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

Kim Hermanson PhD

Facilitating Creative Breakthroughs

  • Home
  • Events
    • Sacred Power Event
    • Arts Access to Non-Ordinary Knowing
  • 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

Valuing the Unseen

December 12, 2009

Here’s part of a recent conference proposal that is all about valuing inner vision. I hope it inspires you to value your unspoken, unarticulated knowings today…I believe they’re more important than what we can actually “see” in the physical world.

The ancient Sufis believed there are three worlds: the world of the senses, the world of the intellect, and something they called the “imaginal world.” The imaginal world is a real world; it’s not make-believe. But our Western culture is generally dismissive of things that we cannot see or measure. When we look at a tree, for example, we see the branches, trunk, leaves, fruit. Although we know the roots exist, our focus is on the “product”—the tree that we can literally see. When we look at a field that’s empty of crop, we call it “fallow.” The empty field is less interesting than the field that’s full of plants; the empty field is dismissed as unimportant.

It’s not easy to be visionary in today’s world. When individuals have inner visions, they enter a process that requires them to value something that is not tangible; something
that they can only vaguely feel or sense. If it’s a revolutionary idea, it’s even more difficult to value it, going against the grain of what’s considered “normal.” And what makes this process yet more arduous, is that the imaginal world of unseen possibility and potential does not articulate its messages in clear words. Until we name it, until we give it a voice, it is voiceless. It is easy to reject what we cannot articulate. Our job as visionaries is to value this unseen world and create a space to protect it, giving it room to grow.

For those of us who care deeply about the health of our planet, presuming that we already “know what to do” or we just need to “figure it out” is a lie. Accepting that we don’t know what to do and allowing ourselves to nurture and protect the unseen is what we are being called to do now. The guidance that we need is in the imaginal realm of vision and insight; it is in the roots that lie below the surface of everyday life.

Previous Post
Next Post

Imaginal, 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.