The Power of Intention: An Abundance of Nature

In this moment I am surrounded by nature.  I mean seriously.  The Mockingbird Chronicles is just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many other birds in my urban backyard.  A few days ago I came home from my very first shift as a docent in a butterfly house to find a Great Egret in my front yard.  This is quite unusual given there are no nearby marshlands.  Could it possibly be the power of the intention mandala I created for a class whose purpose was to discover and manifest the life I want?

If you don’t know, a mandala is a circle.  From the beginning circles have been considered sacred.  A circle has no beginning and no end.  It is the picture of wholeness, of unity, of endless potential.  Some consider mandalas to be alive.  C.G. Jung, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, spent a lifetime exploring the transformative power of the mandala.  So a mandala is a perfect vessel in which to house desires and intentions.

While desires can be specific, specifics aren’t required.  It can be more an exercise in defining guidelines by which to evaluate opportunities then stating what those opportunities should look like.  Then on a daily basis you engage with the mandala.  Yes, you look at it and talk to it, an act that feels a bit ridiculous at first.  But the idea is that if you say it enough times and see it enough times, you start to believe in the possibility of it.  You start seeing opportunities that are in-line with your desires.  You start manifesting your dreams.

One of my desires is for animals and nature to be prominent in my life.  This revealed itself to me through a journaling exercise where I brainstormed a list of all the things I loved as a child, and even as a young adult and on into middle-age.  Let the words flow out of you and things you thought you’d long forgotten surface.  The thing is, when you’re young, you don’t always set out to do something specific, you don’t always act with intention.  You just follow your heart.  This is the crux of the exercise – to get at what made your heart sing and bring it back to life.

Several themes emerged from this exercise, a few of which were already familiar to me.  But this one — animals and nature — was a surprise.  I mean, yeah, I knew I loved animals and nature, obviously if I hadn’t this blog, which started out being a blog about butterflies, would never have been created.  But I never gave any serious thought to wrapping my life around it because I’m not a scientist and I don’t want to go back to school to become one.  I’m not a school teacher.  I’m not someone who uses nature as a backdrop for some REI Cheryl Strayed type adventure.  I’m not someone with skills to survive in nature (LOL, I can’t even start a camp fire).  I don’t like to sweat.  I can’t sit for long hours waiting.  My body prefers a bed over the hard ground.  I’m a much more sedentary person than what I imagine a love of animals and nature would require.  These are the stories we tell ourselves.  I’m not good enough.  I’m not qualified.  What do I know.  It’s not a good fit.  How can I be anything more than an admirer given all these barriers?

But the animal/nature theme was so prominent it couldn’t be ignored.  What the heck, I told myself.  I don’t know unless I try.  I will add it to the mandala and see what happens.  Surely there are other ways to engage this love.  Education (that doesn’t require a degree and a classroom)?  Photography?  Writing (blog, book, essay, grant)?  Animal care?  Animal activist?  Citizen scientist?  All the negative doubtful messages in my head drown out the positive one – the one that says all things are possible with a little work and a little faith.

It’s been several months now with my mandala.  The not knowing what this desire looks like on a day to day basis is frustrating.  I’m used to knowing all answers, and planning and directing all outcomes.  I’m a project manager and business analyst, after all.  Often it feels like I’m making no progress, a feeling I suspect is associated with the inability to let go and allow events to unfold at their own pace.  Yet how can I say there’s been no progress when there’s evidence that says otherwise?  How can I be frustrated?  A few days ago I worked my very first volunteer shift as a butterfly house docent.  This past week I chronicled the life of a Mockingbird family in my backyard.  Next year, my husband and I plan to explore the Alcan highway (aka Alaska highway).  I came home to find this Great Egret in my front yard!

Bringing this love back into focus and making it intentional almost feels like I’m rediscovering myself.  It’s made it alot easier to make decisions about how I want to spend my time, helping me to filter and evaluate volunteer and self-development opportunities.  And the exercise in learning to let life unfold and reveal its mysteries has, in truth, been wondrous and rewarding.

I can’t wait to see where this goes.  I’m ready.