• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Kim Hermanson PhD

Facilitating Creative Breakthroughs

  • Home
  • Events
  • Readings
    • Request a Reading
    • Testimonials
  • Products
    • Books
    • Self-Study Audio Courses
    • Courses to License
  • Blog
  • About
    • Official Bio
    • Lectures and Interviews
    • Personal Story
  • Doorway Sessions
    • Book a Session
    • What Clients Say
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Create Space for Spirit to Speak

October 30, 2008

This coming winter I’m teaching Psychology of Metaphor at the Institute of Imaginal Studies. In December of 2006, I was interviewing with the Director of IIS and he asked me what I wanted to teach. I found myself blurting out, “Metaphor.” But the truth was, I didn’t know anything about metaphor as an academic subject, and I’m certainly not a linguist. Spirit was speaking through me…Spirit knew that developing and teaching a class on metaphor would open up a whole new world for me. And it has done that.

We typically think of metaphors as simply being some sort of slick linguistic device, but what a metaphor does is link two unlike things together in a way where we are able to get a new perspective or understanding about the matter. When we are exploring something new or unknown, we have to use metaphorical language because it’s the only way we can describe our experience. (For example, we may describe life as a journey, or refer to a relationship as being “in over my head.”) Metaphors bring us into what I call aesthetic space or third space, where we can see deeper connections, gaining fresh wisdom from the association. Metaphors create aesthetic space, and aesthetic space is necessary for human development. In short, without aesthetic space we can’t grow and evolve.

In graduate school I was fascinated by a book titled Free Spaces: The Source of Democratic Change in America. In their book, authors Sara Evans and Harry Boyte talk about how political movements are formed by having “free spaces” (voluntary associations from churches to social clubs to civic groups) where people can congregate, connect and talk with one another. When you think about it, the only way new things can come in to our lives is if we have the space to receive it. Space is actually what creates real change, don’t you think?

Previous Post
Next Post

Imaginal, Learning & Creative Process, Metaphor, Social Change, Teaching, Coaching & Facilitating aesthetic space, institute of imaginal studies, metaphor, psychology of metaphor, social change

Primary Sidebar

Blog Categories

  • Art
  • Books
  • Doorway Sessions
  • Earth/Nature
  • Imaginal
  • Inspiration
  • Learning & Creative Process
  • Metaphor
  • Social Change
  • Teaching, Coaching & Facilitating
  • Uncategorized

Blog Archives

Blog Tags

aesthetics albert einstein art artist beauty Betty Edwards Book Passage carl jung coaching consciousness creative process creative writing creativity depth psychology depth psychology alliance doorway sessions drawing on the right side of the brain eckhart tolle esalen institute george lakoff getting messy goethe heart learning herbert marcuse image imaginal imagination inspiration james hillman John O'Donohue kim hermanson learning marshall mcluhan martin foss metaphor nature picasso poetry Robert Henri social change Sophia Center stanley kunitz teaching The Art Spirit third space
Give your creativity a kick in the pants.
Get Kim's Guide: "15 Tips for Creative Breakthroughs"
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2021 Kim Hermanson, PhD

Website by Digital PDX

Header Image by California Artist Logan Payne.