We practice the Art of Allowing. Which means reaching for the thought that feels best, not the thought that is the real thought, not the thought that is telling it like it is. Telling it like it is only holds you where it is: "Damn it, I'm going to tell it like it is. I'm going to tell it like it is, because everybody wants me to tell it like it is."
Tell it like it is if you like it like it is. But if you don't like it like it is, then don't tell it like it is--tell it like you want it to be. If you tell it like you want it to be, long enough, you will begin to feel it like you want it to be, and when you feel it like you want it to be, it be's like you want it to be. -- LOA
This is the simplest definition of visualization I know of besides: See it, feel it, be it. Who said it, I haven't a clue.* Maybe I threw in the feel it because without the emotional connection you can't know if you're actually creating in the direction you want. I'm being tested. More accurately, in the last 24 hours, I have been given a very large dose of contrast -- the 'to know what you want is to know what you don't want' and in the contrast the heavy vibe of 'this is how it is' was clearly imposed. I don't have to be specific. Being too specific may empower that vibe and I am allowing something more generously loving...a lightening of that vibe. And if I can get really creative enough in my pretending, a complete purging. So, soon after this post, I'll sit with pen in hand and tell myself a very uplifting story of how this contrast will serve me. I will not just tell myself, I will feel myself in it while my mind's eye sees it.
Though I took it personally, I thought about today's quote of advice in more grander terms, too. Though nowhere near an ocean, my metaphorical hands joined in holding hope for change when it comes to the practices of drilling near and off-shore. Marianne Williamson suggested that we have a minute of silence each day at noon for a miracle in the Gulf. A collective meditation for something to happen. I've great admiration for her and so many like her. When I read that, it created in me a desire to personalize her thought: And in that one minute, I will quietly visualize a prayer for inspired human action. The miracle of God moving through people.
I've been raised believing that God works through people. With what has gone down in our southern waters, one might argue the devil does, too. For me, all of life is Love but there are pockets of places, faces and traces where the cutting of corners caused Love to get hacked. Had Love made the cut -- compassionate preparatory choices of 'what if's' or 'should we's' in relation to others-- the consequences of actions would not be nearly so devastating. Some will blame power. Some will blame greed. I see it as man's disconnection with himself and his fellow man. The kind of connection I'm visualizing oozes with compassion...not oil.
Ironically, and as an aside, there is a power outside of ourselves that we have the ability to greedily consume. Ask yourself: What is our most dependable natural resource? The Sun. Seriously, if it ever goes out, will anything else really matter?
*I just revised the worst sentence I have ever written in my life. The asterisk is for my benefit only. A reminder. A gentle one. :)