Active Imagination

Years ago in my mid-thirties, I spent every Tuesday afternoon on a Jungian analyst's couch.  I would offer up my compulsively recorded dreams and we would dive in.  Eyes shut, intuition and hunch on warp speed.  Certain elements would get amplified.  Conversations happened with dream characters.  

This morning I pulled over and laid, what felt like my dream, out on the sidewalk.  It was certainly a dreamscape - early morning, the city still drowsy, the sky, a soft veil of light that hadn't turned yellow yet.  In that moment when I let the paper float out of my hand I understood what active imagination meant.  Imagination as a living breathing part of a life.  For an artist, maybe the most important part - the realest part.

I didn't put my collage on the street for someone to find.  I didn't know that until I did it.  Until I looked at the photo I took of it lying there.  Until I felt the volume knob of my creative imagination being cranked up.  If a bus rolled over it two minutes after I left, or if it really did blow into the Big Mama Donut Shop parking lot, or if it drifted down into a storm drain it doesn't matter.  In my mind it's  still sailing off across the city to parts unknown.  Amplifying my creative self as it meanders along.

After school I headed north on Hill into Chinatown.

Late summer in Los Angeles.  A hot dry breeze was blowing.  The air felt good on skin that spent the day in an air conditioned classroom.  No one was around.  This lovely worn courtyard empty except for a few shufflers or shopkeepers.

A firetruck could have gone by and I wouldn't have noticed.  The heat and all the dangling lanterns had me in a trance.

Blissed out on shadows and lanterns.

Comments

[kate]

i love these photographs especially the first one of the lanterns. it makes me want to go to china [even more].

[Becky New]

I am SOOOO in LOVE with your new work!!! VERY inspiring!
Thank you for sharing!

[susan w]

how much extra time do you give yourself for your trip to work so that you can float and feel and shoot along the way. I am most grateful that you do. It is an inspiration to your readers to do the same, if not in reality, within our awareness; to see and savor the visions along the journey. You turn L.A. - especially "ordinary" neighborhoods into a visual vacation. Thank you MaryAnn

[Sharon @ norah'S]

I really like how the three different lantern pics each have a different background color. All equally beautiful.

[Julie Prichard]

OK- please drive by my house and drop collages out the car window. I won't tell and we can pretend they rode the breeze down here.

I would pee in my pants with glee if I found that on the street!

[Vicki in Michigan]

I have walked home from work on days when I wished I had a jacket. Every time I stop to take pics I completely forget that I am cold.....................

And then there are the hours that mysteriously disappear when I am sitting here at the computer, playing with the pics.....................

[judy wise]

What a keen eye you have. What you create is helping to teach me to look closer. kiss kiss.

[Chris]

It is so great to see L.A. through your eyes. Thank you!

p.s. For one thing, mine are so pale blue that I have to squint too much and everything looks like it has eyelashes.

[mary cooper]

I just found your blog and I adore it. It makes me want to move to LA just to see the things you photograph,then I would spend my days searching the side walks for a piece of your art. Until then I'll content myself with more visits through your blog.Thanks Mary

[Sandy]

My heart stopped when I saw your beautiful page on the ground. I thought Oh No, I hope it doesn't get stepped on. But that would just make it more unique wouldn't it? I love your photos and travels through your blog. What a joy it must be to live in a city where there are so many different cultures. You can just walk right on down to Chinatown and snap a few shots, how awesome is that? I want to visit CA one day, one day I will. I don't know what day it will be though. Hope you are well.

[[Charlene]]

I'm very inspired by your activing imagination work. I am familiar with Jungian dream work, and I look at my life as a waking dream using Jungian analysis. It's a magical way to live. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about creating small works of art with inspirational, positive sayings that I can drop off around Phoenix. I see myself out walking doing this. I imagine people walking along, suddenly aware of finding something out of place and feeling as if an angel were speaking to them. (Not that I see myself as the angel, that would be the angel that inspired them to look and see it.) That's the kind of joy I want to leave in the world around me. Reading your post today, I'm even more inspired to take action, to create the first works and get myself out on the streets of Phoenix. Thank you.

[diane cook]

....me too my friend =)

[Lynne]

mary ann, this is the most beautiful post... it touches me... oh my god, your collage off on a journey of its own. that exCITES me!!! it inspires me!

and these photos... you have captured the early autumn light perfectly. i can FEEL it! give me a tall glassful please!!!

xo

[Michele]

Your Chinatown photos are amazing. They truly are little snippets of a late summer afternoon in LA, in Chinatown, through your eyes. Thank you for taking me somewhere else for a few minutes and helping me "see" through your eyes.

I love the image of your collage floating off into the wilds of LA---just another "photo" you shared with me tonight.

Thanks for sharing.

[Gwen Delmore]

This is an embarrassment of riches! Are there really so many lanterns hanging in Chinatown? This is too beautiful...

Love your musings on the active imagination, too.

[Eunice]

I have always loved LA's Chinatown. Thank you for the beautiful images! I just wish I could get back there to see for myself, but for now, I will view it all through your eyes.

[Seth]

Great "performance art" project you got going on. The fact that we will probably never know what happens makes it all the more magical. Love the lanterns too!

[Erin]

So happy to have stumbled upon your blog.
I am a native Angelino and Californian who transplanted East 8 years ago. Oh how I miss my Chinatown and the sights, smells and sounds...I cannot even begin to tell you how much certain things become missed all the more when you no longer can just hop in the car and go to them any more...alas

thanks for sharing them.