Thirty-five years ago in an old, out-of-print book titled, Metaphors of Consciousness, depth psychologist Robert Romanyshyn shared a story about two men—a geologist and a botanist—who are walking together through a forest. They’re both walking through the same forest, but the botanist notices the flowers and trips over the rocks…while the geologist notices the rocks and [ Read more … ]
Imaginal
Creating third space when you teach, train, coach or mentor
I’m getting ready to fly to the midwest to do a workshop and book event in my hometown. In honor of the occasion, I’m going to share a few words on “third space” in the teaching, training, coaching and mentoring relationship. (You can read more in chapter 6 of my book, Getting Messy: A Guide [ Read more … ]
Going beyond academic learning…
When I was in school, I loved the precision and tidiness of it—each class a container with a tidy list of assignments by week. All these fascinating subjects, like chests full of jewels, and if we only sign up and listen, we might uncover some of those jewels. Looking at new syllabi at the beginning [ Read more … ]
The wisdom of fairy tales
One way to enter into the deep symbolic language of our soul is through a fairy tale. When we write a fairy tale, the words “Once upon a time” opens up a portal to another world. It takes us into shamanic terrain. Every fairy tale is psychologically significant. The narrative and images that show up [ Read more … ]
Your Creative Vision is ‘Real’
Your creative yearnings are REAL. They’re not make-believe. The characters in your novels are real, your business idea is real, your vision is real. It’s real energy that wants to come through and be expressed through you. It’s not make-believe. If you’re getting a vision for something…you’re not “making it up.”