Tag: Casting a Vision

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Surrender 27: Creating a Collage of Ideas

Tonight my sister Linda, my mom, and I met to continue working on our vision boards. We had a special guest, my grandson Dayan, who joined us before heading to his Wednesday night youth group. He elected to sketch, while the rest of us flipped through magazines, in search of inspiration for our boards. 

 

This is the furthest I’ve traveled into a new year, without having a board up. Yet I’m finding I’m okay with that, and totally surrendered to the process, no matter how long it takes. As in life, it’s the journey, not the destination, that is important. We’ve set next Wednesday as the completion date, however we will all continue on if we don’t finish by then. 

 

I enjoy casting a vision with my family members. Dayan joined in on the lively conversations while he sketched landmarks of Egypt and we cut out images. We discussed everything from current world events, to politics, to celebrities. I appreciate that in my family, everyone is allowed to share their thoughts and ideas, without judgment or correction. It makes for interesting conversations, covering a broad range of topics, with our chatting punctuated by frequent laughter. 

  
As we finished up for the evening, both working on the vision boards and talking animatedly, I had a realization. Our varied ideas and beliefs join together to form a colorful and fascinating collage, as unique as the boards we are creating. And like the boards, that collage of expressed individuality  is a current snapshot of where we presently are in our journeys. A few years down the road, and the collective, figurative vision board will shift, as we each shift and grow. 

  
It might be fun next Wednesday, when the four of us gather again, to have Dayan transform our conversations into an idea and belief collage. What a great reminder it would be of the value and uniqueness of each person and the solidarity and strength of family. 

  

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Surrender 11: Vision as Art

Tonight I began working on my 2016 vision board. I met Linda, my sister, at our mom’s house. Mom not only joined in the process of creating a board, she fed us too! We each enjoyed a stack of pancakes with warm maple syrup before clearing the table and hauling out the magazines. 

  

I love creating a yearly vision board, which is a collage of pictures and words that captures my dreams and goals for the upcoming months. I include my word and symbol for the year. And I search through magazines for those pictures and phrases that represent the vision I am casting.

My sister and mom began creating boards with me a couple of years ago. I cherish these evenings of companionably browsing through a variety of publications, chatting about what we are searching for, sharing our life journeys. We laugh, and tell stories, and help each other find specific words or images. 

Kindness is my mom’s word for 2016 and she located it quickly, adding the cutout to her stash. Linda hasn’t found her word, Courageous, yet. And I’m still searching for Surrender. I may have to print my word out after typing it on my computer. We giggled when Mom happily exclaimed over the word Gorgeous as she cut around it. Of course it will go on her board! My mother is a gorgeous woman, inside and out. 

    

We did not finish our boards this evening. It will take at least one more evening together and maybe two. The surrender for me is allowing it to take as long as it takes. There was a time when I felt I had to complete my vision board before the new year started. It became one more task to squeeze into the last week of December and I often rushed to complete the board. 

Now I enjoy the process and let the board come together as it will. If it takes the whole month of January, that’s fine. If the creation of it takes longer than that, it’s still not a problem. The board will be on view in my studio all year.

I have images to print out that I collected as I worked through The Artist’s Way. These will be added to my board and I marvel at the perfect timing of doing those chapters as the new year approached. I’m very aware that my board is shifting, as I am shifting. I’m playing around with calling it by another name. But for now, a vision board it is. 

I recognize that vision is art as well, a way of seeing beyond what is currently in front of me. I am making the invisible, visible. 

  

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Journey 342: Casting a Vision

I did a fun exercise in The Artist’s Way that explored possibilities. The assignment was to collect images that represent items in lists that I made. This is absolutely perfect for me, this time of year. As 2015 is winding down, I’m taking time in December to reflect on my past journey, enjoy the Christmas season and think about 2016 and its theme and symbol. I make a Vision Board every January. The images I am collecting now will be incorporated into my new  2016 Vision Board. 

  
Here are the categories from the assignment and the images I selected that I’ll print out and use next month. The idea is to fill in the lists quickly without overthinking. 

List five desires:

1. Live part of the year in Edinburgh, Scotland 

 

2. Travel

   
3. Express creativity in art, writing, gardening and decorating 

 

4. Be a full time writer

 
5. Take a cooking class

 

If I was 20 and had money…five things I would do:

1. Travel the world

 
2. Invest to create sustaining wealth

 

3. Buy land

 
4. Build my ideal home

 

5. Invest in others

 
When I am 65 and have money…five things I will do:

1. Explore the world 

 

2. Buy a cottage in Edinburgh, Scotland

   
3. Create Rivendell of the Ozarks

 

4. Invest in my family

  

5. Invest in others

   

This was a valuable exercise for me. I noticed, for example, that travel made all three lists. As my children have grown up and now have lives of their own, travel has become increasingly attractive to me. Expressing my creativity, in a multitude of ways, made the list. Investing in my family and others is important. 

Scotland is dear to me and I feel the tug to “return home” to Edinburgh. I’d love to have a house or flat there where I could stay a month at a time, several times a year. And the land, creating Rivendell and investing in others is all connected. To offer a protected place where people can rest, reconnect with their hearts and leave feeling refreshed has long been a dream of mine. See the video at the end of the blog post for a movie I made several years ago about seeing my dream birthed into reality. 

I’m excited to use these images as the basis for my 2016 Vision Board. I love connecting with my desires, seeing them as possibilities, and then releasing them as intentions into the universe, and into the hands of God. I can let go of the outcomes and watch as the Divine sets all of time and space into motion to meet me in my longings, in the way that is best for me. I’m so grateful for the year I’ve had. Bring on 2016!

 

Check out my Rivendell Movie!