Imagery is our first language.  It is pre-verbal, and pre-cognitive.  Imagery is the language of our body, and it is our body which first perceives, experiences and makes meaning of our world.  Think about walking into a warm movie lobby on a crisp fall evening with fresh popped popcorn hopping out of the bin.  Do you feel this experience?  Are you smelling the salty, buttery popcorn?  Does your body expand a little from the chill of the evening stepping into the warm, enveloping inside?  Or is this moment something you think about?

Our body literally touches the world first – we perceive through our vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch.  From this we form understandings about that which we are perceiving.  These understandings express themselves via images.  We understand these images as dreams in the nighttime. In fact, we have these images at all times!  These images inform us and move us into action before they reach the cognitive processing parts of the brain.  This is important, because it is the thinking part of our brain that often creates problems; that is, until we learn to harness its power and use it as the tool it is meant to be, as opposed to the tyrant it often is.

For example, think of being a child playing happily by yourself.  Suddenly, your older brother rushes into the room, terrifying you.  You scream, and your body leaps into action: your heart rate increases shunting blood to your larger muscle groups, your breathing becomes shallow – you are ready to run from this threat! In this moment you also have an image. You may experience this as a giant red dragon, or a snarling wolf with hackles raised.  But, before you can act, your mother is suddenly there saying, “Play nice with your brother.”  What your body is experiencing as terror now has the mental information from your mother that not only is your brother not supposed to be terrifying, but also that perhaps you’ve done something wrong!  This is very confusing!  Meanwhile, the dragon is still there blowing fire on you and your heart is still pounding.  Unless you deal honestly with this dragon it will stay stuck within you.

While the example above is small it illustrates a genesis for how we become stuck in our feelings, perhaps even growing up to become adults who complain that we don’t feel very much, or don’t know how we feel about a certain event.  As time goes by in our maturing we have buried our feelings while we followed the mental instructions of our parents and other authorities, conforming to what we think others want us to do and be.  We can find ourselves, then, as indecisive adults, falling into repetitive patterns, maybe dating the same wrong person over and over, or losing all of our money to relationship after relationship.  Maybe we have continual run-ins with our bosses, while we remain stagnant in the same position year after year, being passed up for promotions because ‘nobody sees our worth’.  Or, perhaps we are stuck in a career we hate, while our daydreams (if we allow ourselves to have them) have us playing the violin with the Philharmonic.  With imagery, we can start to understand ourselves and the patterns in which we are embroiled, and then shift these stuck energies to free ourselves to truly feel and respond to our world.

Here’s an imagery exercise you can try.  It is called The Blue Vase.  You can also find it in my teacher Catherine Shainberg’s book, Kabbalah and the Power of Dreaming, which you might want to take a look at.  Before you start, make sure you are in a quiet place where you can relax and won’t be disturbed.  Sit in an armchair, with arms and legs uncrossed.  The exercise should not be done for longer than one minute.

Close your eyes. Breathe out all that disturbs you, all that tires you, all that obscures you.  Breathe it out as a light smoke (carbon dioxide) that is easily absorbed by the plant life around you.  When your breath comes in on the inhalation, see it as blue as the radiant blue light from the sky, and filled with sunlight.  See the blue golden light filling your nostrils, your mouth, your throat, and flowing down your back as a great river of light.  See it filling your feet, your toes, and stretching out of your toes as long antennas of light.  See the light circulating up your legs to fill your pelvis, see it rising up into your chest, flowing in and out of your heart until your heart becomes a glowing blue lamp.  See the light flow down your arms like smaller rivers of light, fill your hands and fingers, stretch out of your fingers as long antennas of light.  As you continue to breathe in the blue light, see the light continue to fill you.  See it begin to radiate out of the articulations of your joints: out of your ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, and wrists.  See the light fill you until it radiates out of your skin in all directions.  See yourself as a crystal vase filled with light and radiating light in all directions.  Open your eyes, seeing yourself as the crystal vase radiating blue light in all directions.  Then stop. (Shainberg, 2005, p. 26 – 27)

How do you feel?