As we continue Joe develops a number of themes all centering on the long term consequences of not being nurtured. ‘The child who is nurtured and bonded and given that safe space from the earliest developmental period can move away from the safe space carrying that same state of mind with him and is ready to move on into the higher realms of human possibility.  Whereas the majority of us lacking that safe space never move on. We try to repair or build for ourselves the safe space to be.  It’s a safe space that we either carry with us and are - or not at all, yet we are trained to believe we can create the safe space by following all the appropriate cultural directives and every cultural directive drives us into an ever increasing unsafe positions and we feel more and more threatened by the world.’ Here again, Joe turns our cultural assumptions upside down. Rather than culture being the sanctuary it pretends to be, culture is the source of our greatest trauma and pain.

Michael Mendizza

One of the most deeply penetrating insights that emerge from Joe’s vision of imagination is how it manifests as both our individual self-image or ego and the culture we live in. One is a personalized micro view and the other a collective macro view of essentially the same field, each giving rise to the other. The Greek word persona comes to mind, persona being the cultural mask our authentic nature wears. We must conform to culture to belong and therefore survive and by doing so we limit and constrain our true nature and potential. Here rests another pillar in Joe’s overarching framework.

Michael Mendizza