The Power of Imagination

"I don't know what I'm saying. I never know what I'm saying."
River Tam, from the movie Serenity

Here it is the end of May and this is the May posting. This was the main power I intend to invoke this year, the power of imagination, the ability to give shape and form to unformed mental energy; vision beyond appearances.

Why is imagination so important?

Imagination is the ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind; it is resourcefulness: it is the power to form a mental image of something that is neither perceived as real nor present to the senses.

The word itself is the infinitive version of the Latin imago, which literally means image. The suffix tion creates a verb, which then means: the act of creating an image. Imagination.


The ability to give shape and form to unformed mental energy

Everything begins here - with imagination. It can move you forward, toward great works, and it can hold you back in fear. If you've studied the works of those who have achieved great works, from Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa to Andrew Carnegie and Jack Canfield, they all acknowledge the power of vision.

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich

The building you now occupy, the chair, the computer on your desk or lap, they all began from a vision, from a thought, an idea. Without the initial mental image, nothing is manifest.

Here is a powerful tool to assist in visioning, whether it is a lifestyle, a product, a service or world peace. Take thirty minutes each morning. Write out your daily manifesto - your daily statement of intent. What is it that you are working toward in your life? What are your dreams, your ideas, your desires? What will you do over the next year or so to move you forward? What will you do over the next few months, the next few weeks, the next few days and the next 24 hours? If you do this every day, you will find your vision becoming more and more clear. It may change with time, slightly or dramatically. And with your vision, you will change. You own life will become more clear. With clarity of vision come clarity of purpose, and with clarity of purpose comes an life of accomplishment.


Vision beyond appearances

A few final words on imagination. You are always creating mental images. You can't help it. The trick is to be purposeful about it. But even beyond the physical manifestation of what you want in your life, imagination and vision is a key element of true faith. It is the ability to see what cannot be seen, the ability to understand the unimaginable and the ability to touch the invisible.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Heb 11:1 (KJV)

I started this post off with a quote from a favorite movie of mine because it accurately conveys how I feel most of the time. Using your imagination can feel a bit like leaping without a net. We are conditioned to say and do things that everyone else says and does. It's sometimes hard to step out of the box and do something entirely new, entirely unexpected. People will disbelieve. they may ridicule, scoff and even revolt. Maybe that's why there are twelve powers. Any one by itself is not enough. With imagination, you need power and faith and strength and order. And, of course, love. As they say, the greatest of these is love.

May peace be with you.

Joe

The Power of Power

Power: Ability to change and build consciousness; to choose my thoughts and feelings

Here it is: the secret behind the Secret. We have the power to choose how we feel, how we react, how we think.The media is all in a frenzy over the movie and the book, but it's really just New Thought Christian theology. In fact, it's certainly not limited to New Thought. Steven Covey has been preaching response-ability (our innate ability to choose our own response) for years.

Jesus taught us to choose our response when he said, "turn the other cheek."

This is a tough lesson though. There is something within us that would often like to either be victim (they did it!) or blameless (it's the fault of the other idiots!)

The power of Power means that we have to take responsibility for our lives, for our thoughts and for our actions. It's a bitter drink at first, but once we get it, we realize that we really do have the power to change our lives.

Your character arises from your habits;
Your habits arise from your actions;
And your actions arise from the way you think and feel.

It's certainly not as easy as it sounds. We all struggle at times with feelings of powerlessness, guilt, remorse, anger and any other number of bad feelings. Exercising the power of Power means that we have to take control of the way we feel, we have to learn to control our own mind, and by that, we take control of our own lives.

The Power of Love

Love: Ability to see and know all as one; ability to desire that only good come to all.

The Japanese symbol for love is composed of three elements: at the top is the Paw, in the middle Kokoro or heart, and at the bottom of the kanji is the symbol meaning "to follow." The AI kanji depicts the imprint of the paw in your heart that you follow. It represents a human who evolves, inspired by love and generosity.

Love is the power that keeps your feet moving even when you feel like giving up. Love is the power that gets you up in the morning even when the sky is dark with clouds. Love defeats the failures of the past. Love overcomes the fear of an uncertain future. When you know true love, you know that it has no limits. You can love as much or as little as you want, but the more you love, the more capacity you have to love. We can't define it because it runs through everything, pumping our blood, creating our thoughts, holding the atmosphere to the planet, keeping the stars on fire.

We all have the power of love within us, because it is us. We are love. We may misplace it or misuse it, but we are all entwined by it. This is the true power of love - the realization that we are all connected, united and interdependent.

When you choose the power of love, you choose to understand that we are all manifestations of one spiritual essense.

Love God. Love the Christ within you. Love to love. And love everyone as you love yourself. This is the greatest good thing that you can do for our world.

Then, one of [the Pharisees], who was a lawyer, asked [Jesus] a question, tempting him by saying, "Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?"
Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two great commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22, 35-40 KJV

The Power of Strength

Strength: Ability to be still and hold my center when I am in chaos; allows me to stick with Divine Ideas.

Your success, however you define it, is just one idea away. Creative Spirit, God, Divine Order, whatever you believe to be a higher power in your life, feeds you with Divine Ideas. Are you listening? Are you acting on these Divine Ideas? Do you have the strength to choose a course of action and stick with it?

Your center is the Christ within you. That consciousness sees the order in a raging storm, the order in a community of people, and the Divine Order of the Universe. Chaos is a micro-view that we take of certain events in our lives, and it is a way that we treat ourselves. We sometimes choose to see ourselves in chaos, by letting our thoughts run rampant and out of control.

When we pray for strength, we are praying to be calm, to be the eye of the storm, to know that everything is fundamentally in order.

True strength lies in living in the very moment, not in the past and not in the future. The mistake we often make is that we live, not in the present where all things are possible, but in the moments just past. We see ourselves as broke, tired, sick and lonely, when those states of being are simply the culmination of all we have thought in the past.

Think of this: each word you read, as you move along the page, moves from the present to the past with each moment. The next word, just like the next moment of your life, is undetermined. You create each next moment based on the thoughts you are holding right now, in this moment. Want to change your life? Change your thoughts - right now. Find something, a dream, a purpose, an ambition, and then stick to it. Choose something that lights a fire within your heart. Choose something that provides peace, joy and abundance for all people.

As Neale Donald Walsh says, "There is no blackboard in the sky with your purpose written on it. Your purpose is what you say it is. Your mission is the mission you give yourself. Your life is what you create it to be.

Find your passion, focus your thoughts, be still within your center and know that all is well.

The Power of Faith

The Power of Faith: Ability to say "Yes" to any good thing and have it happen; draws my good from the invisible to the visible.

Faith is more than belief. Belief is an exercise, a mental habit where you place your trust or confidence in some person or thing, usually based on observed evidence. Belief is closer to "acting as if" or "fake it till you make it." Faith moves beyond "belief" and into the realm of "knowing."

In the King James version of the Bible, faith is described as "...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb 11:1

That same passage in the New International Version goes like this: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Here are some questions on faith, just to get the conversation started:

Being "sure of what we hope for..."

What do you hope for? Are you sure that is what you want? Are you sure that it will manifest?

Being "...certain of what we do not see."

Do you have faith in the Universe? Do you feel the fundamental laws of the Universe at work within you? Do you know what these laws are? Are you certain that your life is unfolding based on the thoughts you carry with you? Are you creating your life deliberately, or by default?

What is Faith to you? Why is it important? How do you apply it in your life?

Invoking the Power

This year, I chose two powers: Imagination and Order. It seems like every year, the spirit moves me during the ceremony to pick something that I might not have chosen if I used traditional "logic." For weeks, I had planned on choosing Imagination, just based on what I had read about it as I prepared the programs and the music for the ceremony. But last night, during the meditation and the responsive reading, the power of Order spoke to me. I'd be interested in hearing how you chose your power(s) and what you might be expecting over the next year or so based on your decision.