An imagination challenge
Do you want to touch the laughter and joy of imagining?
In today’s blog, you get that opportunity; I will share a story you can use as a springboard to imagine and to rediscover how awesome that feels.
As with all imagination, the ideas grow from your personal experience or the stories you’ve absorbed through your lifetime. Fittingly, on this public holiday in Australia remembering the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the starting point for this exercise is a tale about a Queen and a commoner.
I learnt about this story in the letters my aunty Barbara wrote. She lived on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, a stone’s throw from Holyrood Palace, the Queen’s residence whenever Her Majesty was in town. And sadly, more recently, where she lay in state.
Barbara’s home, with its standout blue door, was attached to the priest’s residence for the local church at Canongate Kirk. Rev Neil Gardner was both Barbara’s parish priest and chaplain to the Queen. And after Barbara and her husband Jim passed, a compassionate friend to me.
I’ll always be grateful he gave Barbara notice whenever the Queen was coming. She knew to stand at her second-storey window after service and wait. At any moment, the Queen might appear, Neil by her side, both headed for refreshments at his home.
And then, one day, everything seemed different. As if snow was falling for the first time and unexpectedly, in summer. Barbara watching from her window as Queen Elizabeth II looked up, smiled and waved. Barbara gleeful.
Neil later delivered this surprising news, that as they passed near her window, the Queen, upon seeing Barbara, had commented, “so she’s still here.”
Who wouldn’t tell that story a few times; that my aunty Barbara was remembered by a Queen.
Let’s return to your imagination challenge. Imagine gazing out a window and seeing the unexpected. And since an Imagination Session® is all about the joy of imagining, make sure whatever you see makes you smile. Try not to reach for the obvious answers. Not your partner or your children who you were expecting anyway. But rather, something or someone different.
What is that scene outside your window?
If you’d like the moon to be resting on your lawn waiting for the night shift to start, that’s awesome; if seven puppies are yapping about what they want for dinner, perfect; if a music festival suddenly appears on your doorstep, fantastic. There are no wrong answers, there are only the most extraordinary imaginings. And in an Imagination Session, that would be just the beginning.
I’d love to know where your imagination led you. What did you see? Feel free to share in the comments.
And, most importantly, have fun! The joy of imagination, it’s wonderful.
