On April 30, 2022 I got married to a magical person, in magical place on top of a mountain, during a partial solar eclipse. It was an unforgettable time. Below is a piece I wrote and read to my partner, Erin, on that day:

Imagination. As adults, we might be quick to dismiss imagination as something childish and even foolish, but I ask you to consider what Albert Einstein once said:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand” 

Being here at Columcille today, this extraordinary and mystical place, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk a bit about imagination, that innate human trait, and how I think it has helped me get here today.

First of all let me say that, if nothing else, imagination is something that allows us to set goals, or to “dream big” and manifest what we desire. Now by “manifest” I mean: to make something that is ethereal concrete, or to take abstract potentials and actualize them. Imagination, in other words, is what sparks the creative impulse within us. Ask any writer, artist, musician, construction worker or even a cabinet maker (let alone witches or sorcerers), and they will tell you that the creation exists within the mind before it is manifested in the physical.

In this way, it could be said that imagination serves as the conduit, or a portal if you will, between the mental and the physical, bringing forth that which we wish to create. In fact, interestingly, many esoteric spiritual traditions believe that imagination is one exceedingly effective way that humans can actually tap into and access God’s Divine creativity.

I remember being a young lad and daydreaming about what my life might look like when I “grew up.” What would my life be like when I’m 27 or 47?’ I would wonder. I would often find myself as kid lost in thought entertaining scenarios in my little mind, sometimes down to the tiniest details. And maybe it was my pragmatic nature coming through, or just my minimalistic aesthetic inclination holding sway, but my childish daydreams about my potential future never really took the form of what one might describe as a grandiose, wild or elaborate sort of lifestyle. For instance I never imagined that I would live in a mansion. I never imagined that I would own a fleet of luxury automobiles like a rapper or some famous actor or business tycoon; sure I may have perhaps fantasized about these things after watching an episode of MTV Cribs, and I may have wondered what it might be like to have unlimited money and resources, but I would suggest that fantasising is definitely different from imagination. For one thing, as I already mentioned, imagination tends to be goal oriented. And while fantasy may be said to be a product of the imagination, it is generally considered to be the envisage of unrealistic things; not necessarily impossible but very unlikely. As a child I think I innately knew that imagination involved value and desire, just like fantasy, and this would lead me again and again to ask the following questions:

What’s really important in life? What do I desire? What do I value?

My answers to these questions have not changed a whole lot since I was a child but they HAVE informed my imagination a great deal.

Now as a religious person I’ve always liked how theologian, Michael Dowd, described religion as the act of being in right relationship with reality. I think he’s correct. And Instead of cars and money and power, as a child I always believed (and I still do) that the most important things in life, the things I value the most, were my relationships, and if this is true then it seems natural that I should constantly strive to be in right relationship with my relations. At this point one might ask: who are my relations? Well, my natural response is to cite obvious examples like relationships with people: friends, enemies, family, lovers, co-workers, children; but also relationships with non-human animals, and other organisms that we share the Earth with; relationships with substances, objects, our own bodies and our own pasts, traumas, memories and all; and of course relationship with the Divine, acknowledged or not. Who am I really without my relationships? If life was, perhaps, largely about relationships then it occurred to me at some point that the best most realistic and hopeful thing that I could imagine for my life would be to wind up with a partner who I would absolutely want to orbit around like the moon circles the Earth.

Now look I’m not telling you all of this because I’m trying to persuade you into adopting some type of magical, esoteric, spiritual ideology that I adhere to, and I’m not going to stand here and try to convince you all that I imagined and then conjured the perfect person and perfect partner, as if I were Dumbledore or something, but let me tell you: I’m pretty sure I did. And to that person, Erin, whom I circle around like the moon, I would like to share this image from Alexandra Vasiliu:

If I were your moon,
I would always gravitate
Toward you.

I would never fight
The attraction.

I would follow you
And happily tiptoe
Behind you,
Carrying my hopes
as though they were
The lightest luggage
In the world.

Day and night,
I would be there for you,
Aching to offer you
All the poetry of my heart.

If I were your moon,
I would hug you
Every night of the year
All 365 of them.

If I were your moon,
I would cuddle up with you
And share my impossible dreams.

I would laugh
While you counted
All the stars in my hair.

I would seek the sparkles
in your eyes
And the smiles
On your lips.

I would whisper your name
Every night of the year,
All 365 of them.

I would unfailingly pull you into my magic
And indulge you with love.

If I were your moon,
I would love you without end.

Tags:cretivityfantasyimaginationlovemarriage