Yesterday, my dear friend Ana, a Hawaiian kumu, or teacher, shared a gem of multi-faceted insight: A visionary is “someone who works from the future, backward.”
It’s good to have friends like Ana, and I try to surround myself with as many Anas, as many visionaries, as possible.
A visionary is one whose awareness is refined; one whose desire for freedom is tenacious; one who is willing to offer the hard, self-deprecating labour of, often, being misinterpreted or misunderstood; one who is willing to break ground on behalf of consciousness itself.
The visionary sees beyond the apparent and recognizes that our many efforts to connect, through the internet and instant messaging and apps, are simply manifestations of a collective and immense longing to relate with all life, in deepened meaning.
Ever-changing outer symbols of ever-deepening inner longing.
To those calibrated toward inner fulfilment, those who have tired of chasing insatiable outer accolade, worldly systems and infrastructures can appear sluggish.
For a visionary’s guiding beacon is knowing, experiencing and feeling future, while establishing conscious relationships and functional systems of harmony.
The visionary’s burden, however, is the backward in time: neuroses, little ones, big ones, that arise from a dissonance of opposites generated when refined awareness meets out-moded infrastructures that don’t work in our world.
The question looms as to how we integrate the visionary parts of ourselves while settling the tweaks, quirks and neuroses that reduce the ability to ground and realize a vision?
How do we reconcile knowing of future, while building it backward?
I’ve found a dedicated daily practice is key: aligned-movement for the body, curiosity about more refined energies, a euphoric joy in letting go of judgment and beliefs to gain enhanced mental clarity.
Real Spirituality in a Modern World builds a bridge from infinite understanding to unflappable foundation. It’s not about dogma or myth–which can fuel our tweaks and quirks. Instead, the method is grounded, practical, relevant. An expansive practice that supports worldly goals.
Let’s keep good company with our inner visionary and neutralize the dissonance of the backward through skilful practice.
To that end, with this first post, we begin with the practice of the first sound of life, the sound of OM. OM is a soothing sound for the inner visionary, a sound that supports mental clarity. Feel free to sing along or allow the sound to play in the background.
Recorded at my studio with other people, like you, the visionary, who intends the well-lived life.