We start with a few basic truths:
1. Writing is effortless when I am alive to the world.
2. Putting my pencil to the page creates an automatic increase. Life expands in the direction of my word-love flow.
3. Writing – and life – is grand.
Affirming us of this:
We expand our witness of the world through our
words. We see the ordinary as extraordinary as I
communicate with ease and grace. Our
eyes – our vision – the sights that we see and
describe with my words – open to the light.
Quote wisdom from Jonathan Swift:
"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."
We begin today with a story from a moment in my life - when I was able to see something which
had been invisible for me right in the path yet which came into sight one incredible morning - a morning which seemed ordinary to everyone else, yet wasn't coated at all in "the mundane" - it was coated in majesty, in wonder, in divine connection.
Listen as you read the story. I know this sounds contrary. Trust me here. As you read, listen with your internal ears and your heart. Perhaps it will be easier for you if you read aloud to yourself.
It is as easy as intending to listen as you read. As I said, trust the process -
At one point you will be called to "see" the scene I describe unfold as if you were there as well. There is a reason there aren't photos accompanying this post. You will create with your heart's vision, perhaps in memory or in future seeing.
My heart and my vision expanded that day and it has never been the same ever since.
I hung up the phone after my third consecutive life coaching session. Three people across the world whose lives were forever changed by a conversation. Questions, reflections, storytelling, new awarenesses. If you add me - the coach - four lives across the world forever changed.
I didn't know it, but I was about to see with fresh lenses.
Silence embraced me, my heart charged with humble awakening and pure bliss.
What an amazing privilege to partner with other human beings through my life work.
My heart was soaring and my breath needed space. The walls of my home couldn't hold the energy I was feeling.
The sun beckoned me outside.
I stood in front of my completely ordinary Bakersfield house and inhaled deeply. The sun rays completely washed over my face as my head tilted towards heaven to greet them. My arms lifted towards the sky without any effort or thought.
Every cell of my body agreed and rang out, "Yes! Yes!"
My feet moved without my consent, taking me for a mid morning walk. I smiled contentedly as I followed, not concerned with where I was going or anything beyond each time my feet lifted off the ground and re-connected with the Earth.
Around the corner waited a magnificent tree whose friendship was new to me. From its appearance, it had been on the planet for several generations. I have been in residence less than a couple hundred yards from it for more than a decade yet it was only days ago that we had been "properly introduced".
It had called to me during a walk with my then eighteen-month-old-son, Samuel.
Since our "formal acquaintance", I would nod to the tree as I pulled out of my driveway in the mornings. It towered over all the other neighborhood trees. As I walked out my back door I looked to the North. There
it was again in all its evergreen glory towering over the homes and other trees.
On this particular morning, its lessons would continue with strength unlike anything I had ever experienced.
It is time to witness the tree - to bring it to vivid reality for each of us.
Read the words first and then listen to the words and bring them to vivid life in your mind's eye. This is YOUR vision, remember - so it doesn't matter how close yours comes to "my" tree, what is important is that you tap into your vision deeply.
The tree has a massive trunk which splits into four separate sections. Each section is as large as any of the other neighborhood trees. It has one fork and then two smaller forks in its trunk branchings.
I was looking up at its majesty when I saw something new.
I stopped in my tracks right in the middle of the street.
Paused.
Halted.
The jaw dropping silence was so deep I could feel and hear the reverberations of my heart as it clattered in my chest.
I tilted my head to an angle when I saw it.
The tree took a sunbeam into its branching and made the light three dimensional. It held the light as surely as I have ever held anything in my hands.
I had seen this three dimensional light before though only in photographs. Usually the intimacy
of such photographs would bring tears to my eyes.
In this moment my new friend, this magnificent tree, held the ray of light in place especially and only for me.
I moved to a different angle and the light disappeared. I went backwards and it vaporized.
I crouched down and it was simply no more.
I stood still, in the pulse of the moment, and the ray of light held me.
With shaking arms, I lifted my hands so that they would mimic the "V" shape of the branching. I wanted to physically connect with the beam of light.
With my hands lifted and my head back, I felt a surge of love. A receiving of energy. An awareness of standing squarely in place where truth and love and wholeness is conceived.
One of my feet involuntarily moved back to maintain balance as I became unsteadied by the grandeur of the moment as I bowed my head in amazed humility. My hands came down from their V with my thumbs
resting at a spot that pointed to my heart. My eyes closed as a silent tear leaked from my eye.
Standing in the middle of the street, my chin rested almost on the tips of my fingers as I held the ancient pose which proclaims as it whispers, "Namaste".
Prepare to Write:
In today's lesson, the vision of light in a tree beams through the words to touch your heart.
Consider for a moment a vision of light in your
life.
Energetically speak "Light" into your heart space.
"Light"
"Light"
Breathe the light into your heartspace, feeling it fill
your body.
"Light"
"Light"
Now begin to write, describing your light in brilliant, everlasting detail.
If your writing begins to slow down, simply re-invoke the movement by speaking. "I see" once again and
go a little bit deeper each time.
Integration: Our writing today will open your consciousness to see light - in doing so, we will automatically be more aware of light. To continue to take this more deeply - and integrate it into your everyday thinking - you will need to practice for a bit.
Write the light, being very specific. Allow it to fill your heart and soul.
Take your time. If you have setbacks, know they are simply your teachers.
Step into light. Write.
= = = = =
Writing Playground is held regularly in venues across Bakersfield, California and throughout the world via webinars, teleclasses and in-person retreats and trainings. Contact Julie Jordan Scott at 661.444.275 or at [email protected] for more information about bringing Writing Playground and Writing Camp to your area soon.
Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Fall and Winter, 2014 and beyond.
Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
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