Before you set out
Before the track
This walk is for people doing active imagination with me. It isn't a self-guided exercise. We'll have talked it through together first, and whatever comes up belongs back in our sessions.
Check the conditions. Give yourself about half an hour to begin with, somewhere you won't be interrupted. Phone off, door closed.
Leave the walk for another day if you are very distressed, feeling unreal or far away from yourself, unsafe in any way, or have had alcohol or drugs. Use the grounding at Home Ground (kind.padma.nz) instead, and bring it to our next session.
Choose something to wear. Pick one thing you'll wear only for this work: a shawl, a hat, a scarf, a cloak if you have one. Put it on as you begin and take it off when you finish. It marks the difference between going in and coming back. Sometimes too people take something off for this experience (like a watch), and put it back on when they need to stop or when they feel ready to leave.
Have something to write with. Paper and pen, a laptop, a tablet. Write as it happens, not afterwards. Anything that keeps up with you is best. Your notes stay with you. Bring what you want to share.
Your thread. In the Greek story, Ariadne gave Theseus a thread to unwind as he went into the labyrinth, so he could find his way back out. Your thread is this: you can stop at any point. Open your eyes, feel your feet on the floor, name a few things you can see, take off what you're wearing. That's enough.
If you need someone now, call or text 1737 any time (free), or 111 in an emergency.
Johnson's first step · the invitation
The bush edge
You've come to the edge of the trees. Sit just inside, where the light still reaches. Let your breathing slow and your eyes adjust. You want to be relaxed but awake, somewhere between dozing and alert (a state of reverie).
Choose where to start. Bring to mind one thing:
- a feeling that won't shift
- a figure or image from a dream
- a daydream that keeps coming back
- a sensation somewhere in your body
- a knot you've already thought about from every side
Then wait. Hold it lightly and let it be. You're not making anything up and you're not steering. You're inviting whatever is there to show itself. It can take a while, and some days nothing comes. That's part of it too.
In Scotland, Ireland and Wales, people planted a rowan by the door or the gate, to guard the threshold. If you wish, picture one here at the forest edge, marking where you step in, and where you'll step out again.
Johnson's second step · the dialogue
The deep forest
Further in, the light dims. Somewhere along the track, someone or something will be there: a person, an animal, a voice, a shape, or just a feeling with a presence of its own.
Greet it. Ask it something, then wait. Let it answer in its own way and write the answer down as it comes. You'll know it isn't only you talking when it surprises you.
Bring yourself too. Be curious. Disagree if you disagree, ask again, say how you feel. This is a conversation between two, not a film you're watching.
Questions you might carry:
- Who are you?
- What do you want me to know?
- What do you need?
- How long have you been here, and what brought you?
- What are you afraid would happen if you weren't here?
It may feel uneasy in here. That's expected in a forest and doesn't mean something has gone wrong. If it becomes too much, take hold of your thread and walk out.
At Dodona, the oldest oracle in Greece, the priests listened for answers in the rustling of a sacred oak. Listen the same way: closely, and without deciding beforehand what you'll hear.
Johnson's third step · bringing in your values
The clearing
The trees open out and there's light. Here you step back and look at what you've heard, with your own sense of what matters in hand. Notice if what's asked of you aligns with your values; if it doesn't, negotiate or decline the request and say why.
It isn't an order. Whatever the figure wanted, you don't simply obey it, and you don't simply dismiss it. Ask yourself:
- What's the need underneath what it asked for?
- What would honouring that look like in my actual life and would it align to my values?
- What can I agree to, and what won't I do?
- Is there a middle way we could both live with?
You can go back and talk again, and negotiate, the way you would with someone you respect but don't always agree with. Johnson puts real weight on this step. You stay yourself in the meeting, and that's what lets it change something.
In Irish lore, nine hazel trees stood around the Well of Segais, dropping their hazelnuts into the water. A salmon ate them and held the wisdom they carried, and the young Fionn came by it while tending the fire where the salmon cooked. Wisdom in that story comes slowly, by waiting at the well. Sit beside it a while before you decide.
Johnson's fourth step · making it real
Walking out
Every track leads back to the road. Before you leave the trees, choose one small, real thing you'll do to honour what happened. Doing something in the world is what carries the meeting into your life, and Johnson was firm that this step isn't optional.
Keep it small and physical. For example:
- a conversation you've been putting off
- a change in how you spend some of your time
- a walk, a drawing, a piece of music
- a letter to the figure you met
- planting something, making something, setting something down
Small and done is better than large and planned.
Hang up what you wore. Take it off, fold it, put it away. Stand up, stretch, have a glass of water, look out of a window. You're back. Bring your notes to our next session.
Hung up. You're back.
Greek travellers added a stone to the cairns along the road, cairns linked with Hermes, the guide of travellers, whose name probably comes from the Greek word for a heap of stones. The small thing you've chosen is your stone.