The Poetic Spirit

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
POETIC ARCHETYPE

• Communicates through metaphors or “stand-fors”
• Uses pictures, diagrams, sounds, dance, song, or a reassembling of words to create new meanings for human experience
• Uses metaphors that bring into existence a new perspective, a new point of view, a new way of understanding

QUESTIONS TO DETERMINE IF, WHEN, AND WHY
THE POETIC SPIRIT SPEAKS TO YOU

1. Is it easy to use metaphors when you are expressing yourself or explaining a situation or problem? When have you done this? What were the circumstances? What was the result?
2. Have you always seen and felt circumstances, settings, situations, in ways that you want to open up reality to alternative points of view?
3. Has your poetic spirit persevered in the face of demands for logic, for practicality, for problem solving, for “get real”?
4. What have been the consequences for you? For others?