Aspects of the Imaginal (Part 3)

So if we recap a little before we continue further, we've given a loose list of elements or aspects that we can identify, that constitute the imaginal or the fully imaginal. And we've said that there's a spectrum of the use of imagination, or rather the spectrum of the skilful use of the imagination, if we just take that part of the spectrum, from, say, just mindful imagination, all the way to the imaginal. So that in relation to these elements, aspects of the imaginal that we want to point out and discern, and kind of develop our discernment and our refinement of discrimination and noticing, in relation to all that, we're kind of -- there's some ambivalence -- we're holding it all loosely.

So we do want to increase the precision and the depth and the subtlety of our discernment, because that's part of the whole work. And we want to kind of be loose with this. So how many elements there are in the list is loose, depending on how we chop it up. And you'll see things are connected, or we can chop it differently, or say "That's one," or "No, no, that's really two," or whatever. And really, the intention is to encourage, you know? Certainly not to discourage, to get overwhelmed. So we need a little looseness. There's a spectrum, and even what we mean by 'imaginal' and 'soulmaking' and all that is something that has its own dynamic to it anyway, which is, to some extent, relatively arbitrary. At what point of that evolution of a dynamic do we cut off and say, "Now it's imaginal"? So all this is held kind of loosely, and I hope you can enter into that spirit of looseness with precision, or precision with a kind of ease to it, and looseness and fluidity to it.

We also said, certainly, that the list wasn't exhaustive or complete. We could add to it, etc. We could do it differently. The elements, the aspects that we're pointing to apply both to so-called intrapsychic images and to perceptions of material things, selves, others, etc., objects in the world. So it applies both to so-called intrapsychic images and to what we're going to call sensing with soul. [3:09]

One of the first things to say here is that, in the way we understand it, there is nothing that is inherently imaginal. So some thing, some object or thing or event is imaginal for someone, and even then, for someone at a specific time. There's nothing that is, by itself, inherently imaginal. So an imaginal image, or the imaginal, or sensing with soul is a way of looking, a way of conceiving, a way of sensing an image or a perception. That's a better way of putting it: it's a relationship. It's a way of looking, conceiving, sensing a relationship with an image or a certain perception in any of the senses that constitutes the imaginal or sensing with soul. So the kind of relationship: when the relationship has certain elements in it, or certain aspects to it, then something comes alive imaginally for us, at that time, when the relationship is such. And we can also say, when something is imaginal, there is a certain kind of relationship. Or, in other words, sensing with soul is a relationship. It's a relationship that we're talking about that has, is characterized and constituted by all these different aspects and elements.

So someone might have a film or a book in mind, or a piece of art, or whatever it is. And that film, book, or piece of art might have kind of slightly surreal or imagistic kind of representations in it, or forms, figures, characters. They might be what seem to fit into the kind of classical (quote) 'archetypes.' You know, this film or whatever it is, "Oh, it has someone who's kind of a warrior, and it has someone who's kind of a king, and someone who's kind of a clown, and someone who's kind of a mysterious sort of prostitute, and someone who's kind of a thief, and someone who's kind of a madwoman," or whatever. They're all kind of, we could say, our classical archetypes or whatever, and we say, "Oh, it's an imaginal film. It's really imaginal." Or we say, "It's an imaginal book," or something.

But in our conception, such a film, book, piece of art, whatever it is, is not necessarily imaginal. Nor, incidentally, is it -- according to the way James Hillman would define 'archetypal' -- is it necessarily archetypal. I'm not totally equating what we're doing with James Hillman's work, but there's that overlap there, that it's more in the relationship, it's more in the fruit of what an image or an object or a perception of something or other gives that qualifies it to have the word imaginal or archetypal, according to our conception, and also, in terms of the word 'archetypal,' also according to James Hillman's.

So clown, warrior, king, prostitute, madwoman, thief, whatever it is -- these are not inherent aspects of the imaginal, those kind of things. It's rather the relationship with anything at all. When that relationship, if you like, opens up, creates and discovers a sense of dimensionality, a sense of unfathomability, some kind of sense of divinity, some kind of sense of beauty that touches us, some kind of sense of meaningfulness for us, some kind of way that it echoes and mirrors us and our lives in that meaningfulness, some kind of mystery, some kind of eros, some kind of potential expansion of the whole eros-psyche-logos dynamic -- all that, and more -- when the relationship stimulates, triggers, opens, invites, creates, and discovers all that, then we say this thing is imaginal.

So maybe that film, book, piece of art, etc., was all that, did all that at a certain time for Person A. But for Person B, they look at it, and they just see, "Hmm, okay, it's not triggering the imaginal." Why? Because the relationships that Person A and Person B each have with said film, book, piece of art, whatever it is, are different: one constitutes, supports, fertilizes the whole opening of the erotic-imaginal, and one doesn't. [8:48]

So some of these elements of the relationship, I want to elaborate, take a little bit of time and elaborate some of them -- some of them, just touch on, and some, elaborate a bit more over this group of talks. And one way of thinking about all this is, when we talk about an image, we think of an object. And I've also pointed out in talks in the past, there's also the self gets involved, drawn into the imaginal constellation. The self becomes imaginal in relation to the imaginal other or object. And then the world does, in cosmopoesis and all that.

So that's really important, but another -- kind of to expand on that -- we could say that when we talk about an imaginal image, what we're really talking about (or one way to understand what we're talking about, to kind of envisage what we're talking about) is that there's a kind of a lattice, if you like -- not a lettuce, a lattice, like a constellation, an arrangement of elements that are all connected with each other, like a kind of -- I don't want to push this, but kind of like a fluid crystal structure, or something like that. But a lattice -- something like that, a constellation. And there are nodes or elements that are kind of discrete, but kind of not. But as I said, they all join.

So when we talk about something being imaginal, or entering the world of the imaginal, or this relationship that supports, constitutes, opens, ignites the erotic-imaginal, we're really talking about the lattice. There's a lattice there, and there are nodes in this lattice. And when something is fully imaginal, all the nodes are kind of firing, if you like, igniting, alive, mirroring each other, feeding each other, opening each other -- all that -- reflecting each other, and empowering each other. [10:54]

What this means for practice is, it's not just a matter of definition and pickiness, but it means that sometimes, again, if we say there's a spectrum towards the imaginal, of the uses of imagination, and then towards the so-called fully or genuinely or authentically imaginal, then partly that has to do with how many of these nodes in the lattice are firing together and kind of mutually empowering each other. How many are lit up? How many are alive that way?

So what this means in practice is that sometimes we can kind of nudge things along that spectrum. When we have an image or a perception, we can nudge things along towards the more fully or authentically, genuinely imaginal in a few different ways, but by taking into consideration or being aware of the different possible nodes in the imaginal constellation, in the lattice, and perhaps wiggling one or jiggling one. Just wiggle this particular one -- for instance, the energy body. Just come into it, just bring that alive a bit more, with a bit more awareness.

Sometimes it's a matter of doing something deliberate. Other times it's a matter of noticing a certain element, a certain aspect that we haven't fully noticed. It's there sort of latently or potentially. And our mindful noticing of it and resonating with that particular node -- say, the energy body -- in that noticing it, that particular node then comes alive, becomes more imaginal. As I said, "Here I am with this image, but it's not really fully imaginal. Here I am with this perception; it's not really fully sensing it with soul." And for instance, I start to notice this sense of the way, in some way that's really hard to articulate fully -- maybe we'll be able to partially articulate it (I'll come back to this) -- it echoes and mirrors my life and my journey. And I start to just tune into that, and allow and feel and notice and pay attention -- subtle, sensitive attention -- to that echoing and mirroring of myself and my life with this image, for instance.

Or I start to notice how the energy body feels. Or I notice the sense of meaningfulness, or whatever it is. Or I notice that it has this kind of, "Oh, yes," this kind of dimensionality and unfathomability, or whatever, or the aspect of the kind of 'neither real nor not real,' or somehow neither really applies there -- the kind of imaginal Middle Way or theatre quality.

So one possibility is just noticing, just gently looking for a certain element. And oftentimes, it's like, as I said, it's there. It's latent. It's waiting just in the shade, in the dark. And our noticing it and attuning to it brings that particular node alive. And then, if you like, that node starts to ignite others. It's like blowing on a corner of a fire, and that side of the fire or piece of wood ignites another one. So we can say, the noticing of one of these aspects -- sometimes it just takes one -- can ignite that particular node, that particular aspect or element. And that can either suddenly or gradually illuminate, ignite, fire up, turn on the other nodes. And then the whole thing becomes imaginal.

So it's like we almost blow on a node. Sometimes it's a matter of noticing it. Sometimes it's a matter of empowering it somehow. Sometimes it's a matter of wiggling or jiggling it. So for example, with the energy body, it might be just a different kind of way that we pay attention to the energy body, or imagining the body a certain way, or spreading the energy. For instance, that's what I mean by more 'wiggling' or 'jiggling' the possibilities.

So there's something very important in all this, in this -- loosely speaking -- 'list' that we're going to go into that's, as I said, very important for the refinement of the discernment, very important for the clarity, but also important for the practice, and potentially has a lot of power -- I was using the word 'keys' or 'ignition points' or whatever -- to turn the whole thing on and move it towards the fully or authentically imaginal.

And, having said all that, I feel quite strongly about this, that there's, again, a kind of Middle Way, because (and I'll probably come back to this as well) soulmaking and the imaginal, for me, involve an element of grace. It's not purely in the remit of what we can control with clever techniques. Neither is it fully out of that range. So it's like we are given something. Soul gives us something, opens a door for us. It's a grace. It's never fully in our -- that's the keyword: it's never fully in our control or under our control or mastered by our technique. There's always some mystery in it, and some sense of receiving something: "Gosh, where did that come from? How did that ...?"

Soul, we could say, in a certain way, is giving us something, or showing us something of herself. Psyche is showing us something of herself, of her mystery. We are bestowed upon, we are recipients of grace. To me, that -- not just attitude, but that awareness, that acknowledgment, recognition that there will always be a limit to our technique, and to the degree with which soul and soulmaking and image are under our control, and mastered by our technical manipulations.

And yet, at the same time, we can do things. We can jiggle things, and notice things, and something comes alive. So much of this conception and work involves straddling different conceptions and different attitudes, different orientations -- somehow mysteriously holding both. This is really, really important. But on the one hand, soul -- there's a grace involved there. Soul is always bigger than me. It's always bigger than and, if you like, more powerful than my ego and my will. And at the same time, there's quite a lot we can subtly work with and support by our placement of our attention, our attitude, our inner work and all that -- what we could loosely include under the word 'technique.' So it's straddling both those approaches or attitudes, if you like. [19:08]

So I touched on the energy body. We could actually start there. I threw it in at some point in the list towards the end, but we could start there. And there's no order to the list. There's no order in which these elements or nodes of the lattice need to ignite or progress: "This first, and then that," in some kind of linear way. So it's more like a network of nodes or lights or something, and you can enter from any direction. That's part of the beauty of it.

But let's start with the energy body, just to give an example. So what this means (I've already kind of said it, but let's just make it really clear), that characteristic, we could say, one element of our list, depending on how we divide up our list -- one element of our list is, characteristic of the imaginal, something is not imaginal, in our language, there is not the sensing with soul for us without the awareness of the energy body. So that's characteristic of the imaginal, characteristic of this constellation, this relational constellation.

As we go through the nodes of the lattice, you'll see that some more obviously seem to pertain to the object, and some more obviously seem to pertain to the subject. But all that kind of gets mixed up and expanded. But if we just start with this: characteristic of the imaginal and that relational constitution is awareness of the energy body, a sensitivity to what's happening in the energy, or the experience of the energy body in the moment. What this means for practice, again, is that bringing awareness to energy body, filling that energy body with awareness and sensitivity, and the delicacy involved in that, tuning to it, including that in our awareness as we pay attention to either a so-called intrapsychic image or something else in the material world, including the energy body awareness, because it's a node in the lattice, can actually stimulate, ignite, fan the fire of, and then bring into co-burning the other nodes of the lattice. So bringing, including the energy body awareness, just kind of noticing what's going on there, and just bringing, kind of turning the dial up on the awareness of the energy body and the sensitivity there can stimulate the opening of the erotic-imaginal.

And that has two aspects: the erotic part, meaning that if there might be craving there, sometimes what happens, as we bring the awareness to the energy body, craving morphs into eros. We could say that. There's a transformation of craving or grasping into eros. And we've talked a lot about the difference between those two in the past. I'm not going to go into it right now. But because the energy body is a node in the lattice, giving attention to that, we kind of support that node to come alive, and then that might start to spread, and the whole thing becomes more imaginal, or even completely imaginal, so to speak.

So there's a mutual dependent origination between the nodes of this imaginal constellation, of this lattice. Again, I touched on this just now, but let's say it again: in other words, when the energy body awareness is included and comes alive, then either suddenly or gradually, the soulmaking resonances might come alive, or some other aspect of the nodes of the lattice. And vice versa. As we kind of allow the soulmaking resonances to come alive, we start to feel, "Oh, yeah. And I feel some of those resonances in the body, and it stimulates the energy body." We could probably take any two, for example, elements of this lattice, nodes in this lattice, and say that they are mutually dependent, which means one gets stimulated, another gets stimulated. Or they kind of feed each other, and they can trigger each other. [24:05]

So if we were to give instructions, it might be that, here I am, working with an intrapsychic image, or working in relation to some thing, some object, some person or being in the world, that I'm kind of wanting to support sensing them with soul, for that relationship to become imaginal. And it's like, as an instruction, can I just drop in, perhaps, the question or the encouragement to myself, "Can I be in relationship with this object, whatever it is, intrapsychic or otherwise? Can I be in relationship with this object with the whole of my body?"

Sometimes I'm in relationship with just a part of my body, with this other, person or thing. Or I'm just relating through the eyes, or just through one sense, or just through my head centre, or just through my heart-sense, whatever it is. Can I somehow put my whole body in relationship with this other? And that includes the whole body, the whole energy body. I'm feeling it, and I'm feeling it in relationship. What is it that I sense this other, this object, or this person, or whatever, with my whole body? And within that, included in that, is my whole body. I'm aware of the energy body there, and what that feels like, what my sense of it is.

So I'll come back and talk more about this whole concept of the nodes in the lattice or the imaginal constellation, and the kind of ignition of that. I'll say a bit more about that later, but I hope you get the general principle of what I'm talking about. And it's really, really worth including this awareness and starting to experiment with it and kind of noticing the magic here.

While we've touched on the energy body, just to kind of recap, because so many of these concepts can be confusing or hard to get clear. And it's tricky, because in a way, they are open concepts, and not so clear. And that's, for me, part of the beauty. It might be frustrating, and just confusing for people. But partly, I think my articulation is evolving over time, and partly the concepts themselves (and we'll come back to this) are deliberately kind of -- they don't have hard edges. I've talked about that before, and I'll talk about it again.

But just to say, so what do we mean by 'energy body'? Energy body, again, is actually a way of looking and conceiving, rather than a particular experience. So when we say 'energy body,' it's a whole range of experience, but it's a way of looking and of conceiving. It's a way of looking at this bodily experience, a way of sensing this body, bodily experience, that feels the space of the body as a field of energy or vibration or texture. And that has a huge range in it. It could be very, very solid, very dense, very kind of, if you like, earthy, from a certain use of that word, all the way to extremely ethereal, etc., and everything in between. So it's a way of looking, a way of sensing that feels the space of the body as a field of energy, vibration, texture, with all the range that's included in that potentially.

And it's a way of conceiving that does not limit the body, or the idea of the body, to only the conventional, scientific materialist, and typical modern conception of body or modern view of body -- for example, that it's just flatly material, that somehow this is just matter without any depth or dimensionality or soul to it, that somehow comes, and when you fire the neurons up, you get something called consciousness (no one quite understands how). But basically, the matter itself is just flatly conceived according to the typical sort of classical scientific materialism. And the conception that, really, only that understanding is the true understanding: "That's the only way to really understand what the body really is" -- in other words, in terms of this kind of physicalist reductionism, or even a physical, physicalist systems theory. You know, you can say, "Oh, that's not reductionist." Yeah, we're talking about something beyond that as well. You say, "Well, the body is a kind of system of physical elements that kind of emerges something higher than just purely the matter." And also included in this conception that doesn't limit the conception of the body to only typical modern views, it means also that the body and the sense of the body and the conception of the body is not being judged according to socially fashionable notions of attractiveness. So energy body is a way of looking and of conceiving that embraces all that. [30:01]

While we're on the subject, let me just point out -- and this may be something that we come back to; it's connected to the whole idea that any concept we're using is kind of connected with other concepts, and exactly where it shades into another concept is not rigidly defined, not rigidly and clearly demarcated. But let's say something, at the risk of confusing. I think it just fills out a little bit this business about body and energy body. I would say whenever there is any sense of body, any time there is any sense of body, there is some concept, some image, and some inner, felt sense of that body. Okay? Any sense of body, there is some concept of what that body is, some concept or other, some kind of image of it (a visual image or whatever), and some inner, felt sense of that body.

Now, the concept -- this includes energy body, and just any time there's any sense of body. The concept, it may be, for example, that typical scientific materialist biological conception of bones, organs, tissues, etc., which are composed of cells, which are themselves composed of intercellular structures, etc. And all these, in this view, are in interactive relationship with each other, and with the outer material environment. So that's a certain concept. There may be that.

It may be, at other times -- and some of you will have tasted this kind of thing -- it may be that the body is made of light, and so there is a concept that actually, there's a kind of light body, a subtle body of light. It may be the concept, for instance, emerging from certain meditative experiences -- for instance, some jhānic experiences. So say, for example, one comes out of the sixth jhāna (the realm, the jhāna, the sphere of infinite consciousness), or something similar-ish to that, and one really has the conception and the sense that the body's substance is actually consciousness, that all this matter is actually consciousness. And it's a kind of cosmic consciousness, or whatever. That would be a very typical concept arising sort of in the after-effect of the sixth jhāna, for example.

But any time there's a sense of body, there's some concept. We might not be aware of what the concept is, or fully articulate it. But some kind of concept is operating any time there is any sense of body, I would say. And I've also said there's some kind of image any time there's any sense of body. Now, that image may be one of space -- like the nature of the body is space; it's also an image of space, for example, in the fifth jhāna. The image, at any point, when there's any sense of the body, the image may be imaginal in the sense that we've been using that word, so that then the body is perceived as kind of numinous, multidimensional, possessing its own autonomous intelligence, etc., all these other aspects of the imaginal constellation that we're going into in these talks.

And of course, the image of the body at some time may be a very non-imaginal image or perception. It's just kind of in my mind's eye: I see the contours of a body, and there's nothing numinous, or multidimensional, or certainly not that it has its own intelligence, or anything like that. It's just a body in the usual kind of sense of the word. The image itself is a little flat. So there's always some concept. There's always some image. And there's always some felt sense, some inner felt sense of that body, of the texture of sensation in the space of the body, in the space the body's perceived to exist -- always has some sense. And again, that sense might be, it's just there is an absence there. And again, that would be more akin to some of the formless jhānas. That kind of felt sense there is, "There is a disappearing of a felt sense," but you still have the felt sense of absence, of non-solidity, of space. So there's always some kind of felt sense or other, the sense of some kind of density, some kind of field of feeling or vibration or energy. And again, the range is huge.

Now, of course, all these three -- concept, image, and felt sense -- that are part of bodily experience, the phenomenon of the body for us, they're actually, again, interrelated and not separate. They overlap each other. And just a little examination of your experience, and thinking about this, you'll see that. So it's good to delineate things, and it's also good to not get too stuck on these delineations. Some concept, some image, and some inner felt sense, and they overlap. [35:50]

So why are we saying all this? We're partly saying this, talking and delineating this way, not to claim or even attempt a description of truth: "This is the truth of the body. This is the reality of the body. It's really this kind of matter, or it's really that kind of matter," or whatever. We're saying all this, and we're making these delineations, in order to help open up the possibilities of experience, of image, into the imaginal, of conception, of energy, of perception, and emotion, in fact, of body, matter, self, others, world, soul, and cosmos. We want, by opening up these, making these discriminations, opening up and putting them in relation to each other, it kind of stimulates an awareness that can then unblock, because we're not trapped in certain conceptions that we're not really even aware that we have. So we want to unblock what may, without our even realizing it, be blocking or inhibiting these openings of soulmaking. So that's behind all these kind of delineations, discriminations, and all that, definitions.

Okay, but going back to our main point: the energy body awareness is one node in this lattice that's mutually dependently arising, that can help us in noticing it, in wiggling or jiggling it, in tuning to it, and blowing on that ember, if you like, brings it, fires it up more, ignites it up more. And that can support the opening of the whole, the ignition of the whole lattice into something more profoundly, fully, authentically imaginal.

Another aspect that is, if you like, intrinsic to what we would call imaginal images or sensing with soul, is that the imaginal and sensing with soul open up soulmaking. It's kind of a circular definition. And we will return to this word, 'soulmaking.' I've talked a lot about it in the past. But we'll return to it even in this set of talks. But basically, that's an element, if you like, of the imaginal constellation, is that there is a sense of soulmaking. Something is only imaginal if it brings soulmaking. We're only sensing with soul if there's some sense of soulmaking there.

This would be a second element that we're just focusing on right now. The first one's the energy body. The second one is this: it supports and opens and stimulates soulmaking. But if we dwell on this second one, this business of soulmaking (and as I said, I'll return to it), what is the relationship, then, between imagination and soulmaking? Not imaginal and soulmaking, but imagination and soulmaking. So in the way, again, we're using that term, 'soulmaking,' as I said, it may be quite different, actually -- share a lot of elements with how other people may use it, or how you may understand it at this point, but there are quite a few differences as well.

So soulmaking, in our kind of definition, if you like, implies that eros and psyche and logos (concept) are involved and worked or stretched in the process, in the dynamic of soulmaking. Eros, psyche, and logos are involved and worked and stretched. Now, psyche, we said in previous retreats and talks, when we use the word psyche, one of the meanings we mean is image, the image. There's also the collection of images or whatever. So in the eros-psyche-logos dynamic, the psyche, the image, it may not be image in the obvious sense -- in other words, "There's an image that I see intrapsychically, or this object that I'm looking at or whatever in the world." It may be more the fantasy of what is happening, and the self in relationship or in the process of what is happening.

I might have given this example in some of the other talks on eros: for example, a person practising with dedication and opening up the jhānas deliberately, and going step by step, and piecing it together, and really beginning to feel like, "First of all, this is amazing. What beautiful states. What a blessing to be able to open to these kind of things, and discover them, and be nourished and resourced by these dimensions, etc." But secondly, one is struck on that path, on the jhānic path, as one develops it, one is struck, like, "Wow. This is what the Buddha was talking about. It just totally fits the description." When he gives those beautiful images of the lake fed by an underground spring and such, and then he delineates what's involved in second jhāna, third jhāna, and one just absolutely recognizes intuitively, "This is absolutely what he was talking about." And then one feels this kind of beautiful connection between oneself and the Buddha, and the whole 2,500 year tradition carried on, and "Here, little old me is experiencing what the Buddha was talking about, and I recognize it from the words, and it's been handed to me through the tradition. I'm walking that path. And who knows then what else will be open, will be able to open?"

So there's a kind of fantasy there, actually, in the good sense, of the beauty of that connection, the inspiration of it, the fantasy of the self on the path (which is also a fantasy), and the tradition (which is also a fantasy) -- the whole thing. So that's one aspect of the way image or fantasy is working there with the jhānas, which in themselves are actually non-imagistic states. They're the quieting of mental representation and image, by definition almost.

The soulmaking might be, or can arise, when something is new for us, when we're opening up new territory that feels meaningful, that has a kind of beauty and is beyond what we already know. It possesses something like, "I'm in contact with this." Let's say a jhāna's opening, and it's new to me. I haven't totally, thoroughly become utterly familiar with it. And that takes a while to get used to the jhānas. It's still new. It's still got this kind of otherness, a beyondness that I can get to know more of. So it becomes an object of eros for me, of attraction. But it doesn't involve image in the usual sense.

But anything that, when we're at the stage with something that's just opening for our psyche, for our consciousness, for our being -- so for instance, jhānas, or it might just be heart work, that we've never really done any heart work. And then we come to retreats, Gaia House retreats, and some of the teachers are talking so beautifully, and encouraging this kind of sensitivity to one's heart, and the opening of the heart, and the valuing of the beauties in the heart, and the vulnerability, and the honesty with oneself about one's heart, and the honesty with others, perhaps. And all this might be new. It's new territory. We're expanding into something.

For a while, it stays new. When it's new and meaningful and beautiful like that, and attractive, even though we might be a little daunted, then in that stage of newness and beyondness, and it creates a 'more' for me in expanding my being, if you like, opening new territory of expansion, then there can be soulmaking in relation to that thing. And as I said, the thing itself, and the self in that process, can become fantasy as well. But it might not be an image in the usual sense, or in the commonly-thought-of sense.

And again, just body awareness -- someone may never have done any body awareness. I remember back to my really first years, I was very young, starting meditation, and just coming into my body was like, "Wow! Wow!" And even more than that, I remember -- I think I might have told this story before -- I started learning meditation in a class, a weekly class. And the homework -- I think it was for the first week -- was to do five minutes of meditation a day. Not half an hour, not forty-five minutes. Five minutes. So I dutifully did that. I was very taken by the teachings as I first heard them, and I dutifully did that. And it was like opening a whole world, that five minutes. And I went back to the teacher, said, "Wow, it's just unbelievable. Like, I really feel different." I was struggling to articulate it with him, what had happened. He said, "That's mindfulness." I thought, "Oh, mindfulness."

Just that, it was new for me, and so there can be soulmaking -- there was soulmaking in relation to that -- and again, in relation to this path, what I'm discovering, what's being stretched, etc. But it's not an image in the usual sense, or the typically understood sense. And again, like I said, jhānas, body awareness, energy body might be new, and it's like, "Wow!" And that itself stretches us. And again, we have a sense and a fantasy of ourselves on the path of practice. That whole thing becomes fantasy there. Or playfulness. I've emphasized a lot the importance of playfulness in practice. And again, someone might have had very little of that in their life. And then they begin to let themselves have some playfulness, and that feels soulmaking at first -- just the playfulness itself, because something is being expanded, drawn into new territory with all this meaningfulness and beauty, and kind of beyond what I already know.

These elements -- playfulness, heartfulness, energy body awareness -- in themselves, they are necessary and integral elements of imaginal practice, of sensing with soul, of the imaginal constellation. So playfulness, heartfulness, energy body awareness. I didn't mention some of them before, but they are also necessary and integral. But in themselves, they do not make something soulmaking, just playfulness in itself. They don't make something imaginal either. They may, if they're new.

Conversely, we've already said, actually, in the previous talks of this set, mindful imagination or embodied imagination is not necessarily imaginal nor soulmaking in our sense. When we use our imagination, it might be skilful. It might be a really helpful use of the imagination, but there's a kind of reductionism involved. We're kind of reducing it, or we're making it a bit too literal, or we're narrowing it down to a kind of singularity of meaning X or Y. Or we're viewing this image and this image-work in the service solely of my personal growth, or even primarily of my personal growth, or that it represents part of me. All these kind of attitudes, those kind of elements won't allow the full and authentic imaginal. And they will limit. I hope this all makes sense. It won't be that there can't be any soulmaking, but it will limit the degree and depth and fullness and range of soulmaking that is possible.

So, in other words -- again, just to sum up -- it's possible to have the use of the imagination, the skilful and helpful, beneficial use of the imagination, without it being soulmaking, or that the soulmaking is very limited. If, though, using the imagination at all skilfully is something new, if previously it just wasn't allowed in one's tradition or one's upbringing or whatever it was, and then we're introduced to it, or we're allowing it, that skilful use of the imagination, because of the newness, may be soulmaking to some degree. So any skilful imagination is not necessarily imaginal. Any skilful use of the imagination is not necessarily imaginal, but it may be soulmaking.

And similarly, one might have an image that's actually, again, from a book, from a daydream, from a film, whatever. There's an image, there's an imaginative form, a form as image, and it might really touch our heart. Maybe it even makes us cry, and maybe cry with tears of compassion. Really beautiful and important to be touched by that. But it's not necessarily, doesn't necessarily imply, just because the heart is very touched, that it's necessarily imaginal, or that it's necessarily soulmaking in itself.

So soulfulness is, if you like, bigger than heartfulness. It includes heartfulness, but it's more than, involves much more than heartfulness. Again, heartfulness, in a certain language, we could say, heartfulness is a necessary but not sufficient element of the imaginal constellation. So the imaginal does touch our heart in lots of different ways, but in itself, the heart being touched, or heartfulness, is not enough for something to qualify as imaginal.

Okay, let me just highlight one more element or node, and then we'll call it a day for today. And I mentioned this in the list before. I think it might have been the first one, even: love, loving, and being loved. Again, we could count that as two or just one. But that would be, in our list, as we're going through it now, it would be the third one: loving, and being loved. In other words, both the imaginal and sensing with soul include a sense of being loved by this imaginal object or other or being, whatever. Now, I've talked about this before. I'm just mentioning it now, just to highlight it. I've talked about it before. The love in the imaginal, or the love of the imaginal, from the imaginal, always has a particular kind of flavour or character particular to that image and that other. They love us. This imaginal being, imaginal figure, loves me in a very particular way that kind of goes with its character and goes with our particular relationship. It may evolve too. It may change.

I think the reason I'm mentioning this is, sometimes we have, "Oh, love looks like this." And we limit what love can look like and feel like, how it can manifest. I've talked about this before. Sometimes we get too narrow in our idea or vision of what love is. There are very different kinds of love. Some loves are, so to speak, tough loves, or kind of more stern or distant or disciplined, etc. And some are really soft and warm, and melty and comforting and easeful. And it's all love. And so, part of tuning to an imaginal figure or object is tuning to, discerning, and feeling into the particular quality or characteristic, flavour of the love that is there, of the being loved that is there. And sometimes the being loved is not even obvious at all, and a person doesn't see that. But we start to see, "Oh, yeah, there is love here." And again, that ignites, stimulates that particular node of the lattice. And that can stimulate others. It can help us to enter and open up more fully the authentically imaginal. It moves us on that spectrum.

And similarly, the love is two ways. So, again, we might be more aware that we love this tree, but we don't notice yet how the tree loves us, its particular kind of loving, or vice versa. We notice one direction of the love that flows, that moves, that connects and passes between us, and not the other. So whether you count them as two or one, that's a part of what we can notice and even actually jiggle, wiggle, blow on. So actually affirming our love, for instance, is more than just noticing that we love. I'll come back to this, I hope, in a later talk. What is it to actually speak, "I love you"? To say that, to feel it? Not just to feel it and notice that we love, but actually to affirm it, to make that gesture? So sometimes it's that kind of wiggling or jiggling or empowering that actually stimulates the love, which can then stimulate the sense of being loved, perhaps, or just generally, the other nodes of the whole lattice.

And sometimes, as I said, it's just about noticing: "Oh, yeah. There's that. Oh, how beautiful. There's that element of love there." And just tuning to it, bringing that sensitivity to notice what kind it is, and linger with it, and resonate with it, and vibrate with it, so to speak, let it touch the soul.

Okay, let's stop there.