On Imagination

In my writing group in February, beloved teacher Jimmie Gilliam asked us to go and return with this assignment: to think about imagination. We might write an imaginative piece, or a meditation upon imagination, or imagine what the Age of Imagination might be like when it finally arrives (JG believes it is imminent. And will save us from the lies. Yes.)

I wrote a few raw paragraphs on this, and they were recieved deeply at group last Saturday. I am sharing them here, and watch for them on a possible broadside around Epiphany time...

There is no creation without imagination.

Imagination is an integral part of making something possible: cooking, invention, art, love. Adhering to reality at all times is not especially good for us. It doesn't make us safer. Imagining makes us more free.

I would like the child I was, the poet I am to grab an umbrella on a windy afternoon, take a run and take off into the air. As she lifts above the gray city sidewalk, she has this feeling: I knew it.

It's the imagination which knows.