March & April Asides

I think that an exploration of the imagination as it shows up in our care practices is in order. Care, is an action of the heart. Imagination, is a ground of being, like space and time. As you can see, I am playing with thinking of the imagination as a kind of dimension – perhaps a 5th dimension. One can kind of ignore time, although it won’t ignore you. One can conflate all spaces as one space, just something you move through – space as distance or proximity.  And one can imagine that there are facts and the imagination is not one of them, its just something the mind does. And yet, to think, to feel, to know requires attention, and attention is organized by what you imagine you can know in this or any moment. It's basic.  

How does the imagination show up in your care? First, understand that the imagination does not live on the surface of your experience. It is buried in the formative organization of your experience. It bubbles up to the surface when you start to play with the possibilities of a new “real”, but unlike fantasy, it proposes something possible, even when it appears impossible, like flying. Flying with arms as wings is fantasy, flying by constructing airplanes was the imagination at work, an organization of attention toward new knowing, new organizations for experiencing the world. How can caring be an act of the imagination? How can we care for what we haven’t yet imagined caring for? Imagine caring and perhaps care will come. Imagination will organize to show you the way.  Let it bubble up through you and your heart.