Personal Vision

A fine summer double – The bright star Mizar marks the bend in the Big Dipper’s handle. Binoculars reveal a somewhat fainter star, Alcor, just to its east (left). People blessed with good vision can often split this pair with the naked eye. – Gregg Ruppel

One of the things that Paul and I were discussing was how so many of us don’t even try to follow through on our dreams, our personal vision. We get caught up in the grubby everyday-ness of life. All the programming out there insists that we are personally worthless and pushes us to be passive, to keep our heads down and graze like good little sheep. We’ve been conditioned to believe what we see on TV. A lot of us are more wary about the Internet, but even there…. And suddenly a bunch of people have awakened from the dream-state, looked around and said, “No!” very loudly. The Occupy Wall Street movement is all about that. Why *should* the 99% be passive and quiet and let the 1% walk all over? But politics isn’t where I want to go with this…. It’s vision.

Personal vision… why do you get up in the morning? Is it just habit and duty? If that’s all you’ve got, you really might want to take a good hard look at yourself and your life. I’m not saying that we’re all going to spend all our time pursuing lofty dreams! If nothing else, having to eat can bring you down to earth, but is there something that’s so “you” that you will keep pecking away at it in what spare time you have?

Not talking about hobbies, here, either…. How do I say this? … um … Ok, I’ll talk about me. My life purpose is to be a teacher. It’s the way I put myself together long before I was born. *Everything* I do feeds into that! I’m always studying, thinking, writing, compiling. I love it. I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of using those skills. …. But vision… what do I want to see?

I see people around me waking up, noticing that they’re real people, divine beings who happen to be wearing human bodies. I see people aware of the world around us, the beauty in a rain drop, a flower, a simple stone or handful of sand, the richness of a handful of good garden soil, the unquenchable cheeriness of chickadees, the warmth of friends working together for the greater good. I see people taking their skills into the world, aware of what they are meant to be, trying to make their little corner of the world just a little better for them being in it. I see people aware of the divinity in all the world, not just in other people, but in that raindrop or stone or bird.

That’s where I’m going. That’s why I’m Wicca.

…and in order to get there I have to take care of myself. I’m not talking about physically, although I’m doing that, too. What I mean is to pursue things that are also “me”, but are only for my vision… I learned this as a mother, although I knew some of it intellectually from before. You can’t take care of children, nurture them, give them what they need, whether it be food, clothes, learning or morals, if you’re so worn that you turn into an automaton. You can’t rejoice with them in their little triumphs that help them grow into wonderful beings, when all you see is dirty dishes and laundry. “So, shut up you cobwebs and dust go to sleep, I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep!” I had a plaque that said that for years….

I used to set up a time just to take a long hot soak and read, every so often. I made a lot of the kids’ clothing just to keep my sewing skills in shape, and embroidered little motifs on them. I wonder if it ever occurred to the kids…even now…just how much magick was put into their clothing? Or even their food? I kept those skills sharp using them for the kids, but if I didn’t love sewing and embroidery and making little toys I wouldn’t have done it that way.

I used to take them to the park, pointing out plants that I knew and birds and we would go home and look up the ones that I didn’t know the names of. Ok, I’m talking about with two pre-schoolers, a toddler and a baby in a backpack we were doing this! They used to work with me in the garden, learning to tell weeds from plants and getting to enjoy growing things.

Do you see where I’m going with this? I took my *own* skills and used them for the benefit of the kids.

I still do that at the shop. I spend a lot of time creating product, counseling folks on how to become more themselves, teaching. We use recycled bags at the shop for a lot of stuff, try to keep things in the “reuse it several times” end, to keep the carbon footprint down. I do the newsletter to keep things running and to make sure you all have access to information that you really can’t find in books. But if it’s only for daily life, that’s not enough….

If you didn’t think about it, why do I have that huge embroidery frame over in the reading area? [Later note – Long since put away, although I embroider a lot!] That’s part of what I do for me… into that robe, when it’s finally done, will be a lot of that kind of energy that’s part of my personal vision. I work on it when I’m doing things that lead to the fulfillment of that vision. That’s my way of making it tangible, making it real. Some day I’ll wear that robe and it will help me to become more myself.

From Daily Stuff 10-12-11