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Standing “divided no more.” Here is my pledge.
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Standing “divided no more.” Here is my pledge.

ByKim Hermanson

My work with metaphor chose me; it was not my expected path in life. Through a series of experiences—harrowing, mystical, and profound—I came to be an advocate for a non-ordinary realm of profound beauty that we access through metaphor. Metaphoric images are the heart of the creative process and… I grew up in a family…

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An American Beauty

ByKim Hermanson

I wrote this poem ten years ago, and just recently rediscovered it. It’s a poem about beauty (and my Great Aunt Thelma). I visited her in Wisconsin and was enraptured for the entire visit. It was the only time I spent with her as an adult, and it was also the last. Shortly after that…

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Creating space for Spirit to speak

ByKim Hermanson

I’ve always been interested in the idea of creating space. For years I had a note attached to my computer that read, “Create Space for Spirit to Speak.” If we don’t have the space for it, we can’t do anything new or creative because our life is already filled up. A simple example is writing–one…

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Working the Soil: Social Change and Metaphor

ByKim Hermanson

Don’t look for me in a human shape. I am inside your looking. No need for form with a love this strong. The lines above from Rumi can be interpreted in more than one way. As I teach courses on the psychology of metaphor, to my mind, Rumi’s lines refer to the power that metaphors…

Creatures at the Sophia Center
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Creatures at the Sophia Center

ByKim Hermanson

We made creatures at the Sophia Center last Monday. Each of the creatures had “magical” powers. I was expecting the class to be light-hearted and playful. Silly me. Of course there is something about making art that is deep and transformative, but making creatures with magical powers seemed to be especially powerful in tapping the…

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Getting Messy

ByKim Hermanson

One of my favorite art quotes is from Herbert Marcuse, a hard-to-read but brilliant philosopher. In The Aesthetic Dimension he writes, “Art breaks open a dimension inaccessible to other experience, a dimension in which human beings, nature, and things no longer stand under the established reality principle…The encounter with the truth of art happens in…