When any concept is given visual imagery to help express it, it puts meat on the idea’s bones. We live in the age of reason… or, perhaps, it is that we live in an age where we are enamored with the our reasoning abilities to understand and solve all problems. In an atmosphere where “reason” is most highly valued, concepts are supposed to be clearly, cleanly, stated, unfettered by images that may leave us musing and wondering? In the age of reason, we are looking for solutions… through a logical process.
This turns out to be a very unfortunate path. The baby gets thrown out with the bath water. Imagery, which causes us to wonder, muse, and open up to new possibilities, is reduced or eliminated. That is unfortunate because imagery holds the key to wonderously stepping out of our prisons. Faulty imagery has come to dominate much of our self-images, bringing us pain and despair. I argue that it is healthy archetypal (ideal) imagery, issued from the “right” brain that gets us out of jail… for free. “Left” brain reason, though helpful, is inadequate alone to meet the task.
If we are discussing love, for instance, do we not need visual (added) images to give the concept any true meaning? The images can certainly be from words alone, as in poetry, but poetry, of course, is dependent on shared visual and other sensory experience.
The same is true when discussing gracefulness, ease in movement, healthy posture, etc. Do not words easily come up short when seeking to give meaning to these concepts? Do not images help and even solve the problem? I suggest that those images that allow us to actually step inside the concept, to experience kinesthetically the concept, are the most valuable.
Any words or visual images that are only metaphorical are nice, but can still keep us at a distance from the full meaning of the subject. It is those images that send us to new habit-breaking states that are to be most appreciated, no? I do not know if my imagery will do this for you. I am sure that more state-of-the-art depictions of my concepts could help imagining them considerably, but that will have to wait… for people with that talent and desire to help me. In the meantime, I think it would be in your interest to give what is here a good try. There is not a one of us that is not tied up in some way with pain and/or depression, physically and mentally, by aspects of self-image that should be challenged and changed.
