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  • Writer's pictureLinda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    • May 30
    • 0 min read

Excerpted Inspirations #79


The process of envisioning an outcome occurs to anyone with a brain, but many people misuse this technology of magic, rendering it ineffective. Religions insist that having faith in their model of reality, their authority structures, gives the faithful the power to work miracles. New Age dabblers insist that if they can just focus their mind on a huge house and a career as a movie star, they'll "manifest" what they want. These methods try to force reality to cooperate with the small imagination of our personalities. It doesn't work. A wayfinder's Imagination doesn't dominate reality. It feels into Oneness, falls in love with "what wants to happen," and gives itself to the vision created by that love. The difference is very clear to me because I once spent months continuously trying to force my imagination into physical reality. Between Adam's prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome and his birth, I read stories of miraculous healings from the scriptures of various religions and hoarded tales of strong-willed people who had gotten their way by using mind over matter. I spent weeks trying to will Adam to be "normal." It was an exhausting, jaw-grinding, white-knuckle effort, and all along I had the sick feeling it wouldn't work. By contrast, in the few moments when I relaxed my attachment to what my personality wanted, my wayfinding Imagination went to an entirely different place -- a future where Adam's Down syndrome would be the doorway to unconditional love, joy, and mystery. At such times I felt kind, unseen conscious presences caring for me with indescribable tenderness. They weren't giving me what my personality imagined I wanted. They were helping me want what my mender's Imagination was giving me. This experience led me to conclude that the unconscious part of my psyche was tapped into a wider Imagination than my conscious mind. The part of my brain that processes eleven million data points per second, and is also tapped into the Oneness of all space and time, was very pleased about the way Adam turned out. To "manifest" material outcomes with Imagination, I had to surrender the view of my small self to my larger Self, which had very different goals and motivations. Martha Beck, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World (2012), pp. 141-142

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