Vision and the Influence of Emotion

I have been feeling off lately. Not quite in alignment. I’ve had times where everything was flowing in sync. Times where I was simply floating joyfully and peacefully in the river.

But today I’m sick, and sometimes when I’m sick it seems there’s a deeper meaning to it. Something emotional and psychological related to its arising. As if there was a need to stop. A need to pause.

The sickness has given me that time to pause, so I am grateful to it. I would love to get to a place where I didn’t need quite such a dramatic message to make me pause, and I hope that as I continue to heal, that will be the case.

But dramatic night of fevers mixed with the never ending dance of hot and cold aside, I am grateful for the pause this afforded me. Because something is off in my envisioning.

In creating the website I’ve been working on for many months, I got to two videos, one outlining my thoughts on vision and one a poem I wrote about envisioning (I will put that poem at the end of this piece). I realized with deep emotion that these videos were the heart of the entire work. I had created a website that, when completed, will have more than a hundred videos about life skills, but at the heart of it all was vision and its connection to creativity.

And yet something was currently off about my vision and creativity. Recent posts by Kurt Juman had re-awoken my remembering of the power of vision, but when I attempted to use my imagination to see the creative visions that could drive me forward, I couldn’t quite find them. I would begin to….. but then something wouldn’t work, the vision would fall apart or just have no emotional weight.

To explore this I began to journal, to explore my experience. The first clue was a certain sensation I was familiar with - a tension in my mouth and abdomen that was very familiar. It pointed towards a remembrance of deprivation. A past full of it. A young boy seeking attention, receiving little. An ache. A wound.

I then thought of the wonderful movie “Inside Out" by Pixar. A certain scene just came to my mind. If you haven’t seen the movie I highly recommend it. The sequel is good as well. In the original, the character of Joy, a personification of a little girls inherent joy, is attempting to run the show but keeps having memories ‘contaminated’ by the character of Sadness, a lovable character personifying the human experience of sadness and loss. For a good portion of the movie, Joy feels at odds with Sadness, fighting her, trying to keep her away from balls of light representing memories of experience. Trying to stop Sadness from ‘contaminating’ further memories Joy frantically does everything she can to just keep Sadness controlled and away from it all. Try as she might, she could not do it. Sadness was a part of the story. A part of the picture. A part of the inner vision.

I realized in that flash I had been doing the same thing. I was not welcoming in a past truth of mine, was not holding it and allowing it to be. The experience of deprivation - the memories, the sensations, the lived experience - were all there, whether I wanted them or not. By not inviting them into my experience, the entire creative experience was blocked. Instead it was an inner experience of conflict.

The movie “Inside Out” gives a beautiful story and representation of synthesis. I won’t give any more away then that. Again, it is worth watching. Now, I sit with this past truth of deprivation, and begin to wonder about how it fits into the larger journey. What does it have to teach me? As it is brought into the fold, as it experiences healing, what does it have to add to my vision.

I feel the creative force move through me again. Thank you sickness. Thank you Spirit. Thank you, beautiful wounded part of me, worth of my love. As promised, here is the poem:

Envisioning

I had forgotten how to envision

I say forgotten

because children clearly know it well

their imaginations

are still their friends

full of energy

life

possibility

creativity

and haven’t been captured

by attachment’s need for

imprinting

because they need to take the world in.

It is a necessity,

so the forgetting

the change

is a necessity

yet I have started to remember

how to envision.

And I mention one caveat-

that there has been

a clearing and cleaning process

that has taken years beforehand,

not that it must take years for everyone,

and if you ask me my methods

which are all related

to guidance from elders

I’ll share them with you

as long as you understand

that methods are like cleaning supplies-

there may be some that work

slightly better than others

but there are many that work just fine

since the key ingredients are really

consistent

diligent

thorough

application

to do the repetitive work of scrubbing

and putting things in their place

and listening to all the hurt children

and being with them

and putting them to bed in one’s heart

and then the pathway of envisioning is clear

and it feels such a simple remembering

that there may arise bubbles of laughter

and tears of joy.

A few tricks or tips-

it is relatively useless I think

to envision what one doesn’t want

to try and say “go away, be gone.”

Some can make

moments of progress

with this I think-

using will-

but it doesn’t last.

Whereas if you find a feeling you want

and see something in your mind’s eye

without paying as much attention

to the thing

as to the feeling

and the experience of envisioning

and you feel it now

no matter where it falls on the timeline

you feel yourself in it now

and call it in

call it into being

and if it is beautiful

you can live with it

whether or not it makes it

all the way down to the physical

and you can try to birth it

or grow it in a garden

all the while

loving it

enjoying it

and if you keep

reality in mind

its bounds and pockets

of concrete poured by the dreamers before

and pay heed to the rhythms

of the earth as well

plants may grow

and beautiful smiles may fill the world

as they have filled your heart

since you started

Envisioning.

---

With Love,

Louie