The Dance of
Dialogue: Where Image and Language Meet
"Everything in the Universe is within you. Ask everything of yourself.--Rumi
is a process in which I sometimes speak to an image
and let it speak back to me. In a
receptive, relaxed state of mind, I embody a
willingness to reach beyond my past
experiences, perspectives, and present
knowledge base. I simply quiet my mind
and try to be fully present with an image.
Relaxed but attentive, I wait until having the
urge to speak, not really knowing
what I am about to say. By giving an
image its own voice in my imagination,
I instantly have words come to/through me.
This is often in poetry form, sometimes
rhyming, sometimes not. By simply
relaxing and allowing words to flow through me
in response to the image, it is a process quite
similar to that of reading a good piece
of fiction and having visual images arise in
one's mind, only words are coming in response
to an image.
Usually what I receive is that
which I had not known before I spoke it. Although
this sounds impossible, it is a quite simple
process of tapping into the collective
consciousness which we are all a part of, by
our very design.
Although I have not read his
work on this subject, I am aware that David Bohm,
a physicist, was one of the first proponents of
this concept. I stumbled onto this
process rather innately when I spent a great
deal of time alone in a self-imposed
period of isolation.
I began to follow my urges to
spontaneously create drawings and paintings. These
pieces were not planned or intended for
sale. They just seemed to come up out of me.
At this time I had a great number of big
questions in my life. These were the kinds of
questions which could not be answered by any
person, philosophy, or religion that I
knew of. I began to have a sense of a
deep wisdom that was somehow embedded in
the images I was creating.
I have been amazed at the topics I have
gained insight on that I have never studied
in any other way. My images and I have
become great friends, for I give them life
through my creative process and they give me
life through insight and knowledge.
Dialogue seems to be the best marriage of words
and images, for they do not compete
in this process. Rather, these two
forms of communication serve each other as partners,
one evoked easily and effortlessly by the other
when a person is in the correct state of mind.
This synthesis of the right-brain/image and
left-brain/language is an interactive process,
a fluid, rhythmic dance that brings not only
knowledge in an effortless way,
but also pure joy at the awareness of the
greatness of our being and abilities.
copyright 1997 Linda Rae