Active Imagination Dialogue
Our next call is Monday March 4 from 8:30 - 10:30 pm EST
First of all, today’s my birthday!!! I appreciate your prayers and your blessings, but that’s not actually why I’m writing.
I write because I really thought we were going to close our study of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover with this month’s call. I have two other texts in mind for our ongoing work on becoming better men.
But as I read the conclusion, I have come to understand that it will be of great benefit for us to actually take on each of the outlined practices one at a time. Month by month. For a few more months. Remember, new members are always welcomed!
One of the more striking lines of the books conclusion says that:
“...patriarchy is really ‘puerarchy’ (i.e., the rule of boys), and perhaps our human world has always rather resembled Golding’s island [Lord of the Flies]. But at least there used to be structures and systems—rituals—for evoking a greater level of masculine maturity than seems to be the rule in our antisystem, antiritual, antisymbol world today.”
How then do we meet today’s conditions? How do we mature into manhood when dominant culture stands so far from initiation and ritual?
There is a lot to be said here. But a step in the right direction is to come together and practice.
The authors outline four techniques for stepping more fully into an integrated, more mature masculinity:
Active Imagination Dialogue
Invocation (a personal favorite)
Admiring Men
Acting “As If””
Over the next few months we’ll take each of these techniques and work with them one at a time. In preparation for Monday’s call, read pages 143 to 151. Bringing special attention to the section on Active Imagination Dialogue (pp 145 to 151.)
Actually make the time to try it out. Consider a situation that you are grappling with. Then sit down with a journal and imagine yourself talking to the part or parts of you that seem to be in conflict with how you actually want to show up. Or perhaps, the parts that can’t even figure out how it is that you actually want to show up.
For example, I am currently embroiled in a challenging situation with a family member. While this is quite normal for most families, it has not tended to be the case in how I experience my family. So a part of me is befuddled that this is even going on.
In an active imagination dialogue, I would actually start a conversation with that part that is befuddled. I would try to find out what it is holding. And what it is that it does not want to see.
But the dialogue would likely take me further. Another part would show up. The part that is upset that this is going on at all. The part that wants to react in all kinds of ways that would not actually be helpful.
The active imagination dialogue would help me to hear from that part as well. The part that is upset. I would learn more about what it wants, what it is afraid of, what value it is standing for.
If I am skilled and patient, I would make room for the two parts to talk to each other, the part that is befuddled and the part that is upset, joined by my wiser Self as a full participant in the council.
Who knows what I would learn about myself?
Your assignment is to try it. Try Active Imagination Dialogue. You don’t have to make a huge deal, you could get somewhere in 10 or 15 minutes. Although it would be great if you have time and space for a deeper dive.
Let’s get together on Monday and see what we learn about this technique. A practice designed to bring us into our masculine integration.
I’m really looking forward to it! See you Monday.