Images are consciousness mechanisms that we used to navigate and manage the state of both our consciousness and our lives. We're so used to the word image, that we've come to take it as nothing special. Images are representations of things, so what?
But in every image is implied a whole system of representation. A system that manages the connection/s between meaning and the material that houses it.
Back when I was in New Zealand I borrowed the Dao De Jing from the library. And one part that I've mulled over repeatedly since then was the concept that there's no division between the sacred and the mundane. At the time I was searching for more sacredness in my life, and while the promise of divinity in everything was something I wanted to adopt as a principle, I was too absorbed in my struggles and fixations to experience it.
But the point I want to get across is that the images (/tools) CURRENTLY operating in our respective life spaces, situations, narratives, hold all the potency and potential we're seeking from the future or from outside sources.
It's precisely those functions with all their power that hold the structure of our lives in place.
In practice and in life it's so easy to fall back into the rut of our old habits (mechanisms) often as soon as we feel like we've taken a step forward. How can we practice observing the progress, and new situations and experiences, without immediately trapping them in old images?
One thought to play with is that images and meanings don't need to be hard and fast. Whether it's looking at a traffic jam or a chair or listening to jazz or a politician's speech, we can observe the meanings and structures at play without necessarily trying to contain them. This paradoxically give us access to more of the tools ad functions operating in our life system.
Because what we're really trying to engage with is the sacred that we house in images and devices, not the props themselves.