Introduction 3

I was twenty years old, and the first professional I saw was the university chaplain. I have often wondered what got me though the difficult years of childhood and adolescence. I had a great deal of anxiety, including post traumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive traits, and in high school I was depressed a good deal of the time. Also in high school I became very religious, reading the Bible and praying daily. I continued with music lessons and played in orchestras.

In retrospect, I believe the combination of a few resources kept me going. One was the consistency of care by my mother, and to a lesser extent, by my grandmother. I felt they were there for me, despite my problems. My brother's presence also made a difference. Being able to play music was important. I had difficulty verbalizing my emotions, and music served for me as a nonverbal means of expression. Finally, there was my spirituality. I had some unhealthy beliefs when I was younger, such as the trauma being a punishment from God. At the same time, however, faith and prayer offered me hope that my future would be better than my past. It was a complicated scenario, as it often is.

Academically, the 1999 seminar furthered my interest in exploring the relationship between spirituality, creativity, and mental health. In On Not Being Able to Paint, Milner begins the book with a concern to find her own way of painting, in contrast to copying other painters' styles. The book's title is provocative. Why would anyone want to learn not to paint? After exploring a number of books on painting, Milner settles on a couple of key ideas: the eye should find out what it likes, drawings express moods, and one should draw without any conscious intention of trying to draw "something." At the end of the book Milner concludes that painting provides a setting in which to engage in "reverie," a kind of absent-mindedness or freedom from the need to make an expedient response to others. This freedom can be found in many forms of creative expression.

I had been interested in mysticism prior to taking the seminar, but I was intrigued by Milner's "quiet" mysticism, one involving the body and embracing a way of being that suited her. Milner had brief contact with Jung, and some of her concepts, e.g., the creative unconscious, indicate either parallel or overlapping thinking. I became intrigued with the relationship between Milner's mystical leanings and her own psychological well-being. Over the years, Milner's mysticism seemed to result in greater contentment, greater ability to go with the flow in her life. I also read her 18-year analysis with a patient with schizophrenia as chronicled in The Hands of the Living God (1969). This analysis served as a sounding board for many of Milner's developing ideas. One was the notion of reverie, or the ability to move between the "me" and the "not-me," as a healthy form of primary narcissism. Another was the need for developing a self before being able to lose it in any mystical sense.

My personal interests in mysticism are linked to the concept of imagination, particularly dreams. Dreams have offered me guidance during difficult times in my life. I picked my doctoral advisor, for example, on the basis of a dream. Moreover, I believe there is a strong connection between imagination and hope. Theologically, hope is a redemptive concept. Donald Capps's book Agents of Hope