By the pressure of reality, I mean the pressure of an external event or events on the consciousness to the exclusion of any power of contemplation.*
Wallace Stevens

My sacred space became the rolling fire of the imagination. But, you know, these days, I wonder about this too. Maybe these lofty claims about the imagination are yet more artistic hubris, a further place to hide, like the office – another invented way to separate ourselves from the world. Perhaps, the sacred space is simply the world itself – a hallowed place where we all exist at this time, where we engage with life in all its many tempers, within the present moment.**
Nick Cave

Imagination needs reality,
As much as reality needs imagination.
The pressure of reality can turn predator if we fail to face it with
healthy imagination.
Clarissa Estes Pinkola’s Wild Woman comes to us
as a helpful illustration of undomesticated imagination:

Wild Woman comes diving over whatever fences, walls, or obstructions the predator has erected. … She and the predator have know each other a long, long time … . Wherever he is, she is, for she is the one who balances his predations.^

Reality saves imagination from
triviality,
Being sated by Netflix,
Endlessly scrolling social,
Craving more bread and circus.

Reality reminds us that we are here
to save the world,
And may be found in that next wild thought that
comes to us.

*Wallace Stevens The Necessary Angel;
**Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files: #192;
^Clarissa Estes Pinkola’s Women Who Run With the Wolves.