This piece of music, written by Hector Berlioz, is from the Ball Scene in Fantastic Symphony. Unsure of whether the world will ever be able to safely throw a grand ball again, the mind modifies and creates a smaller-scale version in a fantastic dinner gathering where the desired intimacy of a large party is conjured with smaller scenes and intricate tablescapes.
This is fantasy. A brief bit of mind-play built within and upon the imagination – the most sacred and fertile ground of all. Palaces, cities, countries, and worlds have been erected there ~ there, where there is no limit, no physical or scientific boundaries, no laws or restrictions or mandates – and once you understand the power that resides within each of us to imagine, the bounds of the real world don’t seem to matter as much.
This is why I never minded waiting around in airports or sitting alone in a quiet room or being a passenger on a five-hour drive. My imagination has been a place of refuge since I was a child, and I’ve fostered and fed it every day of my life. It allows for a sense of contentment and entertainment that almost everyone else I know lacks, and seeks to find in various ways. Not that my way or theirs is better or worse or demanding of comparison. There is room enough to make our different methods through our lives. Personally, I find my mind’s imagination an easy way to access contentment when the mundane reality of the world puts us in situations that aren’t pleasant or fun. One can fight and stubbornly rage against them, or one can accept them and go into a different state of being – whether that’s through meditation, deep breathing, or some fantastical lark that’s half memory and half dream, and entirely made up in one’s head.
