Tami Simon: Hello, friends. My name is Tami Simon, and I’m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast: Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform, it’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening. Special weekly live shows including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com. I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at soundstruefoundation.org, and in advance, thank you for your support.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge my guest is an old friend to both me and to Sounds True, Dr. Stephen Aizenstat. Steve is the founding president of Pacifica Graduate Institute. He’s a professor of depth psychology with a PhD in clinical psychology, and he’s an expert in the area of dreamwork. He teaches his Dream Tending methodologies worldwide and is the author of the book and audio series Dream Tending, and now he’s written a new book with Sounds True. It’s called The Imagination Matrix: How to Access the Greatest Power You Have for Creativity, Connection, and Purpose. So here we go, entering the Imagination Matrix with, Dr. Stephen Aizenstat. Steve, welcome.
Stephen Aizenstat: Welcome. Also, it’s great to see you, Tami, and wonderful to be here with you.
TS: I want to start out actually with a quote from The Imagination Matrix. You write, “It’s my conviction that imaginal intelligence must take its place in the pantheon of intelligences, including emotional intelligence and more.” And I wanted to begin with this notion that there is something that you refer to as “imaginal intelligence.” What’s that?
SA: Yes, it is something that really has come forward to me and through me, truthfully, all through the years, and now it’s more important than ever. The capacity to evoke and to engage imagination and to be inside of imagination, inside of the Imagination Matrix, as I’ve called it, and this idea of imaginal intelligence is so important I think. We certainly have been schooled in intellectual intelligence or IQ, we now know about emotional intelligence, that’s become important and significant. It’s just the capacity to open imagination, to be in the world with and of imagination. It’s a game changer truthfully. It allows us to be into a different quality of life experience both physiologically and emotionally. And too, it opens creativity and innovation and really a deep sense of well-being. So imaginal intelligence, the capacity to evoke imagination.
TS: Now you said something interesting. I want to make sure I understand it, that it opens us to a different way of being physiologically. What did you mean by that?
SA: Yeah. When we are in our curiosity, which is the keyword, all the way through, you’ll hear me probably use that word four or five times over. Because curiosity is the opening—to be curious, to open curiosity, to follow curiosity—opens a different quality of being in the world. Right? Our breath deepens, we have a sense of presence. Curiosity brings wonder, actually, into our lives more fully. And imaginal intelligence actually comes forward when we are in the place of an imaginal way of being present. Being present in the world with and through imagination, it’s as if we’re seen with eyes that will pick up the luminosity, the luminous in things. So much so that I really decided to see how I could qualify and quantify the idea that we could actually increase imaginal intelligence. And we’re working on two research projects, one qualitative and one quantitative.
The capacity to allow imagination to come forward and to be part of our life experience. Physiologically, what happens is that theta in the brain begins to increase. And that is a receptive, curious, responsive place to be in the world. A creative place to be. Alpha, which is a more mobilized place, important to be in life, particularly rational mind. Alpha begins to decrease, theta increase. To use the scientific language, neuroplasticity opens and something different happens in our bodies, in our presence, in our relationship to our work, our relationships, our family life, and in our health as well.
TS: So when you’re talking about quantifying imaginal intelligence, are you talking about measuring brainwave states and measuring how much theta? Is that how you’re quantifying it? Or how are you quantifying it?
SA: That’s a great question, and it opens a wonderful story. So how do we quantify it? Yeah, it is brainwave states. So how do you measure that? Well, now it’s possible, easily, with the new technologies, to measure all kinds of things, including these kinds of brainwave states. So I took the challenge and I decided, well, let me find people that can actually measure that capacity. So I found a really good group of people, scientists really, and they’re named Divergence. They’re working with something called “the crown.” You put the crown on, it’s going to measure theta, it’ll measure alpha among a number of things, and all their work was oriented around meditation. Because with meditation, we’re quieting the mind, right? Some people refer to it as empty mind, but rather quieting mind, quieting the busy mind, the rational mind. Our breath deepens, right? Our body relaxes, we come into a different kind of being, a presence. Things are different, we feel that happen in our bodies and it promotes, it supports, of course we know, a sense of well-being.
Well, I thought to myself, when I’m in my experience of journeying in the realms of deep imagination. When I’m in the Imagination Matrix, it really isn’t that empty mind or quiet mind, it is a different mind. It’s being involved with curiosity and engaging the imaginal figures and landscapes and actions that I encountered there. I knew something different was happening in my body, I was not becoming more anxious or I wasn’t mobilizing. I was actually relaxing, surrendering, letting go, giving over to the imaginal landscapes that I was engaged in. So I brought that to this research group and I thought, all right, let’s put on what they called the crown, which is—you put it on and lets you measure—and I went with their program, their protocol, listening to the music, deepening in meditation. And then I thought, game on, let’s try it. So I actually then went into my process, which I named “the Dig,” which is a journeying in the deep imagination, in the matrix of imagination. And unbelievably, I could see it right in front, because they had a big monitor. And 88 percent—that kind of incredible boom increase in theta brainwaves. Right?
There’s a crossover place between alpha and theta, and it went way up high, it spiked. They were astounded really, truly, because they hadn’t seen anything quite like this. But it was something that always was true for me. When I’m in that place, things shift and then I come back from that place of imagination, that journeying and imagination internally. And when I’m in the external world, things just are very different. I’m different. How I am in a relationship is different. I have a very busy, active work life, and how I am with people and from everything from administration to logistics shift, I’m in imagination.
TS: Now, I think it would be helpful if we can just define a couple of terms that you’re using. You mentioned this process that you use called the Dig, in order to enter what you’re referring to as the Imagination Matrix. So maybe you could define both of those things, what’s the Dig? What process? And what’s the Imagination Matrix?
SA: For me, it really has been what started all of this, from Dream Tending, which I’ve done for decades now, and it’s been always extraordinary for me to be in the world of the dreamtime. Because in the dreams, we do have a sense of being part of an imaginal process of course, right? But things started to evolve, and I was discovering that in addition to the dreams, there’s this quality of consciousness, a state of awareness, a way of being that has an imaginal sensitivity and sensibility to it. So I thought, I’m going to engage. And it wasn’t an intentional thought necessarily. I was actually in a little coffee house up in the Pacific Northwest, where there are a lot of coffee—I just got back from there, actually. And I was doodling on a napkin, just plain, and I was noticing that as I was doodling—I’m not really a wonderful artist at all. But I do like to doodle on occasion, just sketching. And I was noticing that something was beginning to come forward. It was something like an opening or a portal or a cave of some sort, something.
Well, later that day, which is why I was up there to begin with, I was working with my mentor, Russ Lockhart, and he said, “Look, something’s coming forward. Why don’t you follow that? Not only in dreamtime, but in a kind of imaginal way?” I thought, well, I guess he’s talking about active imagination. Well, active imagination is part of it but that is a kind of directive process we’re actively imagining almost like guided imagery. This was very different, this was kind of unfolding on its own. And then, when I really listened to Jung and read his work, particularly when he moved into that part of his life where The Red Book evolved, I noticed that what he meant by active imagination was not actively bringing our minds into the practice, but that the imagination in and of itself is active—active imagination, the imagination ongoing, active, with a life of its own, its own autonomy.
And that’s where this idea of the Dig came in. Because the Dig was something I just gave a name to it, because it was geologic. I’m in Santa Barbara, that’s where I live. Everything in my life is about ocean and the oceanic, right? That’s how I’ve been brought up, that’s what I do in life. So this was different, it really was. And it was the idea of, there’s a portal here. What would happen if I allowed myself to go into that portal? And then I thought, well, I could go alone. I mean, I could bring my conscious mind into that praxis. Or, like so many have done for thousands of years, I could wait, be present and allow other figures—like in the dreamtimes, since that’s what I had been doing, still do, forever—the other figures of the dream to come forward and really participate. In fact, they take the lead. So when I go into my morning practice, the first thing I do is listen to dream and then write some associations and some ideas down. And the second thing I do is go into the practice called the Dig.
And it starts like this. The call goes out and the gathering is happening. I always use that as a beginning mantra. The call goes out and the gathering is happening, which is to say, it’s not me alone. It’s not a hero’s journey, heroine’s journey, in that way. It is the idea that I am part of a group of soul companions that I’ve cultivated, that I’ve experienced, either in the dreamtime, they come forward, or in awake life. I notice people that have been meaningful for me and in the world below the world, behind the worlds, in the place of deep imagination, they really have a place. And then we go on journey, and that is the sense of the Dig. We visit places. I’m one of the many, part of the crew, and we discover things. And why and how it’s so useful in my life and all the people that I work with—again, whether it be physiological, psychological, emotional—how it’s so useful. I finished a piece of work yesterday, actually, it’s a resource. We are being resourced by something quite extraordinary, by the intelligence that’s alive and active in the realms of the deep imagination.
TS: Now, one of the words you used that really got my attention in the book, and also here in our conversation, is the autonomy of the deep imagination. And I’m like, autonomy? It’s living and active outside of our conscious minds and activity. And I want to understand more about that.
SA: That is the keynote, actually the whole thing. The autonomous imagination, it has its own independence, if we could use an operational word like that. Like dreams, right? When dreams come, we see ourself in the dream. We do. And yet, there’s all the other images as well. Now we’re trained, and it’s our orientation, particularly in Western culture and Western cultures with an “s.” We’re trained to imagine that we are the centerpiece of the dream, because after all, most of the time we see ourselves in the dream, right? Yet there are all the other figures, too, that are in the dream. And we wonder, if I see myself in the dream, well then who’s dreaming the dream? How are the other figures orchestrating the imagination? How are the other figures, in addition to the person that looks like me, in the dream part of this imaginal landscape? Then we so quickly go to associate the dream to the meanings of the day, the last 48 hours. Or we quickly move to some kind of explanatory system to figure out what the meaning of the dreams are. Important, because we’re an ego-based culture. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, I always touch that base for sure.
It’s just that there’s something in addition. There is this autonomy. And what I do with that functionally is, I shift the questions. It’s really something easy to do and something to consider. Instead of asking, what does this dream mean? What does this dream have to do with me? Important they are, those questions. In addition: Who’s visiting now? Who’s visiting now? And then, what’s happening here? Notice the paradigm just shifted. We moved from person-centric to psyche center as if—who’s visiting now? The figures of psyche, the figures of deep imagination, the autonomous imagination here now. Who’s visiting now? And I get curious, open, again, with a curious mind about who it is that’s present now along with me. And what’s happening here? Not what am I doing in the dream only or in imagination in the practice of the day. What’s happening here? What’s the activity of the others along with me that’s unfolding, that’s presenting itself? So I think that’s the move into the autonomous imagination, a life and intelligence of its own making.
TS: OK. There’s a lot about the Imagination Matrix I want to talk to you about, Steve, but I have this other burning question first. You talked about putting the crown on your head and measuring the journey that you take through the Dig and this increase in theta wave activity that happens and how then, having done this, this impacts your activities in the world. And I’m wondering, even in a conversation like this, how does all the work that you’ve done—digging and immersing yourself, intentionally dropping through the portal—how does all of that impact just having a normal conversation with someone? What’s your inner position? And is the alive imaginal world showing you symbols right now while we’re talking? What’s happening?
SA: Oh, that’s a beautiful question. Yeah, and it is for me the most important part. It’s what I share with everybody that I work with. Right? OK. As a kid I was shy, very shy actually, anxious, right? I think it’s because I was small, I was the little one in the elementary and junior and middle school classes, and really felt left out a lot, alone. I did. And it was hard to navigate through. Life moves on and things happen, long stories, of course, every juncture. And then at I’m at UCLA. When I’m starting those studies—and now things are escalating and even more difficult—something happened, and I really started experiencing dream and, really, the things that were happening when I was little that were kind of out of the margins. I mean, I’d go into my room when I was anxious. And now, people are in front of the screens—another topic.
But I would go into my room or in the backyard, we had one little tree in the suburban home in the San Fernando Valley right outside of Los Angeles, and I’d just be there, and I’d let my imagination wander, and I’d feel some relief. I’d feel not so alone, right? And the same thing happens here and now. And now things have evolved in my life. I started a graduate institution, Pacifica Graduate Institute, started a whole other piece and Dream Tending and on and on. I’ve been places from the United Nations presenting a keynote to A, B, C, and D. To the extent that I would go up there in front of that microphone alone, right? Or addressing the hostile faculty senate, let’s say, at Pacifica or a group of unruly students when I was teaching junior high school. If I’m there by myself, one thing’s going to happen, it is. First I’m going to fight for my survival, I’m going to mobilize. I’m going to use every skill I know that I’ve learned to try to figure the way out of this. I mean, that’s what’s going to happen, I’m going to get reactive, in other words.
On the other hand, in the morning, when I go into Dig like I did this morning. In fact, I did that just an hour before I’m here with you having our conversation. First move is, I go and meet these figures, the soul companions, so I get their support. I feel like there’s an outer community like my family, my good friends, colleagues, a lot of people, pets, landscapes. I have a rich outer community, and too, an inner community of these figures that I’ve gotten to know. And when I’m in their presence, I have a sense of belonging. And not just a kind of like, I’m here now, I’ve done my exercise, it’s over. No, I have a sense of deep belonging, something opens up inside. I’m not alone.
So when I’m now in a situation where I’m asked to do a keynote speech, I’m just—this is very personal, but what’s true is that in five days, our daughter is going to be married. Now, I’m going to be there, obviously, and I’m going to be offering a speech, and I’m going to be doing all the kinds of things. I’ll be there with her, and the love that I have for her will be big. And too, I’m going to be there with my full sense of person and presence. And that comes because that morning I will have journeyed into deep imagination. I will have encountered yet again the figures of psyche, of soul, and have a conversation. We’re not talking a long time, for me it’s about 10, 15 minutes of dreamtime, then I’ll do a process, and then go into this, what we’re calling the Dig. When I offer this to people, now hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, I suggest that everybody make it their own. Right? I use the word Dig, other people have other words. It’s going through the portal into the imagination, engaging the soul companions. And what I get and what people really discover is there’s a sense of coming home. It’s a home place, right? It’s a sense of belonging, it’s a sense of I’m not in this alone. When hard stuff comes up in life, there are figures that are supportive. And that really can be important to me.
TS: Steve, I need to bring this up because I can hear the person listening to our conversation who might be feeling a sense of—and bear with me here—the divisiveness that is often there in our culture. If you think of someone having their “imaginary friends.” Like a child has their imaginary friends and now the founder of Pacifica Graduate Institute, this tremendously well-respected, postgraduate depth psychology training ground, is sharing with us that he wakes up every day and talks to his imaginary friends before he starts his day. And there’s a way that that’s seen, I think, through a certain voice in the status-quo culture that’s very diminishing. And I wonder how you would address that.
SA: Well, let’s begin with not only do I talk with but it’s as important to listen too, right? So same dynamic, but that’s what happens. But the whole purposefulness of an institution like Pacifica is to honor imagination and the psyche and really say to the world, it is OK to have figures of imagination present in our lives. Now I do a lot of consulting. I’ll consult with really big companies. So I’m with founders of big corporations, I’m with their leadership teams, I mean, all kinds of different venues. And frankly, if I start with that, people are going, “Oh my God. From California obviously, and probably was a hippie at some point in his life.” And I do get split off a little bit or there’s a kind of discounting that goes on, it doesn’t take long though.
If I frame it in the context, if we go around the group, for example, when I start and just say something very simple. Like, “Hey, I’m imagining what brought you here to this conversation. What story are you hearing that really made it important for you to be here or created the circumstances for you to be here?” And people share that just before we start with the agenda of the day or developing the long-range plan for the institution or the corporation. Just starting in the place of story, right? Already, imagination is in the room. Truthfully, when I’m working with couples and they’re having a hard time in their life I appreciate with them, “Hey, in addition to the two of you, I’m trained as a marriage family therapist, clinical psychologist. So I get it. And I’ve worked with so many couples including my own over the decades.” Right? But we think that it is all about the power struggles, the communication patterns, it’s all about the addictions or the raising children, whatever struggles around money and identity. All incredibly important they are, and certainly I would not bypass that ever.
In addition, there’s something else going on, there’s just more than two people in a conversation. Each person has certain figures that are part of their life, and those figures make impact. They influence who we are and our behaviors. And they’re in the room, we know they’re in the room. Right? We have a sense that they’re in the room. Somebody else is here now in addition to this person. I can see them going through a rage, but it’s not really you. It’s like this rage that’s happening. Well, if it’s not really you, who is here? And so we get to know, when I’m doing couples counseling or therapy, is who is the other one that’s here now? Or people wonder, “Hey, what the heck are we doing in this couple relationship? Time is over with, it’s time to separate.” That’s hard, it’s filled with angst and pain and then I get curious with them. I’m so interested, I’m wondering, “Do you remember when you first got together what was present?
Was there something that brought you or a figure that brought you here together?” In other words, and everybody knows, because we’re filled with those stories. Cupid brings us together in the most romantic Disney-esque story. Eros, that figure brings us together. There’s a third entity or multiple entities that are at work in any conversation.
And now the young ones, the younger generation, this is like yes, of course. If you ask a young person, “Hey, what brings you here into this consulting room? Into this counseling relationship? What brings you here?” Unbelievably, there’s this pause that happens it’s like the question doesn’t even make sense. What brings me here? Hear what’s going on in their experience. I don’t know what me you’re talking about. I have a lot of virtual identities, a lot of avatars, there are a lot of images in my life that have importance and presence. So what brings me in? Well, let me just discover. You can see things are changing in that way. But just to go back right to your question, right? It’s really not peculiar at all. In fact, when we watch children, we see them in their imaginal play and we see the gifts that are happening. We quickly move all the way from K to first grade, then certainly by second grade it’s teaching to the test. It’s really mastering the skillset. Often we’ll leave the imagination behind, the incredible resource that is the intelligence that’s alive there.
So the work is to how do we bring that quality of resource and intelligence and creativity back into our lives? The reason that Harvard Business School, yes, Harvard Business School has brought that front and center, a big, big part of now, the new emerging curriculum not only at Harvard but a variety of places. Because imagination, when that enlivens, it evokes innovation and creativity. And I don’t want to attribute motivation, but with innovation and creativity comes what? The edge. I mean, not to put it harshly, but I get the competitive edge when I’m working with new product lines and developing new possibilities, which is why I’m invited into a lot of these places. Hey, how do we keep imagination alive? Innovation, here in this company, everybody’s in front of their screens like twelves sometimes, they’re going on sprints. Three days of 18-hour days. They’re just losing the sense of their personhood and their imagination. When that goes, then innovation leaves and then anxiety, despair, isolation comes forward. So yeah, we do say it out loud. It is not an in-loud statement that imagination matters, and there are figures of imagination. And now with all the new social media and the movies, literature, music, and more and more, now people are feeling increasingly comfortable with entertaining the idea that there are lots of imaginal figures that we can begin to deepen the relationship with.
TS: Right. I want to share with you, Steve, the moment when I was reading The Imagination Matrix that my imagination exploded. And that moment was when you introduced this notion of the Imagination Matrix having Four Quadrants. And I’d love for you to share with our listeners both how you came up with this and what the Four Quadrants are, and how by exploring all Four Quadrants, that really activates our capacities, our imaginal capacity. It increases our imaginal IQ, I would say.
SA: Yes, it does. OK. Allow me to share just this small little story that happened last night. Our youngest son came home, and he was here last night. Everybody’s preparing for what I shared, the celebration that’s about to happen. And at the same time yesterday—well, actually it was the day before—I received a box in the mail, a big brown box. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t order anything from Amazon, so it wasn’t the traditional delivery. It was something else. Opened it, what do you think was in the box? Yes, the hard copy, the first print of The Imagination Matrix from Sounds True. Right? Through the publishing, so it was a wonderful experience. So we opened it, my son is there, my wife is there and they were, “Whoa, Dad, we’ve been watching you work really hard on this for years now. It’s here, it’s here.” He opened it up and the first thing he did is he saw the cover and the cover: The Imagination Matrix. I don’t have it here with me. There’s Four Quadrants, what you’re referring to and he said, “Dad, oh, so it’s four? That’s where it was, huh?” I said, “What are you referring to?” “Do you remember? I think it was four years ago, five years ago, we were backpacking in the Sierras, and we were up by that lake, and then we were talking and that you were using the stick and you’re drawing in the ground and how many quadrants are there? Are there three? Are there four? Are there five? And look at where you’ve ended: four. Oh my goodness, this is great. Oh, I love this image, this is perfect.” I couldn’t even believe it, I had of course forgotten that whole thing. And it just brought that all back. It was very heartwarming, honestly, very human and very loving and very supportive. And I knew I’d be talking with you today, and here we are at the Four Quadrants.
The Four Quadrants are really important to me, and they really inform the work that I do with people that are suffering from illness. Because I do a lot of work with disease syndromes, and that’s a whole other topic. But it’s a way of working with health and illness in relation to imagination. So these quadrants become very important that way, they become very important when I am working with emotional distress, yes, or people caught in addictive or traumatic syndromes of one sort or the next. So my work has been informed by the direct experience of being in clinical work, and so there’s no shortcut. I mean, people are not coming into an upward and onward experience. They’re coming in because of pain and hurt and needing to figure something out, because it’s consequential in their life. So I always come back to, look, this is really in the service is something that restores your sense of well-being or sense of connection to ourselves and to the friends and our community and our partners and our families.
So the Four Quadrants are earth, mind, machine, and universe. So I must’ve gone through 10 words on each of those, but those are the words that we settled on. So let me share each one. The idea is imagination is more than a rational mind. It’s not linear, it’s infused by the energetic and the intelligence and the capacities of so many elements and qualities in our human experience. From the earth quadrant it’s regenerativity, yeah? It’s earth, it’s body, it’s ground, it’s fertile soil, earth quadrant. It contains ocean, the rhizome layer, the interconnectedness of living systems, the earth quadrant. Such an incredible teaching, incredible lesson. And I’ve had the privilege of working with native elders, really, now worldwide and that sensitivity. That connection to the pulse and the rhythm of the planet and the interconnectivity and regenerativity, earth.
Mind is another way of saying for me psyche. Mind is, in addition to the earth, there’s something in the human psyche or the collective psyche that’s so important. These are the place of the visitants of the imaginary figures. These are the places of the dream figures, this is the place where the mythic motifs unfold, the archetypal entities that we’ve come into touch with. It’s a place where everybody from, Joseph Campbell, to Marian Woodman, to elders of the Aboriginal dreamtime pick up on. It’s the place of the figures of deep imagination that interact with one another and interact with us, and that’s the place where we hear the stories that are coming forward through the voices of these entities. Right?
Then we have machines, so important in the world. Now though, we’re involved in a world filled with technology, not just technology but technologies and the new evolutions of technology. Not only virtual reality but augmented reality, mixed realities informed by artificial intelligence. Ubiquitous as we know, the medium we’re on right now is technologically driven. Machine is such an important part of our lives at this point. I know there’s a fear of the takeover of the machine for sure, the monster in the machine of course, and too, there’s something else. So the work that I’m doing really has a lot to say about finding the co-creative capacities between person and machine. Right? Not a takeover, but a way of being responsive to, creatively engaged with tools to support and align.
And then universe, the fourth quadrant, that sense of cosmos. We all know when there is a nice sky to look up into and we see the constellations or the Milky Way, the cosmos, the stars, the “something bigger than” that transcendent idea. The luminous, the cosmos that is all embracing, that fills us with a different sense of mystery and magic and has an energetic of its own making.
So for me, imagination is made up of these Four Quadrants, not necessarily one after the next, but in an enfolded web of experience intersecting like a spider’s web almost. A web. So it’s an Imagination Matrix, which is why the word matrix came forward. It has all kinds of connotations, one of which is a matrix is a way of having something woven. One thing intersecting with the next. And what I’ve discovered over time and working with lots of people, including myself, is that in these places of intersection, when one quadrant intersects with another, with another, I named that the place of confluence. And at the place of confluence, there’s portals, and that’s the place that we can move through and really experience the resources that are happening there.
Now, that sounds a bit esoteric. And it doesn’t need to. It’s really kind of, frankly, really quite grounded and actual, because we all know it. We know that when our body is in deep breath and aligned with the pulse and resonance of the earth, something happens. When we’re walking, and we’re out of our rational minds, and we’re feeling the world come forward and present itself and its beauty, on the surface and underneath the surface, something’s moving through us. We know that when we’re touching an imagination that we’re in a different place. We’re not in a rational, busy mind, we’re in a contemplative mind filled with wonder. That’s when flow begins to happen. We know this place. And then we also know that when we’re with machine, not taken over by a machine but with machine, amazing things are possible. I mean, the artists—music and visual and movement artists—the way they’re working now with the new technologies is quite extraordinary. Being able to share things with one another, even in the classroom now with the advent of mixed realities and augmented realities.
I’m going to teach a lesson in the classroom, and with advanced technologies, we’re not just talking about a place. We’re able to actually, in real time, visit the place as it’s unfolding in the here and now. It is increasingly embodied, the experience of these realities. And we’ll see how that evolves. I really get, because I’m an advocate of sounding the warnings when it’s too much. Right? Because I just see it, the addictive processes of too much screen time. On the other hand, it really does complement—when we’re in a particular way and we all know what happens when we are in a place of something bigger than that transcendent quality—that idea, something new happens, something comes forward, the fourth quadrant. That is a difference that makes a difference when I’m working with illness, just to ground it really practically.
TS: Yeah, let’s take an example. Take an example of someone, perhaps, who has a health challenge and how they would bring it to all Four Quadrants as part of their journeying for a solution.
SA: Yeah, let’s do that. Let me take one. So I’ve worked at it was called the Santa Barbara Healing Sanctuary. And we’ve done this work now for years and years and years. And we started in Santa Barbara and now we have a place in Mexico and other places. And COVID happened. So there’s now a little pause in the action, but really doing the work. And it’s complementary medicine, which is to say, it is not a replacement for medicine. It’s in conjunction with really good physical care and doctor’s care, right? And there’s a woman’s named, let’s call her, Rita. And Rita comes in and she’s tried everything. Really, honestly, she’s really been involved with lots of medical procedures, processes, really worked with some of the best physicians and gotten a lot of help suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. But it’s getting worse and crippling and worse still, not good. OK? She’s not fatal yet, but it is really limiting her functionality and really affecting what’s going on in her life. She was very active, a family three children, and now she’s withdrawing from friendships and activities and she was just hurting.
So she was trying the regimen, which is good. But she came to the healing sanctuary and we worked, and I’m going to work now with her and describe how I worked with these Four Quadrants in relation to discovering or evolving creating the imaginal medicine that could be used in a complementary way to the actual pharmaceutical medicines and everything that she was working with. I mean, she was working with a movement therapist, she was working with a nutritionist, she was working with a lot of people, but still there was nothing yet that was really taking hold. So, Rita comes forward. And in the place where I work, we have people that are working with nutrition. She has a dream, right? So this is how it works, because in this instance we work with dreams like the Greeks did in classical work with the Asclepieion sanctuaries with that medicine. And you worked with the figure of the wounded healer.
So from the first quadrant, earth quadrant, in the dream, there’s a little dog in her backyard. She loved this dog, it was her dog and now the little dog was about eight or nine years old, but a dear companion, this one. And when she would pet this one, she felt so warm. This one just loved her completely. So that one, that dog, that pet that we cherish that love us as much as we love them, beloved, really, these figures. And in the dream, she saw this little one in the backyard of her home. So when you work with dream and imagination, if you’re in a home place, you know more often than not it has something to do with home. Either body home or characterologically home or something about home or some dysfunction at home or some possibility of home. Home, OK? So we’re in that place and we’re in the backyard and the little dog is not doing well and is wounded.
Well, I’ve learned over the years that when a pet, particularly one that we’re fond of, is wounded, that usually nine times out of ten, I would say, has some correspondence to this body, in the sense of, I always looked there. But what she was noticing is something out of the ordinary. This little dog was eating grass. OK. Well, that’s not unusual, except was eating the grass and was somehow feeling better, it’s just like something was happening. Now we know, for those of us that have animals and pets and dogs, that grass is naturally something that works medicinally in certain times, in certain ways. Not too much. But for her, this comes in a dream, and she’s noticing that. She doesn’t make anything of it, except we’re now in this work and we’re supporting people to listen to the dream and hear how the dream and imagination is informing physical well-being and illness. So we remember that, and then we say well—I host the conversation—in addition to the grass, now we’re thinking of the nutritionist. Because that’s part of imaginal medicine is to put all these quadrants together. So that’s good, OK, grass, let’s remember that one because that’s nutrition that comes from the earth quadrant, right? That’s regenerative, that has perhaps healing properties.
Now, let’s go to the mind quadrant the dog hurting, really special, this dog to Rita, and wounded. I wonder if this one is a wounded healer image, he or she, they who carry the wound also carry the healing possibility. The wounded healer, right? In the wound is the medicine, is the healing. And this one does, and what it brought forward was a way of touching. Because when I’m touching dog, I’m using my senses, right? That’s body-oriented and too, image related. It’s a living image now. Not just dog as a sign and a dream equals to a wounded healer static, dog a living presence now in imagination here with us, able to actually touch in imagination. Right? The dog here now, what about dog as a guide? As a wounded healer presence? As a figure that really does bring something of value into this conversation? The mind quadrant, OK?
Now we got to go to the next quadrant machine, which is just a standard. Where machine, fluidity, functionality—she was feeling frozen. Oh my gosh, she couldn’t even hardly move her shoulder and her neck, her arm was just in severe pain. Functionality, the third quadrant, what do we need to bring some warmth? Some lubricant? And she said, “I feel cold, I feel frozen.” Let’s look in that backyard again, “It was bright daylight, that’s what I liked about it. It was so like spring or summer.” And she felt the warmth there. OK, the machine bringing a certain kind of warmth. And I asked her, “What about warmth?” And we just did the simplest of simple things, hands together creating warmth. Right? So now we have something from the machine quadrant, which is that elemental quality of warmth, which can serve as a lubricant, so to speak, for the machine. Something to facilitate functionality.
And now the last quadrant, the universe, the most important of all. Because in the practice of complementary medicine, what we know is that intention is so important, belief. It’s, hear the word in the correct way, the placebo effect. If we believe something people have known this forever, prayer, ritual, ceremony. If we set up a positive intention or belief, things consulate around that. It really is the difference that makes a lot of the difference. Right?
So now we have belief, now we have the four components of creating an imaginal medicine. So what I asked her to do was, since we had a nutritionist presence, “Hey, what could we suggest here?” And what came up was rice cake with clover honey. Imagine a clover honey to pick up on the grass theme, a rice cake with clover honey, right? Bringing the presence of her beloved dog in picture form into her room, right? Hands with warmth, yes, a reflection and meditation of belief, and we had all that we needed to now go into practice. Because now that we got it, what are we going to do next? We have to administer it, right? So we did that, and we set up a ritual where, in the morning, she would start before formal breakfast with a rice cake and the clover honey, inviting dog, imagining actually into the space petting and feeling. Right?
We then asked her to like this, and then put the warmth on her shoulder. And then we asked her to take a moment and to go into a deep reflection meditation. What does she connect with that really infuses her life spirit? And for her it was walking outside in the night. And she was in the rural area, so she could see the stars and the moon, and she loved that. So to bring that intention and to really bring in a sense of something’s happened here, this is really going to make a difference, it is. OK?
So we did that and we said, “All right. Hey, once every morning and once in the evening before you ingest the pharmaceuticals, the medicines, before you go to physical therapy and do that work, first this ritual. And this sets the stage for you to receive the pharmaceutical, the medicines and/or the treatments and let’s see what happens.” And sure enough, it’s not a surprise to me anymore. But two weeks later she was reporting, “Well, actually, to be honest,” right? In the context we were working with at the sanctuary, after the end of the two weeks that we’re all together in the healing sanctuary, she was feeling way better, really better, because she was just bringing intentionality, warmth, belief. She’s bringing the imaginal medicines in, her wounded healer was here with her. And then the idea was to stay with us over the next month. And we play it to win. So we’re going to ingest the medicines twice a day or three times a day. Anyway, that’s the prescription. So let’s companion this work with the discipline, and there’s an example of that.
TS: All right, Steve, I just have two final questions for you. One, is that I don’t think I really understand the notion of confluence. And maybe in the example you just gave, or you could just talk about it. Because I’ve been working now with the quadrants, and I visit each one with whatever question I have, but I don’t know how to then see confluence between the different areas of exploration.
SA: Yeah. When I just shared that example let’s just use it because it’s here now, right?
TS: Sure.
SA: When Rita was doing that, she was feeling one leading to the next, into the next and the next. All Four Quadrants were contributing. A confluence of the Four Quadrants was created, and that was indeed the imaginary medicine. So we’re talking physiologically now, the same thing can happen emotionally, the same thing can happen psychologically. When the Four Quadrants all contribute, then they’re in a sense of confluence.
TS: OK, and then a final question. You’ve talked about imagination being a resource. And I think so many of us know what a challenging time we’re in as a human species right now. What do you think right now? What lives in your imagination? What is the story that is emerging in you about imagination and its role at this time?
SA: Tami, I loved how you framed that: What is the story? Because at the very end of the book is the story web of imagination, right? The story web. Because at the end of the day, I think it is story, what stories are coming forward? That’s what we’re listening for, and the story that’s moving through me, I think the story is, Steve, there’s something that worked now that’s moving through you, probably shared by the storyteller. The storyteller of deep imagination, that one, and is sharing with me, go into the world and offer this material. But you know what? It doesn’t need to be academic, it doesn’t need to be lecture after lecture. Offer this material through the craft and the art of storytelling.
And I think the story that’s moving through me is to be increasingly involved with story and storytelling. And my great-grandfather then shows up, who was an incredible storyteller, who I had the good fortune to grow up with, and mentioned in the book Dream Tending. And all the way till I was about five or six years old, he was a shoe cobbler in Pasadena. And people would come and I would see thousands of shoes on all those shelves. Well, to me it was thousands. But I would see that they would come, they’d leave their shoes, but nothing happened. Only to discover they were coming in part for the shoes and another part because they wanted to hear his stories. That’s what was going on, he was telling stories as a cobbler, really as a healer from his tradition. So I think that’s the story that’s moving through me now.
TS: I’ve been speaking with, Dr. Stephen Aizenstat, the founding president of Pacifica Graduate Institute. And he’s written a gorgeous new book that will drop you right into your own deep imagination. It’s called The Imagination Matrix: How to Access the Greatest Power you Have for Creativity, Connection, and Purpose. Steve, great to be with you, and thank you for The Imagination Matrix, which is a true gift to people. Thank you.
SA: Thank you, Tami, and thank you for Sounds True and all that you’ve created as well.
TS: And if you’d like to watch Insights at the Edge on video and participate in the after-show Q&A session with our guests, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community featuring award-winning original shows, live classes, community learning, guided meditations, and more with the leading wisdom teachers of our time. Use promo code PODCAST to get your first month free. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: waking up the world.
