I am sitting in a public space, writing poetry for strangers. The sun shines particularly strong today, as if holding on to its brightness before the darker days claim the northern hemisphere. In between poems, I people-watch and eavesdrop, observing the passing world. A child on her pedal-less tricycle and her parents walk by. The mother is saying to her clearly precocious daughter, “you can’t see music, you hear it.”
Immediately, sadness sinks into my heart. What magic is lost when we engage with children this way: invalidate the perception of their lives because we need to teach them so-called practicalities. I wonder whether this child could, in fact, see music much like a synesthete. Imagine if this budding little was experiencing her world with much more texture and colour than her parents. Imagine if her world was talking back to her beyond what we consider “normal”. Being “corrected” in this way closes down our unique sensitivities, shuts down our access to the imaginal realm, and invalidates the possibility that there are an innumerable number of ways to experience life.
And why would we want to do that!
The beauty of inducing the imaginal realm lies in our appreciation that life itself contains so much more animism than we allow. That our bodies can experience music with more than our physical ears. That we can feel the various frequencies of silence. That we can stand in a forest and feel the intelligence that informs its beauty. That Thursday and the number 8 share similar vibration. That we can sense angels when we hear certain voices in song. From this place of animism, we flow in gratitude for life, and how we experience it. We have a richer life that is not predicated alone on what we can touch or what is rational.
Once, while on a museum tour through the African galleries, a child exclaimed, “I can hear music!” while gazing at a rug-like piece made of found objects (pictured below).
For me, it is a joy to momentarily gaze at life through the experience of someone who has spent just a few years yet on the planet. They do not limit themselves to narrowly constructed realms of logic and reason, which have become humanity's modern demi-gods.
Might I add that there is nothing abnormal or even particularly special about experiencing life this way. It is more than likely that you were once upon a time a child who could sense your caregivers’ deep grief as they went about their daily tasks. But in their erroneous attempt to protect you by betraying themselves and their own complicated emotional life, they gaslit you by saying "Oh no, I'm fine, go do your homework."
There are whole swaths of sensory language, systems, and experiences modern humans are tapping into. This is not new. Humans have communicated with the essence of life for thousands of years. In fact, we are not at all separate from the life that throbs beyond our limited biological capacities. Our world would be devoid of beauty without the magical, imaginal realm.
We would simply not exist without it.