Friday, January 1, 2010

Vision: Golden Eyes on the True Prize


New year time is vision time. Millions of pens hit the page scrawling goals for better things to be, do and have. Minds glow with images of what will make life happier, healthier and wealthier. Great intensions, but it's mostly a noble distraction from what the soul genuinely wants. Setting high-minded goals is the separate self's way of reasserting the belief that it occupies the driver's seat of life, steering the car of your destiny toward its cherished goal. It reminds me of the my childhood car-seat; the one with the toy steering wheel. There I would sit importantly and cleverly steering the car and its passengers through the dangerous stream of traffic. All the while, my mother, behind the big wheel to my left actually guided the car to our destination.

Genuine vision is something else entirely. It's a picture of the possibilities life is offering you. It's the call of life not to be a greater you, but to be the greatness that can be facilitated through you. Vision is the soul's gold glowing beneath the surface of the mind's programed thoughts and desires. It's the long forgotten dream that stirred your consciousness awake, the spark that was then hidden by the shoulds and coulds of your parents, teachers and employers. Vision is not an object to be possessed; it is the stream of energy and wisdom carrying you through possibilities beyond the mind's self-imposed limits.

Vision isn't a pleasant choice made on a breezy day. It's the force of life dragging you out of your bed in the darkness of a rainy night. It's a wake up call that won't let you go back to sleep; a call that comes when you least expect it, at the most inconvenient time, in the messiest place. Vision is often delivered by a slimy character with glowing eyes and a greasy grin. You may slam the door shut, but it's too late. Vision has already pierced your belly. Its gnawing hunger can't be satisfied by the empty calories of money, status, and personal power.

Accepting vision takes trust beyond anything the mind can accept. The belief grid that defines a place for everything and defines everything by its place doesn't accommodate the unknown, unexpected, indefinable and unmeasurable. The worldview that worships the song of "I did it my way" doesn't joyously embrace a cosmic chorus chanting a strange magnetic hum. To trust the pull of this hum is allowing the pull of your vision is to go wherever it leads, emphasis on WHEREVER. Only then can your vision lead you passed the fool's gold of ego gain to the soul's gold of vitality and wisdom. Though you may feel alone on your vision's quest, you are interconnected with all of life. It is life that is having and living the vision. It is life appearing to be a separate "you" and it is life playing all the characters and settings of the vision. Vision after all, is life being life.

The adventure and benefit of entering your vision was described beautifully by Joseph Campbell: "We have not to risk the adventure alone, for the heros of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world."

Let 2010 be the year you receive life's vision and let it have its way with you.

10 comments:

  1. The belief grid - oh yes. What a great way to say it. Trusting that the bottom doesn't fall out when I step off the grid... That's my challenge. Thank you for these words of reassurance that I'm far from alone on this journey.

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  2. Embracing our visions together, the magic that happens when we surrender!
    Beautiful. Thank you Anthony!
    Blessings,
    Marjory

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  3. over the past week, i found myself caught up in the determined frenzy to create some kind of map for this year. taking control of my life felt more necessary than trust in myself, knowing that i could and would not only handle whatever happened but grow wherever i found myself. thank you for this eloquent exhale.

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  4. Thank you Anthony! Reading your line, Vision is often delivered by a slimy character with glowing eyes and a greasy grin,' reminded me of my first wilderness quest for vision, in rainy, cold Wales, five years ago. A seeker setting out to have his own version of Black Elk's epiphany or some other sky-cracking visitation of angels, wrestling instead with the belly-cracking emergence of vision from within the womb of his own being. Far less visually dramatic, far less pleasant a birth. And far more real and long-lasting, the birth of a squealing, difficult vision in the mud there that turned me around from a young, naive constant-ascender and plunged me into a more introspective, Goddess-centered journey for five years!

    Vision is a powerful word. It plays with our imagination, suggests visual maps of destiny & an expansive view of the territory ahead. Some vision is like that - in my experience, most 'vision' is delivered by that slimy, shadowy character, knocking persistently at the back door of our dream until we pay attention and grudgingly admit that he was our brother. I like Bill Plotkin's sense of vision as a seed image in us. To quest for a vision is to remove the entanglements that prevent us from perceiving that seed clearly and hearing the instructions it is trying to give us about the conditions it needs for full and healthy growth.

    May 2010 bring you ever more into communion with the deeper seed images you carry - so many have already grown into glorious forms for us all to enjoy. Thank you for tending to them well!

    Blessings.
    Tom @coyopa

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  5. '[Vision is] the call of life not to be a greater you, but to be the greatness that can be facilitated through you.'

    Lovely Tony - reminds me of a quote I posted to the 'New Earth' Facebook group I made:

    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21563499243&ref=ts

    'I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through - listen to this music.' - Hafiz-e Shirazi

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  6. Hej Tony,

    May 2010 be your year of miracles. For me, well I already received a number of them. The words for 2010 get me all excited, I just listen and follow that what is handed to me.

    Hope you got my package in good order.

    See you soon.

    xox Elizabeth

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  7. Much gratitude for all your heartfelt comments. Sharing our visions and our encounter with those visions is essential knowledge for navigating the hidden currents of the soul. Each life is a rich mythic journey and I'm honored and thankful that you given us a glimpse of your soul travels. I'd love to hear more.

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  8. "Let 2010 be the year you receive life's vision and let it have its way with you."

    This makes me think about the times in my life when I simply set an intention and then became open to receiving versus demanding that the outcome find me by way of my specific planned course. Indeed, I will receive life's vision and let it have its way with me this year...

    Beautiful post.

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  9. beautiful, thought provoking and introspective...may this year be a year of connections on many levels. Thank you for carving time out of your schedule to create and post a blog!

    Carol

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  10. dwelling in trust... lovely... ideas of the gap sung through my head as I skied through the woods last eve... thank you, words of courage and rebirth.

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