Last Spring, I planted some scarlet runner beans in my mother in law's garden. Pink and black splotches akin to an abstract painting and very mysterious looking. She was amazed at the voracity as Lo and behold, these beauteous beans took off and saved some pods from her harvest and sent them to me over in Colorado in a box for Christmas. I brought them back East and even though I got here late to start anything from seed, planted them hopefully in my sandy, poor soil. I talked to them. I told them to sprout and grow and be magical a la Jack. Here, where I live, it is a miracle to be thriving in spite of the salt air, silt & sand, weeds, ravenous evil deer, stubborn poison ivy,...
Yes, I may be a crazy plant lady...
So they have sprouted, and are growing by the day, it is amazing.
This week in my motivation class we are discussing the power of manifestation. I am also thinking about potential lately, this idea that our thoughts themselves are physical, taking up space and literally pushing intentions out as the universe moves to accommodate them like water, liquifying in the path of our desires. Makes me feel molten!
We watched a video by Will Smith ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT9u89IpFVw .) detailing his simple, eloquent approach to attaining your goals and success.
It is passionate, even violently so and I find myself taken in by the idea. What we want it ours for the taking, we must pounce on our wants, claim them with confidence and ownership.
He quotes Confucious, "He who says he can and he who says he cannot are usually both right", and I find myself wondering, is it really this simple? He says we are bogged down in the quest for complexity when what we really need to be doing is simplifying, focusing our energy on the things we really think are the most important in the pursuit of happiness. My question is, of course, how to get that focus, how to put on those horse blinders and keep on one linear path towards light and attainment?
When asked what you are afraid of, what do you answer? I usually answer that I am scared of mediocrity, bad things happening to people I love that are out of my control, and the like. However, according to Will, in some guru like sense, these things are under my control and he attests (very knight in shining armor fighting the ferocious dragon) that his fear is fear itself. That one must attack fears, one by one, break them down, and lay them bare to sun to bleach the bones. He says we must first know ourselves, then work damn hard at getting to where we want to be and not letting anything or anyone tell us we are not going to get there. This fear, this lack of belief is getting in the way of my beanstalk of dreams.
He instructs us to bend, command, and then demand what we want for our lives from the universe. I just need to decide now where to focus my lighthouse beam of energy and thought...
until then I will delight in the new leaves unfurling daily on my seedlings, give them bamboo stakes to support their ambitions and think about narrowing my own scope of desire to specifics.
I think I have been watering the entire garden, even the weeds, and I need to put my thumb in the stream of the hose and pinpoint the areas of growth I truly desire.
Beautiful, Maile. You truly have a way with words and I am now a devoted reader of your blog. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're well.
I ask myself everyday which direction to send my excitement because at times it feels scattered...then something appears (like your seeds) that needs tending and that is where I usually end up. But instead, I feel like it should be an intentional focusing of energy. However, I too feel unsure as to what direction that is right now. Time will tell.
Maile-
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your analogies about the seeds. I think that this analogy could be used in several ways. While everything you said is applicable to our daily lives and our own self direction, I found myself thinking about the seeds as our students. What if a student doesn't have the proper resources to flourish? What if our student is a seed without water, nutritional soil, and bamboo support? What happens then to that seed's attempts at striving? What if someone didn't tell the seed that she needed to sometimes scratch and claw her way to the surface to get the sun and water? I think we need to be directly instructing our seeds (students) on how to thrive, how to find out what we want and go get it, just as Will Smith directs us to do. Empowerment is a mighty strong motivational tool. Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed reading your post.