When I work with a client’s deep inner images, I draw on the same visual language that artists work with, and so I find visual art, especially drawing, fascinating. I tell my students and workshop participants that we need to shift “how we are looking” to understand these potent inner images and allow them to [ Read more … ]
key image
Uncovering the image that’s guiding your actions
Each of us has a primary metaphoric image that gives life to and feeds our passions and gifts. These primary images usually come from childhood, and they’re often associated with that natural world. My metaphoric image is of my father and grandfather planting in their farm fields. One of my students who grew up in [ Read more … ]
Fundamental change depends on our capacity to engage with metaphor
Metaphor is at the core of nearly every scientific breakthrough throughout history, and celebrated scientists like Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein relied on metaphor to help them make new discoveries. At all levels of society—personal, cultural, scientific, social, political—fundamental change depends upon our ability to engage with metaphor. Aristotle claimed that his soul [ Read more … ]
Finding your image
For many years, I led creative writing workshops. Early on I noticed that some writing prompts tended to keep people entrenched in their thinking mind… and their subsequent writing was heady and dry. These writing prompts often involved using a word or newspaper headline to write from. Their writing might have been slick and witty, [ Read more … ]
What is your key image?
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 … ]