks into the forest were growing slowly and quietly in joy." It was on day seven of the retreat she reports something. She was getting ready to go outside to walk, to go for a walk, in fact, and then she says, so beautiful, "Like childhood friends at the front door, impatiently waiting on my presence to begin after-school play, the forest now seemed to be calling me, specifically me, out for a romp. 'Come out! Come play! Come back!'" This is the forest talking to her. "'Okay, okay,' my heart responded, 'I'm lacing these snow boots as fast as I can!'" So by going into the image, by allowing the image, the uniqueness of her self has been called into that image that previously was more general and not unique.

Then she continues, "Following a different route but still heading north and beyond the trail boundaries, I came to a gentle micro-valley under a canopy of pine. I was brought to the confluence of two small streams, a place flat and low with bright sun streaming through onto shapes and colours of such beauty. Rock, snow, dark earth, moss, water revealing and water reflecting. I stood on a squared-off stone, elevated, right at the streams' intersection, and listened to their perfect sound -- the sound of needs met. Out of the quiet space of my mind came the sense: this place is happy. This place is happy in part because I'm here with it. We're together, enjoying this moment and one another as each of us -- rocks, waters, mosses, trees, me, creatures, bit of earth and bit of sky -- brings our specific selves to this. We're friends hanging out." Very beautiful. "On the way back to the retreat centre, a snowy clearing, brilliant white in the sun, called me over. I traipsed through, and having reached the spot, laid out, spread eagle. Through sparse branches I gazed up on the blue above." She continues. It's very, very beautiful sharing there.

[36:00] So that's quite complex. There's a lot in that in terms of the points, so let's draw out a few here. First is: love is there with the imaginal. In the imaginal is love, and with imaginal perceptions there is love. Can we notice the love? I think I've said this before already on this retreat. It's there. Almost by definition, I would say, love is part of the imaginal. Sometimes we don't notice it. Sometimes it's not obvious. Sometimes it's a kind of love that we're not used to. It's not a conventional expression of love, so we almost miss it. But can we notice it? And can we feel into, what is the quality of this love? What kind of love is it? Because it might not be conventional. There is love in the imaginal, with images, with imaginal perceptions. Can we notice it? We love images. What is an image for us is something we love. And again, even that might not be obvious. But sometimes even less obvious is that the images love us. We love the images, and the images love us. This can open out, and that's partly what happened in this yogi's story that she shared so beautifully.

So how can we allow this? Not by closing down, saying, "Oh, it's not the same. I love them more than they love me," or whatever. Sometimes we can just notice it, and that allows it to open. What we attend to, what we tune into, amplifies, gains life, like a flower unfolding its petals and its beauty and its radiance through the light of our attention and our attunement and our sensitivity. Sometimes how the whole love (both ways) in the imaginal constellation opens out is actually by allowing yourself to feel and speak your love, even. Maybe even voice your love to the imaginal. But feel your love. Feeling your love of the imaginal other, the beloved other, you begin to feel -- again, if you open up, just stay noticing, stay attuned, stay sensitive -- that the image loves you back. Really, really important. Really, really helpful.

And then, is it possible to dwell in that love, to open the heart, the being, the energy body, the soul, the psyche, to that love? Maybe it comes through the gaze -- we'll talk about this in the instructions -- the gaze of the imaginal other or lover or figure of love or whatever. There can be so much healing in this, so much healing in being loved, in feeling love, in recognizing that one is loved. So much healing, so much beauty there, so much resource and nourishment. And it's not always easy. Sometimes to open to, or to be, if you like, under the gaze, even of a gaze that is full of love, that is nothing but love, that's intense with love, is not always easy. It's interesting. It's complex.

Sometimes that's complex for people because there's a shame and even a fear or certainly a discomfort at being seen deeply. This gaze of the imaginal other, whether it's a person in our life that we're perceiving imaginally, or just an intrapsychic image, there's a shame or fear or discomfort at being seen. Something in a person wants to flee from that, and wants to refuse it, or just can't take it in. So sometimes there's an ambivalence. One longs to be seen. So deeply is there a longing to be seen and to be seen deeply. And there's a fear of being seen, because of the shame, etc. What happens with these two opposite, conflicting forces? Sometimes all kinds of contorted and painful and strange sort of manifestations determine the behaviour, because we've got these two conflicting forces, and what we do in terms of public attention -- all kinds of things there. It's complex.

Maybe one of the options -- I'm not going to go so much into it now, but maybe just to say this, because it's in the line of the theme we're exploring: maybe one can ask, if that is the case -- here I'm trying to open to the gaze of the imaginal other, but actually that's quite difficult too; the loving gaze, even that's difficult to open to. What does the imaginal other do in response to my ambivalence, in response to my fear, in response to my shame? What do they say to us, this image, this imaginal figure? What do they do? What is, if you like, their wisdom, their wise and loving response, in response to our ambivalence, our fear, our closing off, our refusal, our fleeing?

In that story that I shared just now from the yogi, there was a kind of inequality in the love. That was partly what was painful for her. The image loved her, if you like -- in this case, the image of the earth or the trees, etc. They loved her, but in this general way. She was just one of Gaia's countless children, I think is how she put it. Just sort of generic, universal love, if you like, emanating from nature. It's still imaginal. But in contrast, she was in love with the earth. She was in love with particular trees, and the uniqueness, etc. So there was this kind of imbalance of the general versus the uniqueness, and also of kind of just loving versus being, so to speak, in love. In that respect, too, because of that imbalance, we could say, in terms of our theory, that the eros-psyche-logos dynamic is blocked, relatively speaking, in one direction, in the direction of from the image to her, or from -- yeah, let's say that, from the image to her. You see? So it's moving unblocked in one direction. The eros, the imaginal, is filling out and flowing, penetrating deeply, richly, multidimensionally in one direction, but it's more stifled -- not completely blocked, but more stifled -- in the direction towards the self.

As she was using other images, and hanging out with the images, not going away from the emotion, and working with it, in this case over some days (it may take longer, it may take much shorter; anything's possible here), but working with it, the image then, the love of the image for her unique self -- it was her that the forest was impatient for: "Come out and play! You. We want to play with you." Her beauty, her uniqueness. So the sense of self there, the uniqueness of the self, is called into the image, and it becomes an object of very specific love. There's an equality, a balancing of the two loves there. Her love for the trees is now balanced by the trees' love for her. Not just general love both ways, but love for uniqueness, love for particularities. Particular loves flowing now both ways, not just one way.

With all that, eventually the image's sort of love, if you like, becomes eros. The forest, we could say, the forest in this case, the trees, have not just love for her; they have erotic love for her. In other words, the self becomes an erotic object. It can become an erotic object for myself in the way that I look at myself, or in the way that it feels I sense that the image is looking at me. I become alive. Self, this unique self, becomes alive as an erotic object, becomes an erotic beloved other, even, either to myself or to the image. In that, because eros and image go together, the self comes alive as an image. And because dimensionality is part of image, as we keep stressing, and dimensionality starts to shade into the divine dimensions, the self comes alive as image, and it gains dimensionality, and it gains divinity, eventually -- maybe suddenly, maybe just gradually; there's a gradual transition. This is coming in the image, in the imaginal practice, or even from the image.

So there are two aspects to that story that we shared there. There's the aspect of love, and the opening of love, and the opening to love. So the opening of love, and the opening to love. And also the inclusion of the self, and the opening of that self in its imaginal dimensions. The inclusion of the self, and the opening of the self, the opening to love, and the opening of love. Yeah? So there are different aspects all kind of mixed into one there. We could give countless examples of this kind of thing. Again, what it means for our practice, and for this question of balance, and artistry, and sustainability, and fertility and all that, and tending the fire, and mastery of the fire, and the vessel, all that, it means that the object and the self and the world (that's where the cosmopoesis comes in, in terms of the imaginal perception of the world), all these three, object, self, and world -- actually, and eros, because we said that before, the four -- object, self, world, and eros need to be included, included in the soulmaking dynamic. They're part of the imaginal constellation, and we need to let the imaginal constellation open to really spill over and involve them and include those dimensions -- the world and the self, as well as the other -- in our attention, in our attunement, in our sensitivity and opening.

[48:03] So opening to the other, the self, and the world as images. That brings balance. If you can imagine, this soulmaking dynamic, this expansion of eros, psyche, and logos, if it expands in one direction and not in the other direction, it's lopsided. It's out of balance. It wants to organically expand in all directions, if you like, equally. So again, talking about in imaginal practice, but also in relationship, because deep relationships are imaginally infused. They have imaginal dimensions. If they don't, they become problematic for us. Now, when I say opening to these (other, self, world, eros) as images, as always -- this is a reminder now -- it means not reified and not identified with, seeing image as image. Sometimes I encounter someone where there is a sense, a very strong, beautiful, palpable sense of the divinity of the other and also the self. So there's a balance there. But unfortunately, oftentimes the images there, the divinity in the image there, is not seen as image. Image is not seen as image. Rather, it's reified.

In the case of someone I'm particularly thinking of, what happens is she moves between a kind of self-elevation and a self-hatred. They're two reified poles of this dynamic. So moving into the sense of divinity of the self -- okay, great. The self's included. It's not just the other. There's not just divinity outside of me. But there's a kind of elevation there. She's buying into it, or she's reifying it, and then that swings to a kind of self-hatred and shame, etc. The images are literalized. There's a kind of bipolarism, you could say, operating there, because of the reification, because image is not understood as image. It's not understood to be empty.

Sometimes a person says something like, "I'm really into emptiness practice. I'm really attracted to it, and it goes really well for me, but then I begin to see everything is empty, and this whole insubstantiality of everything. I feel like I'm flying. Then I feel like I'm invincible." And that goes into something that might be almost a little bit of what psychologists would diagnose as mania, a kind of unipolar manic episode. Then people will say, and maybe this person says, "Oh, I need to go out and do some gardening, and dig some earth, and stomp around in my wellingtons, kick around in the soil, and definitely practise emptiness less, or practise less in general, because it's all getting out of hand because there's too much emptiness," etc. Is that the only option? And is that what really needs to happen? Is that even the correct diagnosis of the problem, "too much emptiness"?

Is it actually that when a person says "I see everything is empty," actually you've seen everything is empty except one thing? That invincible self is the thing left out of the emptiness. So the whole world is empty, and everyone else is empty, and da-da-da-da, and this invincible self unfortunately [laughs] is reified, is believed in and identified with, is taken to be real. Not seen as image, not seen as empty. Actually, you could say it needs more emptiness. The emptiness, the sense of image as image, needs to be pervading equally the self as well as the world, yeah? So this kind of imbalance or lack of pervasion is very, very common, at times. There are inclinations there. Or a person might have, for example, a whole fantasy or elevation of a fantasy or an image of, say, passion, or a passionate person, or being a passionate person. Or another might have a similar one of a kind of more equanimous person, a sort of standard image, common image of what a good Buddhist looks like, or what an awakening person looks like, sort of really equanimous, etc. And sometimes there's not the seeing of image as image. The image itself has kind of got stuck and got a little bit rigid. Not only is there attachment to it, but it's actually stuck. It's prevented from expanding and having its multidimensionality in life.

Often it's in allowing the image its multidimensionality that it actually loses its reification. It's in allowing the image its fullness that it loses its reification, because we see its multidimensionality and allow it to have that. Oftentimes it's that that actually allows us to let go of the reification, the identification. Sometimes we're rigidifying an image, or shrinking ourselves to try and fit into some rigid image. It could be passion. It could be equanimity, like I said. But an image is bigger than an emotion. So again, it's letting the image fill out, making sure image is image, and it's not some rigid, concretized, literalized thing.

We can ask in imaginal practice -- and again, purely intrapsychic or in relation to someone in our life -- who is involved here in this imaginal constellation? Who is it? Who is this beloved other? Because I can reduce the image to the flat, one-dimensional person. But who is the self as well? One thing you can do is, there is eros, there's this imaginal thing going on, and who, just gently, who am I right now? Who is the self in this image? Or who is the one participating in this imaginal constellation with an other? And who is the other? So in asking that, we allow self to become image, or we notice what the image of self is, or who is participating in this image. And it may be the usual sense of self that we have: it's me, it's Rob, it's whoever. But it gains imaginal dimensions. Through being included in the imaginal practice, it gains imaginal dimensions. Or it may be that it bears very little similarity to the usual self. But who? We can ask: who? It's a gentle way of including the self. Or just look.

With all this that we're talking about, again, we're talking about navigation here. Navigating, balancing, responding, inclining, gliding. So one possibility, if we speak generally now, is that we can, in practice, working with an image in our life, in our practice or whatever, on the cushion, we can tune in with sensitivity and notice and follow what is autonomously emerging or given in and with the image. In other words, we're not doing anything; we're just tuning, noticing, and following, and if you like, trusting the soul-intelligence of the image or in the image. Trusting the soul-intelligence of or in the image. At other times, or to a certain extent at other times, we can do something slightly different or have a different kind of tack, approach, relationship with the imaginal practice, where we're deliberately leaning or inclining, or gently, subtly guiding the practice in all kinds of different directions, if we want. For example, with an erotic beloved other in the imaginal, to a kind of melting union with that other, with the beloved other, with the erotic object. To dissolving, perhaps, in light or love or whatever it is. Essentially, it's towards less fabrication -- through the erotic connection, but actually allowing it to go towards this melting and union. So that's one option. You can actually lean that way or let it go that way if it wants to.

But you can also modulate that movement, temper that movement, with practice, with skill, so that it goes a little bit of a way towards that union and towards less fabrication, but only to a relative degree of insubstantiality of the perception of materiality. So there's a little bit of fading, but actually the forms are retained, and the particularities, and the uniqueness, and the shape or the character of self and other, of two people, two beings of the image is retained, but they become lighter and more insubstantial. So you can kind of play with this spectrum with practice, where you're modulating that, and where will you kind of hang out on that spectrum. You can experiment with colours, adding or seeing what colour the other wants to be, or your own body, or the interaction, or whatever it is, or the breath. We played with that a little bit on the Poetry of Perception retreat.^[2] You can deliberately tune into giving and/or receiving healing, different kinds of healing, or different of the brahmavihāras -- we'll come back to this -- mettā or compassion or muditā, whatever, different kinds of love. You can just emphasize the kind of sensitivity and exploration of the energy body. Or the particular sense of sacredness. That's what you're tuning to and exploring. Or the particular sense of divinity, or the particular cosmopoesis that's spilling over, that's happening, or the particular kind of love.

Something also we'll come back to, and in the instructions as well, I mentioned sometimes with an image and with the eros there, there's a sense of duty, a duty that either one of the imaginal characters has, or that the self has, and it kind of translates in some way or another to my life, or doesn't, or whatever. There's some kind of sense of duty. And again, that could be what you incline towards and draw out through your attention, through delicately focusing on that. It's the duty. It's not without the energy body; the energy body is always there. It's not without an awareness of the emotions; that's always there. So there's a certain kind of fundamental inclusion of certain aspects. But we're talking about the relative balancing of where you put the attention, what you draw out through the attention, what you dwell on, what you focus on a little bit.

With the sense of duty, whose duty? Who is the character here, the imaginal character who feels this duty, who carries out this duty? What is the duty? That doesn't mean necessarily figuring out what it means, like the practical steps I need to take in my life. Just staying with the more imaginal, the pregnant, the depth and the beauty of the feeling of duty. Maybe it constellates an image, or the image changes. Maybe it constellates a sense of devotion, and that's a feeling, that feeling of devotion. Maybe that comes -- often it does come if we notice it. Allowing the sense of devotion, and there's an alignment in the energy body. We're aligned with that devotion to that duty. Great beauty here, great depth, great power and strength without any hardness. But that alignment of the energy body is itself a state of balance. Again, we're talking all about balance here. It's also a state of rootedness. I'm rooted in what I'm devoted to, I'm rooted in my duty, because the energy body is aligned there with it, and you can actually feel the energy body rooted in something deep. It becomes unshakeable almost. Again, there's a kind of equanimity emerging from the imaginal, from the erotic-imaginal.

So all these deliberate inclinations, plus all the ones we mentioned before towards samādhi or mettā or whatever, all of that's possible, that kind of let go of the image. Anything like that that we've mentioned before is possible. So you can get this sense of how great a range, and a subtly differentiated range, there is of where you can incline, like a ship on the open water, or a boat on the open water, or a bird in the sky gliding on the air currents. There's potentially, at least, just dependent on the skill, there's a kind of almost -- unless the conditions are really strong one way or another -- there's an almost infinite degree of precise directionality available, 360 degrees, etc., and also depth, up and down, and all of that.

[1:03:35] Let's point out a few more things or directions, dimensions, that are available here with imaginal practice, if we're allowing the image and allowing the eros. I'm going to mention four right now. If we allow the image and enter into it, open to it, let it open, and the eros, then it's possible that we either start to discover certain dimensions of the imaginal, if you like, or again, we can almost a little bit look for them or incline towards deliberately resurrecting them if we've experienced them before or whatever.

(1) So the first of these four I'd like to just enumerate now is that we see and feel the desire, whatever the specificity of that desire is -- it might be the desire for sex, or a certain sexual interaction or something, whatever it is, a kiss or this or that, or something non-sexual, whatever -- we see and feel the specific desire as what William Blake called a divine influx. He used that word somewhere or other as a kind of idea the emotions that we feel are divine influxes.

What happens when we decide to see something, or we start perceiving something, as a divine influx -- in this case, desire? This very specific desire, what happens if I sense it, see it, feel it, in all its specificity, as divine influx? In other words, it's not, as we would usually assume, that this desire that I'm feeling is mine. Not that usual perspective, but actually that the desire, this very specific desire, is coming from or given by God, if we use that word, divinity, or whatever word you want to use. It's flowing through me, or flowing through us if it's mutual with someone else. Again, we're talking about a conception here, but one that needs to be translated to a perception. Conceptions on their own -- disembodied, abstract, not much help at all. This conception, this desire that I'm feeling right now, I'm in touch with my energy body, I'm in touch with desire, I'm in touch with the image, all of that, can I perceive it -- either I notice or I discover that it is, or I deliberately see it as, a divine influx? It's coming from the divine, from a god, flowing through me.

Then what happens? Again, there's an opening, because you're opening up another dimension of the imaginal. And because there's the opening of the psyche and the logos there, there's space to tolerate. There can be even an increase of the eros with that. But there's space there, yeah? And peace. So that's one: seeing, feeling the desire as a divine influx.

(2) A second I alluded to very briefly before. Can I notice that that which is desired, whatever it is -- this kiss, this 'I want to dance with you,' whatever it is, or even some very intense sexual desire or something, whatever, sexual or not -- that which is desired may be perceivable as already happening? It's already happening. Not, so to speak, on the actual physical level, but it's already happening on the imaginal level, eternally, so to say, in what Henry Corbin calls hierophanic time. I can't remember if I've used that phrase. I think I have on this retreat. Hierophanic time -- 'hierophanic' means the appearance of sacred. So in sacred time, we could say -- which isn't a time that flows: past, present, future, past, present, future, like that. It's almost like images exist as icons eternally. There's just this discrete icon and that discrete icon. They may have connections. But they're not temporal connections of cause and effect and this comes before that.

One can get a sense, when one feels deeply into an image and opens deeply to an image, that this thing, and this desire -- eros and image are connected -- this desire, or that which I desire, the image of that which I desire, is perceivable as already happening on the imaginal level eternally, timelessly, in hierophanic time. Again, we're talking about a conception; not something abstract, but a conception that, so to speak, is a seed in the perception and becomes a way of looking. Conception needs to be translated to perception: I actually perceive this as already happening, this image of this desire that I would like fulfilled. And again, the question, as well: who? Who is it who is kissing this image, who is dancing, who is whatever it is, making love, in hierophanic time? Who is it that's eternally making love in that way? And again, seeing in this way, that level of imaginal perception opens up, and the problem goes out of the whole thing. The problem of desire -- it may have felt quite problematic, quite tense, quite hard to tolerate. It goes out of it. A whole other dimension is added with that, all the beauty and all the fullness, all the richness, all the divinity of that. So that's a second.

(3) A third possibility, and this is a kind of subtle variation of those two in a way, is that the desire that I'm feeling, and the self, the image of the self, and the image of the other, they're all theophanies. The desire, the self, and the other are all theophanies. They are all faces of the divine. Or they're, if you like, parts of one larger theophany. So it's not, as in the first one, that the desire is the deity's desire or whatever, or the Buddha's desire for his consort or whatever. It's not that desire is this god's desire. But the desire itself is divine, or is an aspect of divinity. It's a very subtle difference, but you can play with this. And again, if I can see that way, if I can sense that way imaginally, if I can perceive that way imaginally, then there's space, there's beauty, and all the peace that comes with that.

(4) The fourth just for right now is that the whole constellation of the object desired, the image of the self desiring, and the desire itself -- that whole imaginal constellation of the eros -- is seen, felt, perceived as, if you like, God making love to herself or himself. The whole constellation of object desired, of image, of the self desiring -- I'm the one who desires, or who is this one that desires -- and the desire, all of it is God making love to her or himself. Again, you can recall the image of those Buddha images on thangkas or maṇḍalas, etc. -- this or that Buddha, whoever it is, the different Buddhas, in yab-yum, in erotic union, making love, if you like, with their consort. The Buddha there is regarded as not just "it's this Buddha and his consort"; the Buddha is the totality of the male and the female figure. So the consort is, they together are, the Buddha. So the whole thing, the whole constellation, is, if you like, God making love to her/himself, the Buddha, this or that Buddha, making love to her/himself. Can I find that way in, or see that way, sense that way, perceive that way? For some of you, this is going to sound like, "Wow, I could never do that." Actually, this is all available with practice. This is all available. It may be a lot easier than you suppose.

But then the self is not, as it usually is, regarded as the self is the basic actor or the basic desirer -- basically it's me desiring, etc. And the other is not, in this imaginal perception, this dimension of the imaginal, the other is not the conventional perception of the other, what it seems to conventional perception. Careful with this, because it's not here that the self and the other are just empty; it's not only that they're empty, or that they're divine in some kind of universal way as we've touched on (they're partaking or they're essentially universal love, or universal awareness, or whatever it is, or beingness, or whatever the version of universal oneness is). It's not that they're only empty, and it's not that they're just universally divine.

Nor is it that the desire is only anattā, not-self. Yeah? If desire comes up for me, and I regard it as anattā, and I keep that practice, just "not me, not mine," and I'm focusing on the desire and regarding it as not me, not mine, what actually happens is the desire fades. If I keep doing the practice, then the sense of the self will fade with it. And if I really go deep with the anattā practice, the sense of the object fades. Desire, self, and object actually fade. That's different than seeing it as, "It's not my desire, but it's not just anattā -- it's God's desire. It's this divinity. It's the Buddha's eros. It's the Buddha's desire, or it's the deity's or the Buddha-nature's desire to know herself as fully as possible." That's a different perception. It's a different way of looking than just saying, "It's just anattā. It's just 'not me, not mine.'" They all lead to very different results.

So all this is in the phenomenology of our experience and our exploration of eros and soulmaking. Because seeing the desire as the deity's desire, the Buddha's desire, seeing it as the Buddha-nature's desire to know herself fully as possible, as God's desire to know himself fully as possible, then the eros sustains or even expands, increases, deepens, gets richer. And the sense, the perception, of self and other are retained. The imaginal self, the imaginal other, are retained or amplified. There isn't a fading as there would be in the anattā practice or regarding the desire as anattā. There is instead the increase, this swelling, the tumescence, the expansion, widening, deepening, etc., of the soulmaking dynamic, of the eros-psyche-logos -- so much so that it can be seen even more clearly as, "This is God's soulmaking dynamic. This is God's eros-psyche-logos." Sometimes the whole thing deepens even further, and we get the sense that all instances of eros are, if you like, instantiations of the -- what should we call it? -- the erotic dynamic of the World Soul.

The whole thing spills over into a vast sense of cosmopoesis and divinity. All instances of eros are instantiations of the erotic dynamic of the World Soul desiring, wanting to grow, to expand, to fertilize, to grow new shoots, to create/discover new perspectives, new perceptions, new experiences. Craving releases, is decreased. The imaginal, the images of self and other, grow, deepen, widen, gain new facets, dimensions. Not the tightness that might have been experienced before, if the desire was problematic. And in this movement opening, there isn't the tightness. There isn't the reification. There's space. As I said, space, peace, beauty, with the desire. It hasn't erased the eros -- one has kept it, and actually taken it deeper -- nor the image, nor the other, nor the self. These things are given other dimensions, etc.

Looking in this way, learning to look in these ways -- I'm just offering a few possibilities in practice, but -- with all of this, craving, contraction, dukkha dissolve. Soulmaking and the sense of beauty and sacredness and all that increases, because the eros-psyche-logos dynamic is allowed to expand and to open up new dimensions in that expansion. Beauty, soulmaking, sense of divinity, sacredness, all that.