Conversations with a Soul (13 page)

That leap starts by recognizing that images come in many
settings
. Philosophers frequently remind us that the map is not the territory but without a map we cannot speak of the territory nor understand its secrets.

Everything in our world is a part of a system which interrelates with everything else but our ability to grasp the connections (of which we are a part) hinges on our ability to bring
imagination
to the seeing.

We might choose to describe a territory as 'a certain volume of water, located at a certain elevation, which in turn is located at certain geographical coordinates. 'The description is without meaning. It is hardly a description at all. It is without a …
Soul
and therefore it is lifeless.

Now turn imagination loose, now draw a map showing the lake and the family cottage, the dock where the kids used to swim, the barbeque pit and the place where you proposed to your wife. Pencil in where you first saw a moose and where you later learned to fish for trout. Add to the map the path where you and your father used to take walks and suddenly the territory comes alive.

Now that piece of land becomes, 'imaginal' it breathes with life and I can see. Like all imaginal views it expands and systematically connects with other realities. 'The
family
cottage' invites a host of people to come and be present, each with their distinctive personalities and richness. Now I become wrapped in a group where the business of loving and relating comes to the fore. 'The dock where the
kids
used to swim' summons my dreams and hopes and anxieties for those kids now become adults. All of a sudden their children come to stand before me and make their way into my prayers.

So the map of the territory brings the territory to life.

All images are like this. They demand a map drawn by the imagination which makes possible a conversation with the Soul.

Even such images as the highly theoretical study of sub-atomic particles, have led scientists to realize that particles are not merely accidental chunks of matter that come our way and which operate independently of anything else. Particles “seem” to have a mind and their behavior is influenced by the presence of observers.
³³
Yet the only way we can speak about these minute particles is by framing what we can understand of their behavior in an, admittedly inadequate, map. Hence physicists write and speak about
string theory
and
m theory
which nudges the old Newtonian paradigms to the side and replaces them with Einstein’s four dimensional continuum of space-time.

All images demand to be framed in an appropriate map in order that they may address us.

In fact we are all map-makers. Every day of our lives we draw maps so that we might understand and engage and guided by the Soul we start conversations that lead to life.

Lovers, poets and artists know this. A familiar name and face, a piece of land, a view of the ocean and then one day there’s a change of light or shadow and you see what you’ve seen a thousand times, only now a map has been drawn and you see it for the first time.

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.
³⁴

The images have worked their magic!

Maps help us to know and forge a link between the image and our experience.

For example; we understand how our bodies work and we have vast libraries to describe the processes, even if most of the books use obscure Latin terms to describe even simple functions. However when it comes to engaging the mysterious invisible experiences, with which we are all intimately familiar, we soon find ourselves in strange territory and grasping for words.

When I view the intricate descriptions of a hand I am left keenly aware that, however profound the science of biology might be, and however skillful the art of the illustrator, they tell little of my hand’s secrets:

There is no evidence of the first time I took a girl’s hand in mine and the giddy wonder of falling in love. There is no record of holding hands while I made promises before a group of friends and then the exchange of rings, of which a finger of the hand was to be the custodian, so that the whole world would understand that I had made certain commitments, and from that day on we would journey together. Later those same hands would nurture and cradle a wee baby as I somehow tried to communicate my unconditional love for that tiny thing.

When the tears came and the toys broke or when illness made an unwelcome call, my hands would hold that growing baby until the moment was past and we could start to laugh again.

Still later, holding my hand brought safety, security and resources to a little girl when we crossed a busy road, as it would for her brother a few years later. I instinctively took them in my arms when we shared the great triumphs and tragedies that formed the substance of each day, while I tried to rub or pat away each disaster that threatened to rob a child of dignity and self-worth.

When we see each other after a period apart, my hands reach out to my son or my daughter trying to communicate something, a longing, a joy, a hope for which I have no adequate words.

Holding the hand of a beloved friend as he slipped from this world into the next went far deeper than any words could go.

Today these hands tell the story of my life in scars and calluses for they have never refused to obey my will. Only now have they started to complain with a bit of arthritis but that’s not too bad.

I see the story of my wife’s love in her hands, chapped by washing too many dishes yet ever ready to slide her hand into mine when we walk together, so that in the simplest of ways we might express love for one another.

At the end of the day my little grandson wraps his arms as far around me as he can reach with a
'G’night Grandpa, see you tomorrow,'
and I know myself to be the recipient of a small boy’s love and my heart dances with joy!

Nerves and tendons, muscles and bones are wondrous things, yet to understand the real story of hands we need to go beyond the dry language of science, and so it is with all our deep engagements with life.

We need a map.

And maps need the life-giving dynamic of imagination.

Merv Bartelson was the music teacher at Edith Landels Elementary School.

Merv’s classroom housed a variety of instruments, music stands, chairs and important notices scribbled on the blackboard. From time to time, usually at the end of term, Merv invited the parents to a concert.

The first invitation found me seated in a straight backed chair together with several other parents. I suspect we each secretly thought that our child possessed amazing musical abilities which were about to be revealed that would be the envy of every other parent in that room.

After greeting the other parents, most of whom I knew only via their children who came to play with mine, conversation died. Then right on time, the musical prodigies entered and took their places with a variety of covert hand waves and broad grins to acknowledge recognition.

Merv introduced the first piece of music with a short explanation as to why he had chosen it. Then he tapped on his music stand to get the attention of his pupils, most of whom took deep breaths. The room was breathless with anticipation, and on the down beat of his up-raised hand the band was launched into an explosion of sound.

It was absolutely unrecognizable as being in any way related to music!

The blowing type instruments were played on the 'straddle theory', being that you only hit the right note after hitting all around it, which granted, mathematically, increased your chances. Unfortunately, having scored a direct hit, the note was lost in a succession of squeaks. The little boy who played the cymbals did his best to cover-up the missed notes by smashing the cymbals together at every opportunity. He in turn was challenged for dominance by a grinning freckle face girl, whose skinny arms pounded the kettle drums with a force I could hardly believe.

At the end of the performance we applauded politely and thoroughly shell-shocked beat a hasty retreat, all except Merv, that is. Merv wore a beatific smile as he stopped to congratulate each student and then situated himself where any parents who wished, could engage him in conversation.

If that had been my class, I would have beaten a hasty retreat. Merv, however, was more than willing to be present to anyone who would like to speak with him. I think I felt embarrassed on his behalf.

I was wrong.

He was not at all embarrassed. For Merv, the performance had been one small step on a long journey, one which
he could already envision
. As the years went by and I got to know some people who knew Merv, I came to I understand why.

Merv was a music teacher because Merv loved music and he loved kids. It was as simple as that. His love of music made him want to share it with his pupils. His love of his pupils made him want to share the music with them.

Without imagination the sharing would not have been possible.

Years later I listened to several of those kids, now all grown up and playing in the High School Orchestra. I was amazed, but Merv would not have been. He already knew what I was only just discovering. Out of all the noise and clutter of that first 'performance' Merv could hear and responded to something else.

Teachers, who make sense of the incomprehensible, are
artists of imagination
. They intuitively understand that the path to the mind and the understanding lies, not through facts and theory, but through a portal marked
'Imagination.'

Imag
-ination, the game we play with images so that they might come alive.

It has always seemed patently obvious to me that the exercise of imagination unlocks doors that otherwise remain locked shut. I cannot recall a single conversation, of any significance, which did not require me to practice imagination in order to understand the other.

On those occasions when I have surrendered to the temptation to move the conversation from imagination to cognitive advice, no matter how sound the advice, some point of contact died and I knew that we had lost something important. Clearly, imagination opens up a way of knowing that admits us to certain truths which otherwise remain hidden.

I confess to have always been a lover of imagination’s first cousin,
intuition
. I thrill to the mental game of hop scotch and I love to rush past all the logic and information to arrive at the conclusion in record time. There’s only one problem of which I am aware and that is that half the time I arrive at the wrong conclusion, which ought to give me pause in dispensing advice!

But back to imagination, a fundamental tool for educators and also for parents!

Several years ago a colleague related a conversation he had had with his three year old daughter who came through one night to where he and his wife were sleeping. After prying his eyes open, a trick that most kids learn always gets Dad’s attention, the three year old announced that she could not sleep because there was a ghost in her bedroom!

Some part of his sleep fogged brain was working and he resisted the urge to tell her to go back to bed because there are no such things as ghosts. Instead he took her by the hand and together they went ghost hunting.

Where’s the ghost hiding?

It’s hiding under my bed.

So they both got down on their knees and looked under the bed.

No ghost!

It must be hiding in my toy box.

Again a search of the toy box failed to turn up a ghost.

Maybe it’s in my dressing table drawers.

All the drawers were opened and searched, no ghost there either.

I think it may be in the bathroom.

So the bathroom was searched, the toilet seat lifted up, medicine cupboard opened and closed, even the lid of the cistern and the shower doors were investigated, all without a sign of the ghost.

OK, now it’s time for bed.

But what about the Ghost?

Well, we looked under the bed, in the toy box, through the dressing table drawers and everywhere in the bathroom. I think it’s all in your imagination. There is no Ghost and it’s getting late, so off to bed with you!

To which she replied,

When I tell you there is a ghost in my room, I don’t want you to tell me there is no ghost. I just want you to hold me tight and tell me you love me.

Searching for ghosts, especially those who make an appearance the moment the light is switched off, is real. Of course we can dispense with the search by relying on our harsh, critical, rational logic and technology. But strangely enough, even after we have applied our cleaver tools, and silenced the whispers, and destroyed the illusion of a ghost,
there’s still something there!
All we’ve done is make it ever so much harder to understand what the ghosts are trying to tell us, and pushed further away a yearning to be loved.