The Fairy Tale

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