SL01-16 Nurturing the Soul

Last week I had the honor of being interviewed on Dr. Joshua Black, Phd and Shawn Ram's Grief Dreams podcast.  Dr. Black and Shawn really seam to be living out their passion helping so many heal from their grieving through providing a platform to discuss the dreams people have of loved one's and beloved pet's that have died. These two young Canadians and many of the guests that they have on their podcast, through their grief journey have stumbled upon the secret of living out one's passion, of living out one's vocation — divine calling — in allowing their grief journey to transform their lives by helping others in their journey. On their podcast, I had a chance discuss my own grief journey and grief dreams, a little bit about relics and their veneration in the catholic tradition, this podcast Spei Lumina and a little bit about Henry Corbin's work regarding the Imaginal Mundi and how it has influenced my own attempts in this podcast of providing a praxis for laying out the basics of imaginal prayer putting it to work in helping me and others transform our lives by reflecting Divine light and hope throughout the cosmos. It always encourages me when I learn about and experience first hand young people like Dr. Black and Shawn Ram whose souls are on fire and burning with that zeal that comes when you are actively pursuing and living out your passion, your vocation, your Divine calling.  Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare or "to call" and it refers to God's call for each and every one of us, not just for those called to ministry or religious life, but for all of creation. Dr. Black's research on grief dreams and his work with Shawn on the podcast and the lives they touch are indeed a great reflection of that wondrous process that occurs in the imaginal realm where, as Henri Corbin describes, "the Active Imagination is Creative Imagination and exploration of the subtle realm requires participation between the human and divine and is at once discovery and creation." Henri Corbin, in his work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi,  describes prayer as "the highest form, the supreme act of the Creative Imagination.  For prayer is not a request for something; it is the expression of a mode of being, a means of existing and causing to exist… The organ of Prayer is the heart, the psychospiritual organ, with it's concentration of energy, it's himma.  Prayer is a "creator" of vision." Inspired by Dr. Black and Shawn Ram and so many others who are not merely living by the ways and means society programs us, manipulates us to live, in pursuit of material gain only, in a reactionary or rote fashion, but who live out their passion and meaning in life and in so doing reflect a greater spark of the Divine, of hope in the world, I thought an imaginal prayer exercise using quotes from Hebrew and Christian scripture and from the Sufi mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, regarding wisdom, the soul, and passion would inflame passion and purpose and hope and meaning in each of us growing in our practice of imaginal prayer.