I’m thinking of the writing that awaits me too, and how the past two mornings I spent a good 30-40 minutes performing the following ritual: stare at the screen/write a few words (30 tops)/stare at the ceiling/erase the words/choose a new topic/repeat until you’ve exhausted the options: survivor child stuff/essential oils website content/yogic philosophy on words and manifestation/home grown food update... then heave a big sigh and commence to fretting.
This is when I remember I’d chosen my topic last night as an experiment to see if I could save all that wasted time and energy. I’d committed to write this morning about Intention.
Ahhhh. Deep Breath. Up I go.
If my experience is any indicator, “Intention” is one of those words bandied about in yogic and other spiritual, healing, and creative circles with such frequency that it could be in danger of overuse, misuse, and abuse of such magnitude as to diminish its usefulness.
More and more I hear “intention” and its verb form “intend” used as an alternate form of “goal” for things (activities) to be accomplished, as in “I intend to get up at 6:30 and do surya namaskar”, “I intend to get a certain amount of writing done before anyone else gets up”...
Used like this, that regal word “Intention” becomes little more than a euphemism for “to-do list”. And I cannot, in good conscience, let this continue.
I’m launching a campaign to Preserve the Integrity of Intention.
Intention is a word fraught with meanings that get glossed over in the bustle of wordplay. Like the rest of us, it suffices in mundane circumstances while its deeper meaning is rarely elicited or, even more rarely, sought out. Sure, it's a pointer toward that-which-I-plan-to-do. But to use it exclusively in this way is to waste its beautiful, deeper meaning.
To Intend in the deepest sense is to purposefully imbue an event with significance.
It involves your participation, your mindful consideration, your careful attention.
Your Intention is, in itself, and act of creation.
Furthermore, it sets the stage for the unfolding of the action/event/situation for which you craft the intention in the first place. It’s like the foundational garment to creative/healing/spiritual endeavor (my dear pert-chested, straight-out-of-a-yoga-magazine, never-had-to-wear-a-bra ladies will have to extrapolate on this; jealous as I am, I have never had that blessed luxury. We write what we know, yes?).
In other words, Intention conveys not so much the gumption or the commitment to do a thing, but the container that informs the thing. It has to do with how the action is carried out rather than the fact of it. It’s the purpose that imbues it, gives it life, makes it wholly ours. It’s the state we choose ahead of time to bring to the thing: Not, “I will do surya namaskar at 6:30”, but rather, “When I do surya namaskar at 6:30 I will do so with reverence and gratitude”; not, “I will get 800 words done in time to post before work”, but rather, “I approach this writing session in the spirit of openness and discovery”, or “May the words that flow through me today offer solace or insight to myself and others”.
In our efforts at expression we have all-to-often relinquished this sacred effort in the service of efficiency - we get caught up in the doing at the expense of the most valuable part of the process. With intention, we take part in the granting of our own wishes. Why would we short-change ourselves in the time we spend crafting them?
The act of Intending is a sacred internal undertaking. A true Intention is inspired.
It takes place in the moment we connect with our Source in a sort of conference call about the matter at hand- we dial in, as it were, to That-with-which-we-are-aligned and wait for a cue. We may sense a flurry of noise while the mind rattles off responses it thinks will be pleasing but eventually the mind quiets and the Source itself speaks. The Source, of course, lies just beneath/above/behind/beyond the chattering mind and it is for that reason we must take the blessed time to make a connection.
When we take the time to formulate an Intention, then, we are in fact bestowing a blessing upon ourselves and that which we hope to accomplish. We are holding ourselves accountable for the state in which we approach it, which informs and influences its outcome in inestimable ways.
I approached my surya namaskar this morning with the intention to open further physically- and emotionally, to experience appreciation for the rediscovery of movement as a sacred practice.
I approached my writing with the intention to rekindle my own commitment to “mindful mentations” in a public forum, that others might follow suit and enrich their own experience as well...
A sort of psycho-spiritual performance art in the service of the greater good.
May it serve us all as we carry on...
Blessings to those who conclude their 21 days today. Blessings to those who continue.
May this time together support and sustain us all.
In the deepest of all possible ways,
~Namaste
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