28 Elements of the Imaginal (The Lattice)

Source: Rob Burbea, “Tending the Holy Fire” (2018)

1. The Lattice itself: A constellation of elements or aspects; a structure where things are connected in three-dimensional space, like a scaffolding or network.

2. Energy body: For something to be imaginal, there has to be energy body awareness here.

3. Love and being loved: An imaginal image loves me, loves you, and I love it; it involves deep appreciation, sympathy, intimacy, and a sense of dearness.

4. Eros: More of an opening that opens all the dimensions of the possibilities of soulmaking, in distinction to craving.

5. Beauty: A sense of beauty where the scope might be much bigger than a narrow scope; being touched by and open to a huge range of beauty.

6. Trust: A relationship of trust with an imaginal image; a softening of the heart.

7. Soulmaking: The image brings a sense of soulfulness and opens up the sense of soulfulness; the eros-psyche-logos dynamic is galvanized.

8. Dimensionality shading into divinity: It’s almost as if a thing is not just flat; it has other depths or dimensions that shade into a sense of divinity or sacredness.

9. Beyondness, unfathomability: A sense of something more, some mystery I can’t quite capture or put into words or get my head around; unfathomably deep.

10. Soft and elastic edges: Even if visually sharply delineated, its boundaries are indefinite and malleable.

11. Eternality, timelessness: A dimension to the image that feels eternal or outside of linear time—“it has always been so.”

12. Reverence: The heart and soul has a reverent relationship with the imaginal.

13. Grace: A sense that something is given, something is visiting me, or is a gift from the divine.

14. Humility: A subjective node where the heart or soul feels humble in relation to this beauty or image.

15. Not reducible: It cannot be reduced to ‘this means X or Y’ or a representation of a part of the mind; it is always more.

16. Autonomy: Not sensing it as ‘just part of me’ or a projection; the being has its own autonomy and personhood and can act independently.

17. Twoness: A sense of twoness between the image and me that doesn’t dissolve in oneness.

18. Theatre-like quality: Somewhere in between real and not real, neither real nor not real; the Imaginal Middle Way.

19. Create - Discover: Incorporates both discovery and creation; sitting on the cusp of both through an understanding of emptiness.

20. The Concertina: Other images or meanings waiting in the wings of the theatre; this isn’t the only image.

21. Slightly less fabricated: Fluidity where things become less fabricated, more fluid, and more malleable.

22. Logos: Not a non-conceptual experience; logos, conceptual frameworks, and “theologies” are involved.

23. Fullness of intention: Being in it for something bigger; for God, for the divine, or for the soul, rather than for personal ego-gain.

24. Duty: Somehow it comes into my life with a sense of asking me something; a sense of responsibility or service.

25. Meaningfulness: Pregnant with meanings, plural; an infinite cloud of meaningfulness that exceeds isolation.

26. Infinite echoing, infinite mirroring: A subtle mirroring each other endlessly between the imaginal image and my life.

27. Values: Embodies aesthetic and moral values like goodness, kindness, nobility, courage, or even cunning.

28. Participation: A sense of deep participation and immersion in the experience.