Imaginal Journal
Imagination is Medicine
Don Quixote
“Don Quijote de la Mancha said to Sancho Panza: “Today is the most beautiful day of our lives, dear Sancho. The biggest obstacle, our own indecision; our strongest enemy, fear of the powerful and of ourselves; the easiest thing, being mistaken; the most destructive, lying and selfishness; the worst defeat, discouragement; the most dangerous defects, pride and resentment; our strongest virtues, a good conscience, striving to be better although imperfect, and above all, willingness to do good and fight injustice wherever it may be.”
The Journey by Mary Oliver
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Rilke on Dragons
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for its not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors. If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us. If there are dangers, we must try to love them, and only if we could arrange our lives in accordance with the principle that tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us to be alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races – the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises before you larger than any you’ve ever seen, if an anxiety like light and cloud shadows moves over your hands and everything that you do. You must realize that something has happened to you. Life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hands and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
The Guest House by Rumi
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
By Rumi
(From The Essential Rumi, version by Coleman Barks)
Individuation
“To become—in Jung’s terms—individuated, to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one’s various life roles. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ and when at home, do not keep on the mask of the role you play in the Senate chamber. But this, finally, is not easy, since some of the masks cut deep. They include judgment and moral values. They include one’s pride, ambition, and achievement. They include one’s infatuations. It is a common thing to be overly impressed by and attached to masks, either some mask of one’s own or the mana-masks of others. The work of individuation, however, demands that one should not be compulsively affected in this way. The aim of individuation requires that one should find and then learn to live out of one’s own center, in control of one’s for and against. And this cannot be achieved by enacting and responding to any general masquerade of fixed roles.”
Frances Ha
Frances Ha. Director, Noah Baumbach Writer, Greta Gerwig
A Heroine’s journey to selfhood through twinship.
You & I by Local Natives
You and I, we were always strong
It was enough to keep me on
Believe me.And I woke up with my green eyes blue
And all I think about is you
And it feels
When did your love,
When did your love go cold?
The closer I get, the farther I have to go
To places we don't know
To places we don't know
To places we don't know
To places we don't knowIn all this light, all I feel is dark
Had the sun without its warmth
I'm freezing
When did your love, when did your love go cold?
The closer I get, the farther I have to go
To places we don't know
To places we don't know
To places we don't know
To places we don't know
Songwriters: Kelcey Paul Ayer / Matthew James Frazier / Ryan Clinton Hahn / Taylor David RiceYou & I lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.