Journal of Sacred Work

    In the 19th century John Keats wrote, "I am certain of nothing but the Holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of Imagination."

   John O'Donohue wrote in the 20th, "The imagination is like a lantern. It illuminates the inner landscapes of our life… When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us."

   Both these geniuses treasure imagination. So what is it?

   I consulted a natural 21st century expert. "It's like dreaming but not exactly because you are awake," my six-year old grandson Linus informed me. 

   To illustrate, he & his sister equipped a fairy with a star-tipped magic wand & planted her amid pansies. Nothing like discovering a fairy in a flowerbed to trigger daydreaming.

   In addition to his lantern analogy O'Donohue lists 10 more truths about imagination:

1) It retains the grace of innocence.

2) It retains a passion for freedom.

3) It keeps the heart young.

4) It awakens the wildness of the heart.

5) It has no patience with repetition.

6) It offers wholeness – helping keep heart & head in balance.

7) The imagination offers revelation.

8) It works through suggestion, not description.

9) It has a deep sense of irony.

10) The imagination creates a pathway of reverence for the visitations of beauty. 

   Imagining can be as difficult for us as it is easy for children. The clash of dreams with brutal realities can shut our pathway to this gift. 

   It takes work & courage to awaken wildness in this ordered world – to create unusual things in a society that favors the predictable. 

   Truly experiencing a work of art means entering it. After that we, like the woman in the photograph, can walk wherever we wish through the landscape of the artist's offering.

   Our imagination may well take us beyond anything the artist intended. Every artist hopes for that.

-Erie Chapman

Photographs by Erie