Visions and Similitudes by George Breed

"…and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes…" Hosea 12:10

The Originator is speaking through the imaginative realm of a poet seer. The imaginative realm is not “just his imagination.” When the mind is opened to the cosmic, opened beyond animal fantasies of food, sex, and entertainment, when boundaries fade away, vision comes. Mystery unfolds, words come. From where do they come except from beyond? Beyond the skin boundary, beyond the narcissistic gaze of self reflection, beyond the chit chatter of self talk. Beyond.

What is the Beyond saying here? “I have multiplied visions.” (I have set it up so that I am seen in many different ways.) Each one of us sees according to our capacity to see. Our capaciousness varies from moment to moment, from day to day. Multiple visions. This capaciousness has been called spiritual intelligence, an attempt to bring it within the scientific realm of measurement. Be that as it may, no vision exists without vision room. 

Roomy. I pray we all get more roomy.

“I have ... used similitudes.” (I have compared myself to many things. I have said I am similar to this, to that.) Language is based on imagery. “In the beginning was imagery.”

The poet seer can express her comprehension, her apprehension, her prehensive grasp of the multiplied visions only through similitudes, which are provided with abundance and received when the mind is quiet and open and capacious.

George Breed is the author of several books published by Anamchara Books including The Inner Work of the Warrior: A Manual for Embodying Spirit, Jesus and Lao Tzu: Adventures with the Tao Te Ching, and The Hidden Words of the Living Jesus: A Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas.