A Vision, In Tension, Sprouting In Its Own Time

A Vision

I am closely attuned to a Vision. Its seed has been planted and gestating for quite some time. Maybe 5 years now, but I can see echoes of it through my whole life.

I feel it to be like a being, alive with its own will. It is temperamental and sensitive, and it requires great patience and space to speak and grow. It's also strong, powerful, and sometimes terrifying and impending.

It contains within it a Path, the Path I know I am here to follow in order to realize and bring forth a great Gift into the world, one that I feel uniquely prepared to bear and give birth to at this exact time in history.

But as much as it animates me, it frustrates me.

In Tension

I've often felt at odds with it, and with myself. But I don't want to be.

Some days I can see and feel it so clearly in my heart, soul, and mind that I can barely contain the passion it charges me with, yet I often feel isolated because it's often allergic to being expressed, or shared without great effort. An effort neither I, nor others, have the time or patience for.

I want to realize it as soon as possible, but I can never reach the standards I aspirationally set for myself. They're unrealistic. I'm only human. Sometimes I resent that fact.

I've tried to bring it into the world so many times, in so many forms, that at this point I wouldn't blame those who know me to think it'll probably always be "just around the bend". Maybe it will.

Sometimes I see its essence in the work of others which sometimes, I hate to admit, makes me feel a little envious of them or betrayed by it.

Sometimes I blame myself for not "getting it together" and "just doing it". Sometimes I blame it like it's some kind of petulant child that just won't work with me.

All the while, the world rages on, time slows down for no one; the sand in the hourglass keeps its steady pace.

Sprouting In Its Own Time

I know that good things take time, and they cannot be forced. Life unfolds, at its own speed, in seamless progression, like a flower blooming or an embryo gestating.

In fact, much progress has been made if I take the right perspective. I've had plenty of breakthroughs over the years, synchronistic expansions that have led me to places, people, and insights I never expected. "Progress is not linear" as my wife so often reminds me.

Some things are better left unsaid and kept to oneself for a time. Maybe because the world isn't ready to receive them yet, or maybe because it isn't fully formed enough to be born quite yet.

Lately I'm learning to let go, accept my human limits, take care of myself, allow it its space and time to work through me.

The path is made by walking it, and its no one else's but mine. If it were already walked, I wouldn't feel like I'm in a jungle cutting through tall grass with a machete.

But at the same time, I know many others have walked a similar path. There are many friends and ghosts of friends along the road attuned to the same vision. We're all fruiting bodies connected by the same mycelial network.

Will I ever feel I've "arrived" at some "destination"?

Who knows. All I can do is keep walking, help it along its way, and enjoy the ride.

But something tells me it's almost ready to sprout.

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself." ~ Charles Dickens

"We speak often about ideas as brainchildren. What we do not realize is that brainchildren, like all babies, should not be dragged from the creative womb prematurely. We must learn to wait for an idea to hatch." ~ Julia Cameron

"But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." ~ Saint Luke "the physician"; Luke 2:19

"Great things are not done by impulse, but a series of small things brought together." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

"An innovation—any new idea—by definition will not be accepted at first...This requires courageous patience." ~ Viima

"This seed is now sprouting into a network." ~ Community Memory Project, 1977