Lucid Improvisations 2

Lucid Improvisations: Part II

"The play's the thing ... "

Preview

The following transcript of a Lucid Improvisations sequence combines passages from my imaging journal and that of a student, Rich Barbuto. It illustrates, in brief, the richly illuminating dimensions of these empathy progressions, which are at once so extraordinary and yet deeply familiar. They take us to a deeper and clearer and regenerative stream of consciousness that is powered by what the Greeks called eidos, a form of energy that gives all the action a holographic coherence and flowing sense of organic form.

My eidetic imaging training has familiarized me with the continuity we can discover and expect to ride on in following the trails of light that our inner motion pictures are blazing within us. Thus, in conducting Lucid Improvisations, sometimes as a participant, I can spot the most promising images emerging in a scene, and recognize their likely trajectories, as well as what may be hindering their emergence. Then I can draw our concentration to certain features of the image we’re working with in order to more readily bring out their potentials. Neither interpreting nor revising the image which is growing in our midst, I help each imager bring out the original impetus of his or her image, clearing the way for the shyest, most blocked or tendril energies in the image to show up and strut their stuff. Participants are united in expecting to see hidden strengths being liberated from frailties.

My images even applaud me when they think I've been particularly swift at picking up on the good intentions behind their newest move! I relish their admiration – which counterbalances my severely critical upbringing – and hone my skills on the adroit steers it gives me.

The following Lucid Improvisations sequence resulted from Rich proposing that we explore the subject of discipline as it relates to the realization of our true callings. At our next Lucid Improvisations session he presented an image to start us off on this theme.

As you will see, Rich and I swiftly embrace the emerging dramatic liberations taking place. We do this out of familiarity with and confidence in Ahsen's discoveries that show exactly how we are moved by natural, parental and mythic forces represented in eidetic images. Unlike the collateral and often mystifying movements involved in free association, the movement in Lucid Improvisations goes deep, tapping coherent, deeply motivated, transformational energies while being dramatically illuminating.

Lucid Improvisations In Progress, Take 1

"I'll Teach You A Lesson!"

Rich said, “I feel a hand, an arm, coming at me aggressively. I think it is my Father’s at first. Then I hear the words, ‘I’ll teach you a lesson!’ harshly spoken. I see myself in second grade. I see another boy, with my same name. He has cursed. The Sister runs towards him, her habit billowing out, greatly enlarging the threat in her saying, ‘You have a dirty mouth!’”

At this point Rich leans into enacting the Sister, who is reaching up for the brown soap in the wall closet, bending over the kid, and shoving the soap into his mouth, forcing him to eat it. As I watch, my empathy is so in touch that my mouth starts ejecting the soap.

Then I see Rich sitting in his second grade seat, with his arms coming up, covering his eyes and head. “I don’t want to see or hear this,” he says. Watching him enact this shielding and closing off, I feel my innards scrunching up in empathy as he says, “I am blocking off all my senses. As the imager, I feel smothered.

He goes on, “Now I see that I in the image have another set of arms lying open in my lap.” They are welcoming an incoming.” (Rich has been using the term ‘incoming,’ which came into use during the Vietnam War, to refer to an ominous sense of intrusion he has long experienced in learning situations.)

“I have a strong sense that I can at last get a hold of and face this scene with the Sister, which has been a ‘snapshot of terror’ crossing my mind recurrently through the years,” he says. Seeing him sitting with his forearms out and palms up, I feel I am sitting with someone in meditation waiting for rain to fall into his palms. “This second pair of arms shows that I now want to learn something from this situation, instead of continuing to shun it, as I have all my life, dismissing it without any feeling, whenever it came to mind.”

At this moment, Rich sees Shiva — the Hindu god known as the creator and destroyer, who has many pairs of arms — appearing spontaneously. “With one pair of arms Shiva gets a hold of the hand with which the Sister is shoving soap in my classmate’s mouth. She immediately shows remorse. As she crumples, Shiva puts another pair of hands on her shaking shoulders.”

Rich bends over enacting Shiva’s moves very tenderly. But then Rich straightens suddenly, noting: “As I, imager, see myself sitting in my chair, I am shocked to see my coldness towards Sister Mary, who was my favorite teacher. Then tears well up in my eyes and start coming down my cheeks as I see she’s softhearted. I see that she really does not want to treat the boy that way; she was complying with the system. I now also start feeling warmth towards the interaction between her and Shiva.”

As he says this, I can see his coldness melting as his shoulders, torso and face relax. I notice that, through enacting each different energy state arising in and rolling through this scene, Rich is limbering up a whole bunch of reactions throughout his body, reactions that had long been frozen solid within him, and causing a certain stiffness in relationships as well as performance. He is visibly enjoying letting this stiffness go. He noted that his siblings had recently chided him for not recognizing that his hard and dismissive reactions were replays of their Father’s most disconcerting behavior.

“When I reenact this moment,” he says, “I now see myself stand up in front of my seat. I am standing up to Sister Mary, in solidarity with my classmate. I, imager, feel good about this.

“Now I enact Shiva taking her head in his hand. As her cheek is nestling on one hand, he strokes her wimple over her forehead with the other. Then I see the heel of his palm actually touch her skin. This touch sends a huge healing throughout my body. Every time I see it, this contact is just such a moving moment. That scene is purged of all its angst for me.”

At this moment Rich looks like a changed man, noticeably pacified. He subsequently explained that he had been “blocking and clutching” during some training required for the new work he is transitioning into. He said, “The trainer was bringing me back to something that was part of my old work that I wanted to get away from. This image was doing the same thing. In the past I rejected going there, but this Lucid Improvisations experience was so rewarding that it had an effect of relaxing me, so I am no longer resisting the trainer’s directions to go back!”

Seeing Teachers as Pillars of Strength and Calm

When I, Janet, stand up – to see myself in Rich's shoes and enact my empathy image responding to his image – I am still resonating with all of Rich’s gestures and responses. I see myself in second grade also. I am sitting at my desk looking up to my teacher, Mrs. Rogers, who is standing there so calmly. I, imager, am quietly delighted — in fact, I am deeply moved — to see how openly this child-me is leaning forward and looking up to Mrs. Rogers. I see that I have a pleasant, eager, direct look on my face. This unclouded, open-faced look of pleasantness is a remarkable self-revelation, given that many early pictures of me, even many of my baby pictures, show me looking deeply perplexed or perturbed, with my spirit bowed.

Enacting my image, I now take Mrs. Roger’s stance. She is a solid and well-built, handsome woman, standing there with her arms folded across her waist. She has a notably pleasant, stable manner. With my relatively slight frame, I feel I can’t quite get into her act. But I try. The stability of Mrs. Roger’s manner brings a tear to my eye at first, as I am reminded of the discovery I made early in my imaging days upon seeing my first grade teacher, Mrs. Shirer, standing at the front of the classroom. I felt then how a teacher can become a pillar of strength and calm and stability to a child who is living through the havoc of impending divorce, as I was. Before grasping eidetic imaging, I did not know that I had her calm stance implanted in my repertoire so I could adopt her calm as needed.

Regaining Presence Of Mind

I cannot see exactly what trouble my classmate is causing because Mrs. Rogers’ way of handling it is in the spotlight in my image. Shiva appears as a standing presence in the background, watching over the scene. Mrs. Rogers simply points calmly down at the boy and, with a firm stir of her pointing index finger, kindly directs him to do otherwise. She stands over him, looking down upon him kindly. She’s expecting things to go all right. And they do! No fuss, no muss. It is clear that nothing could bring Mrs. Rogers to shove soap in a child’s mouth.

While I am standing there as the imager performing these enactments, I — who used to know myself as the bad seed — feel tickled all over to be playing all the different parts in this smooth operation.

“Wow, your image sheds a whole new light on mine!” Rich says. “Feeling Mrs. Rogers’ attitude, her spirit, enter my scene, I am attentive! As I see you looking up to her, my whole self lights up happily. I am light of shoulders, face and eyes. I am peaceful in my chair; not fidgety as is usual for me. I couldn’t sit still as a kid. I had what they called St. Vitus dance. I see Mrs. Rogers moving around the classroom very easily, and she is conferring with Shiva. You are happy with the learning environment you are in. I see myself in your classroom scene. Being there comes right into my body, as imager, and relaxes me. My eyes are clear; my shoulders relaxed; my stomach peaceful.”

“When I look into my scene again," Rich continues, "I feel your scene has opened my scene up. Sister Mary says aloud to my classmate, ‘Richard, stand up!’ and simultaneously looks up at the crucifix behind and to the left of her and back to Richard, and says with a smile, ‘Richard, I am asking Jesus: What am I going to do with Richard and his bad words? What do you think he’ll say that we ought to do?’

“I, in the image, am so happy. I am not shivering at a pending punishment, but rather I am anticipating a lesson on how to stop someone from cursing. I am excited to learn this, because, as the oldest of four kids (eventually to grow to seven children), I like to teach my younger brothers and sisters how to behave, how to keep out of trouble! My attention is easily focused on my teacher. I feel relaxed and open to learn what is to come from her. I am partially looking to my classmate, to see if he is going to make a move and say something. The way she has opened her effort to correct one of us in something like a prayer is pure sunlight. I want to take it all in. No sun block needed!”

As I see Rich enacting himself as a second grader paying perfect, close attention, it makes me sit up straight at the same time. Rich says, “I am sitting here alert, with my full attention towards Sister Mary. I want to learn.” Concentrating on his body responses to this new act, Rich smoothes his fingers across his brow, which is ordinarily furrowed, noting that it feels smooth! I see him sitting squarely upright, facing forward. I know how profoundly important this feat of undivided attention is to him. I am gratified to feel it reinforcing my own sense of deeply converging focus.

Now it is not just one pair of arms that Rich has open to learning. I see that the caliper of his whole body is openly alert, angled and set to pick up on what the Sister will teach. I see him saying with quietly elated and firm conviction, “I am attentive!” He is proudly announcing this and becoming his discovery, his self-revelation. I feel that I am seeing his attention span change for good!

Results: Passing It On

In writing up his experience in his imaging journal, Rich wrote an entry headed, “Results, or The Morning After Lucid Improvisations Work.”

“I feel myself more open to seeing without anxiety or defensiveness things that are going on around me.

“One event happened that was notable: When I saw my wife speaking to our eighteen-year-old daughter in a harsh way this morning, I said, with a peaceful smile and tone: ‘Talk about it, don’t attack.’ When she repeated her statement quietly, the antagonism between them was gone. They talked.”

Later he added, “I really think my failure over the years has been that, when a good person did a bad thing, my tendency was to put that bad thing on the shelf, and not go after it. Shiva showed me, in his handling of the Sister, how you stop them from continuing to do the bad thing.

“The learning experience of this image is not over. When I had an extra pair of hands, being open to what was going to happen next, and saw Shiva with more and more hands – eight helping hands! – the healing grew exponentially. I now see how I can help.”

Gaining Command Through Realizing One’s True Substance

In my imaging journal I, Janet, said, “I am elated to see how Mrs. Rogers handles the disturbance! I feel my heart in my chest wanting to burst with joy.

“As I now see myself enacting Mrs. Rogers last night, it is wonderful seeing that I have her imperturbable and kindly calm within me. I was such a clear vessel for it that it got through to Rich, generating a new experience of his own scene. My enactment clearly conveyed the good energy of her calm stance directly to Rich. He brightened, and opened up, as he stood to go into his empathy act, showing he was so thankful to receive her good light, shed through me, into his inner drama.

“I see that any fear of loss of control I have had as a teacher was owing to not knowing I have this role model alive within me for sure. My prevalent role models were parents who were very disciplined in the sense of having extensive higher education and professions. But neither of them had this absolutely imperturbable calm you could count on from Mrs. Rogers. What a revelation to know that she is alive within me! Think how often I can use her image! I see that it is taking me a little time to own this, to realize that I do have it!

“Rich’s exercise of calm authority at home parallels an experience I had recently, as a volunteer in prison. I took command of a disturbing situation from this deeply unifying level of truth and balance within myself, and was glad to see as a result that an unruly lot could find no argument with what I was saying! Thus they did not ‘go wild.’

“A clean authority like this is the kind I would like to see all of us exercising. It is the sense of authority that unites the words author, augment and august – which share a Latin root meaning increase – with a deep sense of autonomy. It is a sense of authority that enhances instead of diminishing our sense of our own substance, filling out that part of us that has been caving in."

Lucid Improvisations In Progress,

Take 2: Two Weeks Later

“I’m Glad I Have Feelings”

“On our own, and during Lucid Improvisations, Rich and I continued looking into the second grade scene, both of us seeing new developments in what was becoming a serial drama on our theme of discipline in relation to our callings. The next time we met we were both feeling depleted by adversity as we started our Lucid Improvisations. Since he, or his front, is always upbeat, bouncy, upright, I caved in a little seeing him look pale and downed.

“He started us off by going right into the moment where Sister Mary is shoving soap in Richard’s mouth. ‘I see it go in!’ Rich says, showing himself as a child taken aback in horror as he takes in what is happening. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen violence in the classroom!’ he adds. ‘I’m just a kid! In second grade!’

“He sounds almost like he’s pleading for this not to be happening, while also showing how little he is in the face of all this. I can see the enormity of this scene to him – and to so many children.

“After a pause he says, ‘I feel deprived. I am seeing this for the first time. I am surprised to see this. My chest is caving in.’

“I see his whole body falling slack, dropping off, dropping back, dropping away.

"‘Deprived of?’ I ask. ‘My senses,’ he says. ‘The shuttering, the shutting off, the shutting down, the glazing over, is depriving me of my senses. I am here to learn, to be open, not glaze over!’ he says angrily.

“‘You know what hit you?’ I say inquiringly. ‘Yes,’ he says, adding in tones of deep gratitude, ‘I, imager, am glad to see this. I am glad I have feelings. This means I am now open to learning.’

“I, Janet, see that the moment of letdown, where he allows himself to have the feeling of being deprived, is a deepening moment of opening up for him. It gives him occasion to let down the hard feelings that have been in his way all this time, causing him to be dismissive of much that he has long wanted to learn.

“In an aside, during which he suddenly expressed his surprise at seeing me in his classroom, since it was all boys, he says that he was always very interested in girls. I sense this may be a clue to possible further developments in our serial, in which having no feelings, having hard feelings and having feelings, as well as feeling deprived of learning by being closed off will be seen in relation to girls.

Looming Large

“While Rich was enacting his scene, I saw my older sister, whom I long ago dubbed ‘the holy terror,’ begin to loom large in the space between him and me, the space Rich had allotted to Sister Mary in his scene. When I took the second grader’s seat, and looked up, I saw Sister Mary there, looming large, looking at the boy who cursed sitting beside me, and shafting him with the shaft of her looming anger. Standing up I became the shaft of anger I saw the Sister thrust down at little Richard, a shaft of anger such as I was deeply familiar with receiving at home, from my sister and parents.

“Then I sat down, becoming myself as a second grader again. Looking up to Sister Mary, I stated, ‘You can’t do that.’

“When Rich picked up on this, he showed gratitude that my initiative released him from being submissive to the Sister. He jubilantly started a chant going throughout his classroom. He was as pleased to see himself starting that chant as I was when I picked up on his act and began seeing a clamor of kids surrounding me joyously in a happy burble of community feeling. I felt relieved of the tensions of standing out like a sore thumb in protest. I felt taken in, welcomed. I am enjoying the way this disruptive behavior is taking place in good spirits, having good fun in the image, releasing pent up feelings, but, in fact, substituting for committing disruptive acts.

“Then I looked up and saw the Sister looking down at me like an ordinary human being. She was looking at me directly, clear eyed, with something of a smile. This look shed a ray of light into my present gloom. I was glad to see this, but knew I was not yet feeling it sufficiently for it to really perk me up.

“After Rich’s next move, I took the second grader’s seat again, and finally noticed that I had been feeling everybody else’s feelings and enacting their changes of heart, but not my own. I had empathized with Rich, little Richard, Sister Mary, and Mrs. Rogers, but not myself at age six.

“As soon as I concentrated on my own self-image, I jumped up and started wielding a huge stick. I was beating it down in the Sister’s direction. I, imager, knew I was not hatcheting her in half. I wasn’t even touching her. Finally I saw I had grown taller than she, and I was just wielding this stick over her head. As I enacted the image I began laughing, seeing myself, the eternal underdog, holding something over the enemy’s head. I was enjoying the emotional justice which eidetic imaging brings to life without doing anyone any harm.

Finding My Center Of Operations

“When I, imager, joyously stood up, it was as if I was taking center stage — something my Mother did not allow — for the first time. My vitality surged up in me, full fountain, full steam ahead. I kept on enacting the beating motion because I felt how much good energy this action was allowing to surface in me. I have long needed to take place in action; to make my presence felt. In my image, and in the presence of another Lucid Improvisor, I could, at last, do this in a supremely satisfying, pacifying and energizing way.

“Experiencing my energies coming together and coming up full force, I felt I had finally gotten in touch with the fulfillment of a major impetus behind my calling to conduct Lucid Improvisations. I had taken command of my whole inner orchestra. Being on center, I was conducting as never before. I was standing on center, on my full, fountainous, tap root strength. I would no longer have to wonder if I’d ever get in touch with it. My whole being finally knew, vibrantly, the center that command performances come from.”

> Continued LUCID IMPROVISATIONS: PART III

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