Essence Archives - Jennie Marlow

Vision & Intention

July 6, 2013 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

In Part One of this series, Spotted Eagle discusses the Principle of Vision, describing how “vision” is different from a goal and how great visionaries see their world.

In Part Two, he discusses how limitation and uncertainty serve our creative vision.

In this post, he describes how limitation, uncertainty, purpose and essence are vital to any intention that has the potential to deliver a fulfilling outcome.

In any now-moment, the universe lays before us only certain potentials and not others, and it also gives every actualizable potential a set of natural limitations. An experienced potter understands this. She realizes that potential outcomes which can fulfill her intention to create something out of clay are not unlimited. The clay is what it is, nothing more or less. Clay, like any material, has certain characteristics that limit what can be actualized from it. This is not a problem for the artisan potter because her imagination does not resist the clay’s natural limitations. She takes these limitations and her own level of skill into account as she cultivates her vision for the finished piece.

The artisan potter also knows, before she begins her work, what purpose she intends the finished piece to serve. While she may have a very clear goal for the finished piece, she also understands that uncertainty will make its own unique and valuable contribution to what results. She won’t know until the door of the kiln opens after firing whether or not the pot is even still intact.

Unlike the artisan potter, a person who is fixed upon his goal for the future will see uncertainty as his enemy and struggle against it in fear that his desire for the outcome will not materialize the way he had imagined. He may invest a great deal of energy and become rigid, striving to achieve his goal. He may eventually achieve it, but very often he arrives at his destination exhausted, only to find the joyfulness he had hoped to receive is not only absent from the process of achieving his goal; it is also absent from the result.

Intention is integral to vision, and if it is to serve our creativity even in creating our lives, it must necessarily take into account purpose, essence, natural limitations and uncertainty: the unforeseen, unanticipated and unimagined. Only vision honors these mysteries. Only vision can dance with the uncertainty through which the evolution of any creation takes shape.

Intention that is flexible enough to respond to real-world challenges has a realistic potential to succeed and result in a fulfilling outcome. When we hold a vision for our lives, like the artisan potter, we know the purpose we intend our vision to fulfill. We know the essences we want to experience. We have made a realistic accounting of our available resources and whatever natural limitations are actually present in the now moment. When our intention is set in this way, vision serves to free the investment of our energy so that it can deliver into our lives an outcome that is in alignment with our purpose and which carries the potential to deliver an experience of the essence qualities that give the result meaning and make it fulfilling.

Vision, Limitation & Uncertainty

June 30, 2013 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

In Part One of this series, Spotted Eagle discusses the Principle of Vision, describing how “vision” is different from a goal and how great visionaries see their world. In this post, he discusses how limitation and uncertainty serve our creative vision.

When we look at the roots of the word conceive we learn that it comes from the Latin words that mean to join and to take. Clearly this infers something important about the conceiving that vision facilitates. Vision brings something together. It joins something that was once not connected, and through this process, it produces a result that is not merely the sum of its parts; it is something original.

When we conceive of something that does not yet exist, the fruit of this is inspiration. Here again, we can discover important clues in the root of a word. The word inspiration comes from the Latin word which means to breathe. Inspiration can be seen as the means by which we breathe life into what we conceive. We are inspired to take an action, to do something, to actualize that which we have conceived with our vision. This is a very different process from fantasizing about an imaginary future, setting a goal, and then devoting our efforts in an attempt to make the future conform to our goal.

For example, were we privy to the creative process of a cabinetmaker who is considering what to do with a very fine and rare piece of wood, we would be able to see a vision—the conception, inspiration and actualization— process in action. We would notice that the craftsman first observes and appreciates the wood’s possibilities. The board itself is something concrete and tangible.

However, it is this board’s potential which suggests something to the craftsman. He conceives something which brings together the board and an idea in his imagination, inspired by both the board’s potential and by its natural limitations. There may be a number of potential forms which this board inspires, but what finally dictates the craftsman’s choice is the essential nature of what it is he would like to create from this board and the purpose he would like the finished form to serve. If the purpose to be served by the finished object is to hold a collection of books, the craftsman will make his choice to create a book shelf, and he might design the shelf from a foundation of essence qualities like utility, versatility, durability and beauty.

Now, a very intriguing thing occurs when the craftsman takes his idea from conception to actualization. Artists and craftsmen understand something about the creation process which may be totally absent from the goal-based endeavor, and that is uncertainty. When we are trying to actualize something original from a vision, the unexpected, the unforeseen and the unanticipated are sure to affect the creation. The master craftsman does not flinch at this prospect. He understands that uncertainty and how he responds to the unexpected will help him to fashion a work of art into something unique and original.

In Part Three, Spotted Eagle describes how limitation, uncertainty, purpose and essence are vital to any intention that has the potential to deliver a fulfilling outcome.

What is a Vision?

June 24, 2013 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

“An imaginary picture of a future outcome is not a vision; it is a fantasy, an illusion, and a very seductive one. It causes us to believe in the futures we conjure in the imagination. This is not vision. Vision is not about envisioning the future. Vision does not foretell; it does not predict the form the future will take or what the outcome of an endeavor will be. Vision is not a fantasy of an event or circumstances we can picture in our imagination. Vision is none of these things. It is not empowered by what we hope will happen in future time. Vision refers, not to fantasy we make up in the imagination, but instead to the manner in which something is seen.”

— Spotted Eagle

Vision is a very misunderstood concept in Western Culture where it seems to be confused with imagining a future result. There is a visualization method which has received a lot of attention in recent years. This method is based on a premise that, in order to create what we want, we must picture ourselves having that thing “manifested.” We must imagine the form we want the future will take, and this clear picture of the outcome then becomes the basis of a goal for achieving that outcome, often by some arbitrary date made up in the Mind. In some models, absolute belief that the outcome will come about is also required.

Belief has the unfortunate tendency to blind us to uncomfortable truths, especially to the uncertainties which are the part of every now-moment. While it is true that visionaries see potentials that others do not see, their belief is not invested in medicating their insecurities and anxiety. Perhaps this can be understood clearly when we examine what we mean when we call someone a visionary. Think of great artists and inventors, like Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison. Consider great thinkers and social reformers, like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, and Sylvia and Emily Pankhurst. Call to mind the great resisters of tyranny, like Harriett Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. And finally, reflect upon the great theoretical scientists, like Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking. What can we notice about this small list of visionary thinkers? Were they engaged in fantasies about the future? Not really.

Instead, these visionaries saw their present-time world quite differently than did most people of their time. They possessed extraordinary insight and discernment. They were able to move beyond the frame of reference of their time and access a way of perceiving that propelled their awareness beyond the boundaries of then-current thinking. Through their creative lens, these visionaries saw real and tangible potentials whose actualization created enormous shifts for all of humanity. Their visions had one important thing in common: clarity about the meaning and purpose of their efforts. Their unique perspective allowed them to conceive of something which did not yet exist, and at the same time, they were aware of certain obstacles and limitations in the scope of their vision and what they themselves might be able to achieve by sharing their unique perspective.

In Part Two – Vision, Limitation & Uncertainty Spotted Eagle discusses how limitation and uncertainty serve our creative vision.

Are Your Goals Serving You?

June 3, 2013 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

"Attachment to your goals does not allow the flexibility that living in present time demands." − Spotted Eagle

I ran across this quote the other day, and it really gave me pause. I'm realistic enough to know that objectives are necessary and that, without targets to drive a process, our endeavors tend to stagnate or go off track.

That said, goals are a tricky business. While they serve to focus our energy, what are we to do when striving to achieve our goals leads us to suffer? How do we know whether or not to keep going?

Human beings tend to create from a place of avoiding what we fear. When we have only the goal and the fear of not achieving it as our reason for staying the course, we must be willing to abandon our investment in the goal. We must then move with courage toward a new objective, one that is guided by essence, the feeling experience we intended the original goal to deliver.

When a goal delivers suffering, there is an alterative to dogged attachment, and that is to refocus on whatever essence qualities are missing from the material results. Essence words I tend to focus on are: peace, freedom and sustainability. I ask myself, "Is the effort to achieve this goal destroying my peace of mind? Do I feel free to express myself authentically and act from a will that is free of fear? Given the sacrifices required, can I sustain the effort? Do I have the time, energy and resources to do what I set out to do?"

These three essences―peace, freedom and sustainability―are sure to provide me with a litmus test for whether or not to proceed. Because essence defines a trajectory and not a goal, focus on essence is what affords me the needed flexibility that living in present time very often demands.