27 February 2012

Vision for Life Harmony

What might it all look like to begin again? When applied to one´s personal life the question may refer to healing or spiritual growth, maturing and evolving self-perspective. When applied to the physical world, the misty-eyed architect´s or naturist´s daydream swirls into potential view, transforming our physical surroundings in harmony with our current values: understanding how a physical space came to be and how, if possible, to make it better in the sense that resources and enjoyment are more equitably distributed, imagination embraced, efficiently living with nature, drawing our energy from natural cycles. “What might it all look like to begin again?” we have asked ourselves a million times in a million contexts and still even more often within each of our present lifetimes as we grow and move and follow our paths, searching for resonance and belonging within and without the paradigms we inherited and the paradigms we adopt, the physical settings we inherited, the places we adopt. Ask yourself the question, daydream your own ideal, and if when you open your eyes you find discord between your present surroundings and your present cosmovision, I highly encourage swift action in the absolute Now to begin bringing your visions into harmonious focus. We will make our sanctuaries where we dwell both physically and emotionally, in balance with one another, in tune with our cosmovision for our lives. Live your Truth, whatever form it may be, and allow your world to adapt and change, forgive and grow, with your dreams for your world.

This visioning process has been the blueprint underlying our journey in Los Brujos, adapting a forest and our physical needs into an artistic family home and creative sanctuary. But I am in no way implying nor insisting that everyone ought to live this way or that everyone´s vision will result in forest life. On the contrary, the beauty of a visioning process as a blueprint results in completely unique, diverse, and non-repeating life environments, combinations, spiritual focus, creative energy. A vision is not something that stays constant in life. As we learn and grow and expand our conscious realm throughout life, I find it very beneficial to reflect every so often on my current state and my current dreams, and many times I have re-envisioned what everything around me might look and feel like beginning again. There is a niche for every creative wonder and there is a way for every imaginative mind in this world, no matter the initial barriers or emotional blocks we may first encounter. By looking through a different perspective garbage becomes art and shelter, flowers become honey and fruit, strangers can become neighbors and friends. It all depends on our individual, unique focus what scale we operate on and the degree of change necessary to live by our dreams.

In Los Brujos, we focused on making resources of our waste and of natural cycles like rain and daylight partly for the economic bargain and partly because it made sense to do so to harmonize with the group goal to use less disposable technology that is more manageable on a human-scale. In five years we have experimented with many techniques and have already adapted many of our initial projects to our new levels of present awareness, like retiring our traditional septic system for a dry-composting toilet and plant-based water filtration system, or using a bicycle-powered washing machine instead of taking our dirty clothes to a laundry-mat in town. Harmonizing our actions and our intentions is very liberating, but our relief and satisfaction might have been just as profound with less radical changes like converting a patch of lawn into a contoured herb garden, or setting up a rain-barrel to run a hose, or planning a scenic bike route to a local grocery store. We have only to ask ourselves how it might all look and feel and be like to begin again, knowing and believing and dreaming what we do now. And then have the courage to put our actions, great or small, in harmony with our life intentions, our cosmovision filling with energy. Whether we paint mandala portals in public settings or quietly paint family albums at home, spread happiness teaching dance or open doorways teaching math, live in an urban center or on a forested mountain, we are each a light of consciousness evolving as we wind and cycle along our paths harmonizing our unique worlds with our uniquely diverse dreams.