Conversations with a Soul (11 page)

The Soul’s focus is not centered on a time yet to be but on the present. The Soul digs down deep into life and exposes the powerful forces that would rather remain hidden. The Soul is not afraid of conflict. The Soul cares little for good manners and without a moment of apology breaks into our reflections and interrupts our train of thought.

For the Soul, images are the gateway to truth yet they require a non-literal context in which to come alive. Denied the liberating, transforming power of imagination images remain dead flotsam, mere data to be filed away, a procedure with which the Soul has little patience. This sets Soul against
all
prisons including those that operate within the confines of language; which, in turn, allows Soul to joyfully honor contradiction.

Interpreted by the Soul our stories don’t fit simple (or complex) configurations, that rely on logical connections between cause and effect but, instead, come to stand before us clothed in mystery, yearning to be understood instead of being explained, yearning to be loved instead of being dismissed.

The Soul interrupts, brings trouble, throws things into disarray and generally interferes with the smooth running of life.

Daring to take the Soul seriously is tantamount to playing with a box of high explosives! At any moment from any quarter something could explode shattering the status quo, destroying facades, and setting us off in a new direction.

According to the Soul, paradox does not need to be resolved but embraced; contradiction does not need to be untangled but accepted as part of the competing complexities of being alive; history is not the final word but simply the prologue to a story that is being written.

Technically it’s known as
'Brainstorming'
and most of us have, at one time or another, participated in brainstorming, even if we never called it that.

When as children, together with a small group of friends, we tried to solve a puzzle or contribute to the building of a story or piled up pillows so that they might serve as a secret castle, everyone owned a stake in the enterprise and no one thought to stop the flow of creativity for such puerile reasons as grammar, logic, or an inadequate vocabulary. Trusting our imaginations we simply let the process take its course, confident that it would turn out all right in the end. We gave permission for wizards to come and join our game and for inconsistencies to lose their power; a common stick became a magic sword and dragons switched from enemies to invincible, fire breathing allies.

Some managers, many of them in complex business settings, have finally caught on to the value of revisiting those childhood games. Under the guidance of highly paid consultants (which mother used to manage for free) they regularly engage in brainstorming sessions.

A cardinal rule of brainstorming exercises is that everyone is required to suspend their much beloved
critical analysis
, so much a part of their training. Thus constrained, each member of the team is required to abandon exercising judgement and encouraged to give themselves (and each other) permission to contribute their ideas, no matter how absurd they might seem. Questions about cost, workability, practicality and simple logic are not allowed to interfere with the flow of ideas.

In practice brainstorming is less of a technique and more of a game, the goal of which is to deal with a problem or an issue or an idea through the use of
free association
.

Members of the team, some of whom have previously been humiliated for making inappropriate suggestions, are understandably cautious and the game is slow to start. Yet after a short while, when the dreaded curse of censure fails to materialize, they warm to the game and the ideas begin to flow!

Many insights emerge from this simple game. Not least, each participant learns that every contribution has value; sometimes providing a springboard for more ideas; sometimes simply expanding the range of possibilities; sometimes encouraging the other members of the team to risk and sometimes simply asserting each members right to be a part of the enterprise. Above all is the discovery that hiding behind the mundane and prosaic there lay mystery and endless possibilities.

Amongst all the preposterous ideas that are tossed out, there are almost always some worthy of further exploration. Most of these contributions would certainly have been preempted had the rules encouraged or simply permitted a critical attitude. Now, upon reflection, they seem to have been born in a stroke of brilliance.

There’s usually a fair amount of laughter that accompanies the exercise as the participants relax and learn to trust the process. They begin to flirt with each other’s ideas and build upon them. Most find it a wonderful experience to allow their imaginations free reign and, for a while, enjoy a sunny life in a community free from censure.

Soon they have accumulated a significant store of ideas where before there were none. Avenues for exploration open up and possibilities begin to emerge and most of the players are reluctant to end the game when time is called.

One way of understanding the brainstorming game is to see it as a non-censored, free-wheeling experience in the manipulation of images.

My Soul loves to play this game!

Yet more than playing a game this is a way of being for the Soul and most Soul conversations start with some variation of the brainstorming exercise, for it is at the intersection of two worlds,
imagination and possibility,
that a conversation starts.

Every one of us lives, simultaneously, in two worlds: the external world which is all around us and an internal world which is always present. Although there is a constant dialog between the two, quite early in life we develop a preference for one or the other. Some gravitate quite naturally to the external world, particularly the interaction of persons between them and with each other.

Conversely, some of us develop a preference for the internal world. In this secret inner realm where mystery, wonder and myth speak a unique language, introverts are most at home. Here is where dreams take on significance, beyond merely the fantasy parade left over from yesterday; here too is where the dead can be made present simply by recalling their memory.

The intersection of the external world and the internal realm is a powerful place. It is here that we begin to see what we have never seen before. William Wordsworth seems to have found this to be so in his own experience, leading him to write:

To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower,

Even the loose stones that cover the highway,

I gave a moral life: I saw them feel

Or linked them to some great feeling: the great mass

Lay bedded in some quickening Soul, and all

That I beheld respired with inward meaning.
²⁹

Joseph Campbell chose to live his life at the intersection of these two worlds within his own culture and beyond. This brought him to regularly map out the territory occupied by the Soul and marked the journey which led to Soul conversations. Shortly before his death, he described his journeys in a book he entitled,
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space.
Like all students of the Soul, he lived in wonder of the immensity of the worlds within:

There is a beautiful saying of Novalis: ‘The seat of the Soul is there, where the outer and inner worlds meet.’ That is the wonder-land of myth. From the outer world the senses carry images to the mind, which do not become myth, however, until they are transformed by fusion with accordant insights, awakened as imagination from the inner world of the body.
³⁰

When it comes to the practice of prayer or meditation different faiths have adopted their own procedures. Some make use of icons, rosaries, or a kneeling posture to help focus attention on God, others regard all such aids as idolatrous arising as they do from a physical world clearly pickled in sin. Both approaches and their variants aim to have the mind cleared of all distractions in order to focus upon one’s faith.

Images are the enemy.

This has never worked for me!

I cannot remember the circumstances but I suspect the from an early age I was taught that the correct way in which to approach God and all things spiritual is to fold my hands and close my eyes, presumably to save me from a Christopher Robin type distraction with images!

Taking my cue from those childhood instructions, I assumed that spirituality was all about retreating from life and working hard not to be distracted by common things.

That wasn’t very difficult when I stood in a pulpit but once I sat in a pew it all changed.

I never have much of a problem with the folded hands part, but close my eyes and the world marches into my mind! Suddenly, a laundry list, ranging from the important to the ridiculous, clamors for my
immediate
attention.

The place doesn’t seem to matter either. I have tried meditation in Church but that seldom works. Perhaps my mind is too undisciplined for I am soon drawn to the question of how on earth they manage to change the light bulbs way up in the ceiling and the parallel problem of cleaning stain glass windows especially when a sheet of Perspex covers both sides!

The question of prayer presented its own problems. While I was saying the prayers, I was in control, and that meant I could choose the images with which my Soul could enter a conversation. When I had to listen to someone else the experience was frustrating. I frequently felt that, surely we don’t have to give God a lot of information, (has God not yet figured out we are in a lot of trouble?) nor remind God of promises culled from the Bible (without sounding like whining adolescents). So I ended up not sure whether I should simply sit there with my eyes closed (which became an invitation to the afore mentioned flotsam and jetsam of life) or somehow try to just go along with the words.

Maybe, many years from now, I will learn the secret of fruitful withdrawal but I suspect not. My Spirit is just too unruly. Sedentary spirituality simply doesn’t work for me. To make matters worse, the harder I try to exclude the world of distractions, the more powerful they become. There’s almost a double bind at work here, like the direction to “ignore this sign.” The more you try to do it, the less you manage. The harder I try to not think about distracting thoughts and ideas, the harder and more urgently they press their case.

Like all double binds the only way out is simply
not to play the game
. So instead of a spirituality based on withdrawal, I have worked on a spirituality based on engagement.

I decided to surrender to the images and even give them life by summoning imagination to help me to let the images live. I chose to see them as portals through which I could journey and trusted that my Soul would engage me
through
the images.

Once I stopped trying to fight off the images and allowed them to be present they stopped being mere distractions.

It has been the
engagement
with images
rather than a retreat into stillness which has inspired and informed my journey. I am much encouraged by the way in which Jesus spent a good deal of time walking about and teaching that the world in which he lived was filled with lessons. Flowers and fish, money and leaky carafes, bread and wine all formed a rich tapestry in his world, as they have in mine. In the place of stillness, I have chosen movement, instead of emptying my mind I have reached out to the world through which I passed, and came to understand with greater clarity what drew men and women to walk amongst the stones at Stonehenge.