Imaginate

 

Our imagination is the most important faculty we possess. It can be our greatest resource or our most formidable adversary. It is through our imagination that we discern possibilities and options. Yet imagination is no mere blank slate on which we simply inscribe our will. Rather, imagination is the deepest voice of the soul and can be heard clearly only through cultivation and careful attention. A relationship with our imagination is a relationship with our deepest self.
                              - PAT B. ALLEN,  Art is a Way of Knowing 

Imagination exists in a reality that differs from logic. As children we do not have the depth of experiences to push it away.  For adults, when confronted with a situation requiring imaginative thinking, a return to a child's lack of logic will assist the process.

My first discovery of imagination at work still amazes and amuses. I had fallen asleep during my father's reading of the Aladdin story. I awakened suddenly as he read,"The townspeople were angry." A bowl of mashed carrots cooling on a window sill appeared to me. I could smell buttery flavors with sweetness of cinnamon and sugar. 

Ever since that experience, when I hear the word angry - I think of mashed carrots.  Is that imagination at work?

I recall reading a story in a white book that included a picture of a huge red ant with bits of fur extending from its appendages. Later that day while playing in the garden, I saw that red ant ambling between stones along the footpath. Did I make an exaggerated connection or did it really approach the size of a small cat and invite me to follow it to adventure? I arrived home in time for dinner. When I saw the ant picture again it seemed so small compared to my experience. Did imagination come knocking?

Think back to a time in childhood when you discovered your imagination. Where were you?  What fantasy did it involve? 

Were you influenced by a fairy tale or other story?  

Where did it take you?  Did you feel surprise and delight?