Heroes Not Zombies

When I looked up at these trees and the sky above them, I saw the clouds as leaves on the outstretched branches of the trees….almost an impressionistic presentation of leaves of course….white, fluffy, almost like individual brush strokes painted onto the blue canvas.

Just a moment of imagination.

I didn’t at any point misconstrue the clouds. I knew they were clouds floating high above, and the trees were trees growing far below the blue sky, but in that moment of imagination the experience becomes a little magical, a little less mundane.

What’s the alternative? To notice severely pruned trees in the foreground and clouds in the sky above with absolutely no connection to what was growing down here on the surface of the Earth?

Well, that’s one of the reasons I like imagination…..not only does it enable us to see the invisible connections between everything…..in the same way that we humans have seen invisible lines joining stars at night into constellations which we can then use to navigate, or to know when to plant and when to harvest. But it enhances our daily experiences, giving them qualities which feel enchanting, delightful, joyful, or expansive. Qualities which would be hard to experience from a “simple” consideration of “facts”.

The world is not full of disconnected “objects” dispassionately viewed by disconnected “subjects”.

It is a whole, a fully integrated web of connections, contexts, environments, and flows of matter, energy and information, which is alive, vibrant, beautiful and awe-inspiring.

I don’t think we would realise that, were it not for the powers of our imagination.