Feeding the Imagination

Children are filled with imagination.  Their fresh, uncluttered minds easily slip into a make-believe world where anything is possible.  It is more of a struggle for most adults.

Unless your talents run to the creative, imagination can be something that is difficult to ignite.  Even for creative people it is often difficult to light the fires of creativity.  I put myself in the category of creative people, but I frequently sit in front of a blank page that gives no hint at what should fill it.  That is one of the reasons I use photographs in this blog -- that and the fact that people are more likely to be drawn to a picture than to words alone.

That creative bent is probably why I am drawn to science fiction and fantasy books and movies.  One of my favorites is "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien.  It is an adventure, a quest and a good-vs-evil tale that is one of my favorite reads but also was made into an excellent movie by Peter Jackson.  Too often, movie versions never meet the expectations set by the book.

The Hobbit tale continues in Tolkien's Trilogy, "The Lord of the Rings."  A creature that appears in those books is an Ent called Treebeard.  Ents were considered as tree herders who tended the forests of Middle Earth.  Although it looks nothing like the fictional character, one of our Sweet Gum trees which I trimmed earlier in the year reminds me of Ents every time I look at it.  You may have to use your imagination a bit, but I suspect you will spot the reason why.

Dreaming in Other Universes

Have you ever considered that maybe parallel universes are real and when we enter into our dreams we are actually travelling to one of those universes?

I've mentioned before that dreams intrigue me.  I wonder what triggers particular dreams.  I frequently wake from my dreams and remember them -- at least for a short period -- though that remembrance almost always fades quickly.  Occasionally there is one that is particularly vivid that remains for extended periods, even years.

I wonder if dreams are expressions of different aspects of our personality.  What if, for instance, a dream about running from something is an expression of a particular fear.  Okay, that's sounds like psycho-babble and doesn't really convey what I'm attempting to describe, let's try again.  Assume you dream of being stranded on an island and you are able to find food and water and build a fire and shelter; is it a projection of your "survival" instinct in dream form and the dream is your mind sharpening those skills in another parallel universe?

What if you are actually existing within some other dimension where the island is real and your mind is linked between this universe and that one?  The dream occurs when sleep allows us to touch that other dimension.  We, for the moment of the dream, exist within that other place.

The reason I am thinking of this today is that I've noticed that in my dreams, people and things sometimes don't have the same name they do in reality.  They may look the same and it may seem natural to call them "same", but they might have different names and possibly even altered personalities.  In the dream one name seems correct but, when I awake I know them/it to be something else.

I know the simplest explanation is just the jumbled swirl of chemicals and wiring that are in our brain, but it's interesting to speculate.  This morning I awoke dreaming of a C-47 Tilt Rotor craft delivering supplies that morphed into a V-22 Osprey upon awakening.  Was I in an alternate universe, or did my brain cross-reference "supplies", C-47 (WWII era) and V-22?  Maybe those three things are just filed in a similar region and the wiring and chemicals were just struggling to get it all sorted out.  I prefer to think I was somewhere else for a moment....

Trees and Imagination

I've always been intrigued by trees.  It probably is from growing up in an area where the only trees were planted by someone.  When I run across a tree like this ancient Bois d'arc, I understand how they could inspire writers to create characters from them.

Imagine yourself walking through the woods around midnight on one of those nights when the moon is full and bright; the crooked limbs of the tree are shadows across the sky.  An owl hoots nearby and something is skittering around in the dry leaves and grass.  Suddenly, your sleeve is snagged by one of the small branches that overhangs your pathway and you find your clothes hung on the stubby remains of a twig broken from the limb.  In your struggle, you make enough noise to startle some larger creature which goes crashing off through the underbrush.

The next day, when you return to the site of the excitement to retrieve the tattered remains of your clothing, you realize that the tree was completely harmless, although your clothing was ruined.  For the writer, it is fuel for the imagination.  I'm apparently only a so-so writer because, yes, it caught my imagination, but as I read my description, I find it falls far short of what J.R.R. Tolkien or, Washington Irving accomplished.  I need to work on that.

A sense of being watched was overwhelming as Ichabod stumbled along the forest path.  The slightest sound would cause him to start as though a giant beast was about to pounce upon him.  The distant hoot, hoot-hoot of an owl was answered nearby followed by the rush of wings swooping down and talons snatching the cap from his head.  He dove to the damp ground, disturbing the moldering leaves to release their pungent odor of decay.  Fear overcame sense as he sprang to his feet, dashing directly into the drooping moss-covered branches of an ancient tree which enfolded him in springing, clinging, hairy arms.

The stone marker beside the road reads, "Here lies poor Ichabod, dead of fright."

Many Doors

Some doors look more promising than others.  The thing about doors is that you never know what is on the other side until you pass through.

Some doors lead to adventure while others lead to safety. 

Some doors are works of art and others are barely functional.

Sometimes you just want to escape and there is usually a door you must pass through in order to do so.

Some doors are constructs in our mind that hide the things we wish to suppress.

Also in our minds, we create doors that lead to imaginative wanderings.

Writers of fiction pass through many doors.  In science fiction there is a door into tomorrow.

I've always thought it would be handy to have a door through which upon passing you would immediately arrive at a destination of your choosing -- you might call it an instantaneous transporter door.

Country music is full of doors.  The line, "swinging doors, a jukebox and a bar stool" comes to mind.

There are doors to our heart, doors to our minds, doors into our very lives.  We hide behind doors.  We pass through doors.  We open them and we close them.

Doors divide the compartments we create that each separately contain parts of who we are.  They are the portals of connection between the disparate pieces of our existence.

Some day we will pass through the door "to the other side."

What do you do with doors?

"Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." -- Matthew 7:7-8

The most important door of all stands between us and eternity:

"Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." -- Revelation 3:20

Doors give us a sense of control.  They are a nexus -- a link.

If you think about how doors connect the compartments of our lives you can almost visualize the model of an atom made with Styrofoam balls and straws.  Could our lives be an abstraction of what is happening at the molecular level?  Might they also be a model of the Cosmos?

This door has apparently been one into speculative wandering.  It's a good thing I left a trail of bread crumbs to find my way out.  Uh, oh, here come the birds....

What Do You See In the Clouds?

What do you see when you look at the clouds

Way up in the sky?

I see dreams and other things

As they go floating by.

Sometimes I see an eagle

Swooping in a dive

Or, maybe there's a clown

Doing the hand jive.

Then there's lipstick smudges

Spread across the page

Of some romantic novel

That is all the rage.

Just let imagination

Take unfettered flight

Upon the wonders there above

And marvel with delight.

What do you see in the clouds?

In Need of a Beach

In my mind I hear the rhythm of the waves as they wash up on a sandy shore.  The breeze is light, yet heavy with the moisture of the waters over which it is passing.  Raucous gulls ride the currents in the early morning beams of sunshine peeking through low clouds on the horizon that mute the colors of the dawn into purples and pinks and oranges that diffuse into each other.  Pelicans skim the edges of the breakers as they roll inward, seeking the silvery shapes that dart just below the surface.

I resist the urge to wander along the firm, moist edge where the water surges onto the beach.  I might seek the shells and sand dollars that have washed up during the night but instead, I sit and breath deeply of the salt air in the coolness of the morning.  The lapping, rolling, surging, washing, renewing waters lull me into tranquility.

With a jolt I awake to the needs of the day and climb out of bed to once again face the routine.  I think the ocean is calling....

Daydreaming

In my office there's no window to look out upon the world
So, I must use the window in my mind
To allow my drifting consciousness to wander where it will
And see what new adventures it might find.

Instead of looking out upon a street filled with cars
Or, a parking lot, or even yards of grass
My thoughts drift to the mountains and a cold tumbling stream
Or, to a deep cold lake as still as glass

With surface broken only by the tiny little lure
I would toss out as temptation for a fish
Until I feel the tug, almost like electric shock,
Of a glistening rainbow trout as I would wish.

There upon the distant shore I see across the way
A regal elk come stepping from the wood
To drink from crystal waters where I seek the tricky prey
Then he looks upon the place whereon I stood

And I salute him for his boldness, for his total lack of fear,
As he sounds his eerie cry into the air
That calls his tiny harem down to drink there by his side
While he keeps a silent watch upon them there.

A fog comes slowly drifting down the wooded mountainside
To obscure the vision far across the lake
And again I see the ripples from the fish that I have sought
With temptation for the bait I hoped he'd take

Until the whole scene finally faded from my mind
Into a blank computer screen before
And I realized what happened as I sought to fill the page,
Preferring to be daydreaming once more....

Entering Into the Imaginary

The imagination is a wonderful thing.  It creates possibilities and dreams from experiences and knowledge.  It takes us to places we have been or to where we want to go.  It can take the daily reality and fill it with excitement.

Imagination is important to a writer.  Even when writing about real-world experiences it is necessary to allow the imagination to fill in the gaps of our mental pictures.  It can make the ordinary into something extraordinary.

I have written very little creative fiction in years.  Most of what is in this blog is based on something that occurred or, in the ordinary, everyday fabric of living.  Perhaps I will inject a little fiction into this over the coming months.  I will attempt to make note when I do so.  I certainly wouldn't want someone confusing some grand adventure with my ordinary life.....

Stay tuned.

Chris