Imagination as Portal Into the More-Than-Seen World

Since returning from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I’ve noticed that my imagination feels alive again.

It’s a similar feeling to one I had back in 2016, when I delivered a TEDx talk on the Hero’s Journey at the Sorbonne in France, and again in 2019, when I was living in Buenos Aires and writing Beautifully Mundane. These were both times when everything felt so alive with meaning and magic from the more-than-seen realms; times when the "Invisible hand of the Universe," as Joseph Campbell puts it, was quite present in my life. 

Both of these moments were preceded by taking a huge leap of faith into the Unknown, just as my recent trip to San Miguel was.

The aliveness of our imagination, it appears, is closely linked to stepping into the unknown and discovering what is waiting just beyond the edges of our comfortable lives.

Being in San Miguel brought me back to this missing piece of myself, which had, in part, been quieted following the mold exposure I experienced and the healing journey that followed.

The reintegration of our imagination can feel like life breathed back into the far reaches of our mind.

And so, of course, I’ve been thinking about how easily our imaginative lives can go quiet, and what helps awaken them again.

Sometimes the best things in life are, in fact, free.

Unsurprisingly, the simple, ancient act of storytelling is one of the oldest ways back to our imagination.

Imagination and stories have an inextricable relationship.

They are like wind and sand, moving together and shaping one another, making each more beautiful.

I’ve recently been so inspired by the work of Gabriela M. Gutiérrez, who speaks about imagination as a portal into the more-than-seen world. It is a way that we can interact more deeply with the world, allowing our imagination to act as a bridge into all of the animate parts of nature and life that we don’t always interact with day-to-day.

Imagination is also something profoundly primordial.

We are born with huge, abundant imaginations, but the expectations of our modern world, and often our careers, ask us to strengthen our linear and critical minds far more than our imaginative and intuitive ones.

We become very good at analyzing, evaluating, producing, and solving, while the part of us that wanders, wonders, and makes unexpected connections is given far less room.

And yet, our wisdom body, the part of us that knows what a Yes feels like and what a No feels like, is also deeply linked to imagination.

In a time when we move so quickly and carry so many demands, how do we come back to our imagination?

How do we rebuild this bridge into our inner psyche and make more room for the quieter forms of knowing that are so easily drowned out?

For me, Kundalini Yoga has been one of the ways of coming back into my wisdom body and imagination.

Part of this happens through chanting mantra. Research suggests that chanting mantras can shift patterns of neural activity associated with attention, relaxation, and emotional regulation. As the thinking mind becomes quieter, intuition and imagination have more room to speak.

Storytelling and reading are also powerful ways to re-expand the imagination, whether you read a beautiful novel or a book such as The Heroine’s Journey that invites exploration into the deeper parts of our psyche.

Stories allow us to step outside the fixed architecture of our lives to encounter other ways of seeing, being, and becoming.

Perhaps this is one of imagination’s juiciest functions.

Imagination is not an escape from reality, but an expansion of it.

So today, I invite you to ask yourself: where has your imagination become constricted, and what is one small thing you can do to re-ignite it?

Maybe it is reading a story, spending time in nature without distraction, chanting, writing, daydreaming, or simply allowing yourself to follow a thought without needing it to become productive.

If these themes speak to you, next week I will be opening registration for my upcoming retreat:

Answer Your Call to Adventure: A Five-Day Journey into Kundalini Yoga, Mythic Wisdom & Renewal - January 2027, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. 

With Love & Wonder,

Alison