The Deep Work of Seeing

There are times the soul sends a signal. It does not speak in sentences. It sends an image. Something from below the surface rises. A figure appears in a dream. A sound echoes from a memory long forgotten. A gesture catches the eye and stays lodged in the chest.

The old traditions knew this. They lived close to the image. The shaman danced it. The poet carved it in rhythm. The artisan shaped it in wood or stone. The soul’s message came through image, not instruction. What needed to be known moved into form and feeling.

We are born with this ability to see in symbols. Before words, we dream. Before thought, we imagine. But in a world drowning in images, this ancient gift becomes a burden. The eye takes in more than the heart can hold. The images pile up and lose their depth.

In his teaching, the guide reminds us that we must return to the image as if it were a well. Each image is shaped by the unconscious. It arrives from the inner terrain where psyche and soul speak in signs. The image stands at the threshold, half-buried, half-revealed. It asks to be met with patience.

There is a work that begins when an image appears. The ego may want to explain. The intellect may rush to decode. But the image lives beneath language. It belongs to the old world where symbols grow slowly, shaped by time and attention. You sit with it. You let it breathe. You feel its presence behind your ribs.

Some images carry heat. Others enter like a whisper behind the ear. A smell, a color, a movement through the limbs. The body knows the image before the mind does. The body stirs, then memory follows. A story hidden for decades may begin to rustle in the leaves.

To work with an image is to enter a forest. You do not cut your way through. You listen for what moves. You stay near the place where something called you. You return to it, again and again, until it begins to speak.

A raspberry in a dream. A circle of stones. A figure covered in feathers. These are not decorations of the unconscious. They are its language. The image comes carrying both mystery and medicine. It does not ask to be solved. It wants to be honored.

The transformation of image into symbol happens slowly. It begins with attention. With the willingness to stay close to the unknown. You follow the image through its shifts. You gather the feelings it stirs. You hold the paradoxes without forcing resolution.

At times, the image waits years to open. A dream may return after decades with a new scent. A childhood memory may take on different light. The symbol grows as you grow. It changes shape as the soul changes shape.

The soul’s timing is slower than the clock. Its work ripens through reflection. The image reveals itself when it is ready, not when asked. And what it reveals does not answer questions. It deepens them.

The healing power lives in the image itself. The encounter is the medicine. Even when the meaning is unclear, the soul recognizes the shape. It knows what is being asked. A part of the self that was sleeping begins to stir.

The task is to stay close. To draw the image. To dream it forward. To carry it into the body. To ask what it wants, and then wait for the echo. The image does not belong to the surface. It comes from the root-world, where the soul keeps its fire.

There is an ancient work we are always being invited back to. The work of remembering. The work of seeing. The work of letting the image carry us deeper than words.

Madeline – Soulful Nuggets Team