"Imagination is the key by which we unlock the doors of beauty." --Estelle Hurll

I'm continuing talking about resources for the Imagination in the Take 5s for about one more week--then we'll move onto the next Developmental phase--the Heroic years.

Art credit: Blick Aus Dem Entree by Henrik Nordenberg

I love the solution that someone just offered in another post for when you are overwhelmed and don't know where to go next.

Just. Start. Reading.

I couldn't agree more.

Art credit: Alice in Wonderland by George Dunlop Leslie

I've been talking about Imagination resources in the Take 5s the last couple of weeks. Someone pulled up an old post and I think this is worth posting again. It was in response to a mom who said she is a literal thinker. She likes her days mapped out.

You are describing the mind-culture we are as a people--very much in control. It's the system almost all of us have been raised in. Yes--you are a literal thinker. And so is just about everyone else. It's the lack of 'imaginative' power-the thinking of the heart-that is causing problems in the world in my opinion. Imagination is the seat of empathy, motivation, hope, vision, dreams. And we shut down its development by focusing on that which we can test and measure in childhood. The act of decoding words does not make a child a reader. The act of constructing a sentence does not make a child a writer. ONLY the imagination can do that. And the imagination can ONLY be developed in the atmosphere of freedom and a generous supply of the arts--story, music, poetry and picture. Mechanized learning interferes.

So what does leaving the shore look like? The risk is you lose control. You let your child bloom according to the seeds planted within individual hearts. You allow for failure.

The plus side--an awakening to beauty, love, joy--all expressions of the heart. The heart cannot be accessed through the mind. But the mind, that is accessed through the heart, will be whole. Scientists who studied Einsteins brain said the connections between the two sides were massive. He used his whole brain--that is the secret of his genius and the secret to ours.

​Art credit: The Fairy Tale by Walther Firle

Be a light, not a hammer.

Art credit: Mother and Children in Front of a House by Hermann Sondermann

From Delphian Book 10, p. 115:

"The man should be the master, not the slave of his learning... It is better to be the master of a little knowledge, with the capacity to use it creatively, than to be the unproductive carrier of all the learning in the libraries."

A creative use for our learning is the final step in the Pattern for Learning. Without an outlet, even pure waters become stale and stagnate.

Art credit: Mother and Child Reading a Story by Carlton Alfred Smith

In a book about education written a hundred years ago, I found:

"Formerly, the question was, What does a man need to know? Now the question is being asked, What does he need to be?"

The same question is on the table today.

A heart-based education is focused on 'being'--being curious, kind, honest, diligent, loyal, faithful, etc.

A mind-based education is focused on 'knowing'--the year of the American revolution, the order of the planets, the capital of Arkansas. 

What is more important to you? The 'knowing' or the 'being'?

You have to decide that for yourself. And then pay attention to what you are spending the most time doing. Does it align? 

Art credit: The Fairy Tale by James Sant

"Grapes must be crushed to make wine.
Diamonds form under pressure.
Olives are pressed to release oil.
Seeds grow in darkness.
Whenever you feel crushed, pressed, or in darkness, you're in a powerful place of transformation.
Trust the process.
Trust God."

Art credit: Vendemmia, from the manuscript Tacuinum Sanitatis (14th century).

"...when the soul is as full of beautiful things as an overflowing river, some of them are sure to get out where people will see."

Art credit: A Nibble by Edmund Blair Leighton

It seems like every day when I read from Farrar's Life of Christ, I read something that pertains to this group. Here is today's offering:

"It is not the influence of external forces, but it is the germinal principle of life within, which makes the good seed to grow; nor can the hard heart be converted by portents and prodigies (think threats and fears or even visions of grandeur), but by the inward humility, and the grace of God stealing downward like the dew of heaven, in silence and unseen."

Art credit: Peonies and Morning Glory by Margaretha Roosenboom

I started reading the new history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and couldn't help noting the first paragraph of the Preface:

"True stories well told can inspire, caution, entertain, and instruct. Brigham Young understood the power of a good story when he counseled Church historians to do more than simply record the dry facts of the past. 'Write in a narrative style,' he advised them, and 'write only about one tenth part as much.'"

It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling:

"If history were told in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."

Stories are the most valuable tool in your teaching tool box! And notice the attention of these children in the painting. Nothing will hold their attention like a story told 'by heart.'

Art credit: Grandmother's Tales by Rudolf Gessler (1866)