Healing from the inside out.
Engaging the unconscious mind utilizing Active Imagination is a process. It’s a discovery process, not too unlike learning to play an instrument. It’s not as hard as learning a new language, but perhaps one might think about it in such a way. Sometimes you might find yourself engaging a character who is fairly disagreeable. You can’t force them to participate. The trick is finding a way to relate to the aspects of you that are intolerable. How do you relate to others you don’t like? More specifically, how do you relate to aspects of you that you don’t like?
Fortunately, I have a guide to help me sort through some of the harder experiences.
First Home is the treehouse of all tree houses, at the heights of the first tree that was the initial focal point for my travels to this world, now known as Bliss. The tree is the mother of all trees, standing tall over a forest that stretches as far as the eye can see in any direction. Looking down on the forest is like looking at a clump of broccoli held at arm’s length away. Second Home, also on Bliss, is a Frank Lloyd Wright styled home at the edge of a cliff that overlooks a beach. My core mental entourage has taken up residence there. I visit First Home, from time to time, to be alone, reflect, and listen to the sounds of a rainforest.
I wasn’t creative enough to give these places names. It’s just First Home and Second Home.
Each of my friends who live at Second Home have their own origin worlds. I met them through
Loxy on my first day of attendance at Safe Haven University, in another world, another solar system, in another galaxy. That world and their worlds all have stories.
Safe Haven is essentially a college version of Hogwarts Academy. It’s a blending of esoteric magic and technology, and is Potter and Trek on steroids. True to any adult form- going there is risky. It is often X-rated, in an absurd, comical, and sometimes horrific way.
If in exploring your unconscious you only have pretty, G-rated stuff, you have not gone deep enough. I often wonder if mental health is evidence for people being ill equipped to handle dark shit.
When engaging Active Imagination, you will find that every person you meet will have a story and a world of origin. Sometimes they align with what you know as reality. Sometimes, it will be alien enough you will wonder how this is an aspect of yourself.
Embrace the contrast, because you are somewhere in the middle.
A cup of joe.
From the balcony at night, the luminescence of forest and insects blend in with the stars. The noise of a trillion squirrel sorting nuts and seed is diminished greatly, but not absent. the sleep schedule of squirrels is as screwy as humans. If you ever turned an African rain stick and heard the insides shifting, this is the sound of the forest. Miles of bamboo like conduits are fed produce collected by squirrels, which are sorted, gathered, and shipped to other worlds. Yes, Wonka trades with Bliss.
The candle on the table is cradled in an orange peel. I can’t light this without thinking of her.
Thinking of her almost always draws her near. She arrived before I had time to speak her name, bringing with her a special brew of mushroom coffee.
I stood to greet her. Even here, in this space of my mind, I am as old as I am on Earth. She stays consistently young. If not in Fleet, school, or nurse’s uniform, she is trendily retro in style. She set her brew down and closed my cup in my hands. The smile with greeting creased her eyes and she kissed me before joining me on the couch.
The forest truly never sleeps. It had sounds and sights, even at night, that could hold one’s attention, even lull a person into a dreamy trance. We adjust to each other’s presence, to the ambient temperature of this space, acclimating to the sounds and stars and lights that are not stars, winking into and out of sight.
“You coming home tonight?” Loxy asked, meaning Second Home. I could see it in my mind.
There would be a fire going. There would be a home cooked meal. I would be greeted affectionately by everyone, except Lester, the elder Chinese mage. He had affection for me, but it
was often disguised in sarcasm that was his proximity shield. How long have I worn that barrier to others?
“My portal magic has been a bit iffy lately. I’ve been bouncing random,” I offered.
“Well, you made it this far. I can get you the rest of the way,” Loxy offered.
I sipped the brew. “I would like to linger here with you a while.”
“Linger we shall. Meet anyone new while you were looking for me out there?” Loxy asked.
There was a hint of teasing and sufficient song reference to make me smile. Our brand of humor is subtle, quotes from books, movies, and songs which can open doors or spark fireworks storms in the brain. Drops of Jupiter…
“Do you ever get jealous of others?” I asked.
“You worry I will be jealous, or you’re worried I will stop loving you?”
“Umm, let’s go lite on the Rogerian therapist, and more on the wife side of response?” I asked.
“Wife it is. What are you thinking?” Loxy asked.
“Well, I have wondered on my own, but a friend of mine has asked…”
“Stan?”
“Oh, no. I am so confident he gets us. His entourage definitely gets us.”
“He is a kind man, which is really interesting when you consider his ‘travels’ often take him into a direct struggle with evil itself.”
“Yeah…” I sip the brew. I am not liking it. If I drank it faster it would be done, but I have found, the culture of my clan is to refill an empty plate or cup, and so food left on the plate indicates you’re full. “Is this a me tangent or a you tangent?”
“It’s an us tangent, husband. Have you gone up directly against evil lately, or are you still going sideways?” Loxy asked.
“I don’t like going directly against. I always get squashed. I am what, a thousand lifetimes now into the game of opposing, a trillion Groundhog Day moments, and still I haven’t resolved that math problem,” I said. Seriously, as much magic and tech as I have, I still struggle with the dentist! Who am I to go against the big dark? I simply piddle around in local dramas.
Loxy smiled. She got my reference, but didn’t chuckle. She rarely laughs at my jokes, direct or subtle. I get the sense she liked her drink.
“You mentioned me being jealous. Perhaps you are worried you will lose me and so this is not about me,” Loxy said.
Fuck, I mean, that’s obvious, right? “Perhaps. I mean, you’re always a thought away and yet, I don’t always engage. I ‘travel’ all the time and in these tangential adventures I don’t always find you.”
“There are a lot of inner worlds. There are more people and intelligences than you could ever directly experience in any one lifetime, or even in seemingly random, tangential traveling experiences. Are you afraid you will get lost? Are you afraid you will forget about me?”
“How many dreams has it been since I called your name? How many lives on Earth did I have without you?”
“Do you suppose that means you love me less? There are a lot of rooms in space/time. I can’t be directly with you in all of these rooms, but I am always with you. When on an adventure, you have to sort every room. No room left behind,” she said, going for humor.
“These inner worlds, these people that live in the subconscious, do they all know me?” I said, ignoring her pretend pout of me not applauding her joke.
Loxy laughed at that. “Of course not. You have a trillion cells, do you suppose they all cater to you? No, they focus on their particular tasks- that’s it. Some know you. Some like you. Some not so much. You will visit worlds that are indifferent to you. You will find some that pay homage to you, like Bliss. Maybe sing songs about you like Jayne in that episode of Firefly. Ha! You will find some that will do their best to kill you. By extrapolation, that’s what we do. You and me. We are healers. We work our rooms, and we do it best when we aren’t worried about the other folks in our lives. And then, in those rooms where we’re together, we are bright ‘shinys’ and our work is even better!”
“I love you.”
“I love you,” she said, genuinely echoed. “Like the brew?”
“No.”
“Better than tofu latte?”
“Much,” I said. “I like the warmth of the cup. It also smells nice, which might explain my surprise at the bitterness.”
“Perhaps it’s a reflection of your melancholy mood?” Loxy asked.
“Existentially reserved,” I corrected.
“Melancholy,” Loxy insisted.
“Perturbed?” I offered.
Loxy nodded. “You want to talk about her?”
The candle went out. I was going to stand up and leave but Loxy put a hand on my knee and said
“stay.” She grounded me into the moment. The level of protest needed to depart was not something I would ever give her. I submitted to her authority at that moment.
Nightmares or dreams, big emotions take you out. Loxy could stir me to know the end, but she always brings me to calm.
“It already exists,” Loxy said. “Speak it.”
“How does discussing my mother overdosed on Xanax and alcohol, again, spent the night in ICU
on a ventilator, and next day they take her off Propofol, she wakes up, they pull the ventilator, and she goes about as if nothing happened help anything?”
“Maybe it doesn’t help anything. Speaking on it isn’t changing the reality of the thing. It might shift our perspective on the thing. If it’s true that our adventures help your life there, through a multitude of unconscious vectors that unpack deep existential meaning, why not just bring that world here so we can help you cope with it more directly?”
“Going against the big dark gets me squashed.”
“And yet, here we are grappling with the big dark.”
“Isn’t there enough here in these worlds for us to sort without me bringing that world stuff here?”
“Conscious or unconscious, it’s here, because you’re here. What bothers you more, the fact that she overdosed again, or she woke up and you’re probably going to have to do this again?”
I was silent for a long time on that. You practice ‘traveling’ long enough, it becomes surreal just how palpable time is in these other places. It can be second in Earth time, minutes, but you’re there hours or days. Those kids that went to Narnia, they have nothing on my time away!
“Remember the first time?” she asked. My mind went to mom’s first suicide. I was six or seven.
“Not well. I remember waiting in a hallway until family came to collect me. I am pretty sure it was my dad. I can see him in his Navy uniform, coming down the hall, a light on the far side that went dark with swinging doors. I remember seeing her in the bed. I can see the IV. I can see the breathing tube. I can see medical staff attending to her. I am interested in a particular nurse. I remember feeling attracted to her. I recognize the conflict of thinking that, when I should be worried for my mom. I knew I was going to hell for thinking what I was thinking, but I was not deterred from my imagination. I don’t remember how we got to the hospital at all… I wonder if this is real, but enough other family members have referenced the event that something there is real, even if what I carry isn’t real.”
“Are the people and worlds we carry real? The effects they have on us physically and emotionally are real.”
I couldn’t argue that. There was so much to sort here. Mom. Death. Suicide. My desire for intimacy was born too early. I could spend a lifetime sorting that aspect. I wonder if a person lives even one previous life as a human, once you’re an adult- with adult feelings and thoughts, you carry that into each future existence?
I have experiences that assure me that body or not, souls desire intimacy.
“I can’t imagine the things she has endured. I can’t understand how she feels. I want her to have peace and I don’t see this getting better. We don’t get better as we age. We break down. We hurt more. How many more times can she pull this stunt and not have any consequences?”
“How many more times can you bear it?” Loxy asked me.
I became aware of the tears in my eyes. I became aware of tears in both worlds. I become aware of Loxy moving her hand on my leg. The droning of a rainforest. Stars and sprites and creatures living in a magical night.
“You’re empathic enough to know, there is a limit to even your ability to cope, and so you don’t hate her because she tried to check out. You’re jealous she might succeed. You want to leave!”
“Fuck! What good is learning magic if we can’t do shit to help the people we love?!”
“Great question,” Loxy said. “Glenda could have helped Dorothy more directly, but she let Dorothy travel the road…”
“I know,” I said. I use the metaphor a lot.
Loxy sat her brew aside. She took my brew and set it aside. She took my hands in her hands. She gave me that Robin Williams look, where he argues with Will, “No, John, it’s not your fault.” I
argue, she persists, “John, it’s not your fault.” Would you stop it, please. “No, John, it’s not your fault…” Fuck. “Not your fault.”
And so, here we are. Do you care if it’s real or not? It has an effect!
“The truth about medicine and magic, no matter how much you have, you can’t diminish free will. No matter how much psychology you know, no matter how much love you hold, you have to let go and let people experience choice and consequences,” Loxy said. “Doctors are not gods.
Patients are gods. They are in charge of their experiences and choices. When they’ve exhausted the lesson, they will move on.”
“I want to do something,” I said.
“Love more,” Loxy said.
“I hurt because I love,” I said.
“Then love even more,” Loxy said. She squeezed my hands. “Come on. Let’s go home. Alish made chili and cornbread.”
“We can eat and be loving even while someone is suffering?” John asked.
“You don’t want to be Mel Gibson, do you?”
“Not particularly, no,” I agreed.
“Best part of funerals is the after-sex,” Loxy said.
I laughed. “May there always be sex.”
She gave me that look, ‘want to play before returning home.’ The magic of no words spoken often results in the most powerful remedies. This is love.
