Psyche as Poet

Speaking about the poetic psyche, Slattery writes,

“The images are mindful ways of gathering an emotion into a bundle and then allowing the emotion to inform the image, even be the image.” Later he states, I learned that poetry can provoke poetic responses [from the psyche]” (“The Soul’s Claim: Choose it or Lose It” by Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D., an article from marked by fire: Stories of the Jungian Way, pp.128-129).

Be Living Fire

A client once told me a dream in which he was standing in Nebakanezer’s furnace. I asked the client to stand up and let the fire flow through him and into a dance. He did his dance of the living fire. Here the image is transformed into movement, allowing the psyche the freedom of spontaneous dance.

Free the Image

Hypothetically, the image could be transformed into song. The fire could scorch the air like a dragon’s breath or tenderly caress the breeze, writing love songs on the wind. The image has a voice. Free it.

An Original Voice

Slattery’s life journey contained an intermingling of Jungian thought and writing (literature). My journey has been similar. During my undergraduate years, I majored in psychology and minored in creative writing. My writing professors told me my writing had an original voice. Nowadays, I allow the creative psyche to move through my original voice . . . birthing new images.

Let the Psyche Speak

You can do the same. Close your eyes, calm your mind and let images bubble up from the psyche. Treat them with respect. Let the images transform into dance, song, chanting, music, painting, drawing, sculpture, photographs, stories, myths, screenwriting, poetry, creative writing and other original expressions. Let the psyche speak.

Linked with Thought-Provoking Thursday.

Photo Credit: Photo by gnuckx at Flickr Creative Commons.