I’ve worked directly with metaphor for 30 years, both professionally and personally, and there’s one image that has never let me go: I’m a plant rooted in rich, fertile soil. On a personal level, when I don’t know what to do or something in life is troubling me, all I need is to open myself [ Read more … ]
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Do you have a guiding image?
I had a disagreement with an old friend recently about whether the images and metaphors that show up in our subconscious are “real.” I believe, just like with dreams, that when images and metaphors show up in our lives, they have something to teach us and I don’t think my friend would argue with that. [ Read more … ]
Working the Soil: Social Change and Metaphor
Don’t look for me in a human shape. I am inside your looking. No need for form with a love this strong. The lines above from Rumi can be interpreted in more than one way. As I teach courses on the psychology of metaphor, to my mind, Rumi’s lines refer to the power that metaphors [ Read more … ]
Making friends with your imagination
Imagination is indirect, nonlinear, and fuzzy. It’s more about taking you to a “new place” and providing a fresh perspective than providing a numerically clear solution or quick fix. Further, when we open up our imaginations, we challenge traditional norms. Our creative process comes up with ideas that are often at odds with standard procedures. [ Read more … ]
An image big enough to hold you
There was a child went forth every day. And the first object he looks upon, that object he became. –Walt Whitman The late poet Stanley Kunitz believed that writers often have a “key image” that keeps working them over and over again in their writing. In fact, writers may spend an entire lifetime working one [ Read more … ]
