Writers and creators of many best sellers, including Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, Wayne Dyer, Joel Osteen, Jack Canfield and the creators of The Secret, etc., plus many, many others, all teach variations of positive thinking, creative visualization, receiving blessings, abundance and the Law of Attraction.
It works!
But, only to a certain extent for many people who struggle to stay positive and focus their visualizations and affirmations
What impedes success? And more importantly, how can one be more effective?
Visualization is all about what we see. The only thing that is fully about what we see, and only what we see, is purely visual art. Thus, art is in a unique position to change the way we see the world and change our lives. In fact, inspiring new ways of seeing reality (one's world) is what great artists do and have done from the caves of Lascaux until now.
Purely visual art communicates only in the present. It is always an experience that is uniquely in the now .
Other art forms, such as music call upon memory to create the experience in the now . For instance, a song is heard note – or sound by sound—each one heard in a unique moment of now. However, a person experiencing the music brings (remembers) the experiences of the sounds that preceded this moment's. Few people would spend money and time to come to hear a concert where a band plays one note and the lead singer sings one syllable, which all lasts for a second.
Yet in that in the same duration of time, that one moment, one can see a great work of purely visual art such as Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night at MoMA. Every bit, every single stoke, color – everything – all of he painting exists in the moment of viewing. There is nothing the viewer needs to recall about the work from a few moments before or wait to see develop in the future. It totally is. Now.
A viewer may decide to “go into” a painting, meaning look at it more closely, spend time looking, appreciating composition and design, symbolism, etc. However, the painting itself will not change; no strokes will be added or removed. [Note: if a work of visual art is not fully present all at the same moment of time, then the work is a hybrid form of visual art, For instance videos are hybrids with literature (storytelling) and soften music and kinetic art is a hybrid with dance.]
A certain irony exists in Conceptual, especially Word Art as although the painting or work itself also exists all-at-once, the viewer must participate by spending more than a moment reading the paintings meaning, which evokes the message of an idea and/or image. Even so, the painting itself just is.
For instance, imagine a Word Art painting, which ironically this paragraph sort of automatically becomes by suggesting you image something visual. The painting is a large canvas, taller and wider than your body. It is entirely white, except exactly in the center, in block letters, all in caps about three inches in height, in a pure orange is written the word: TREE
What, if anything, popped into your mind? Did you also imagine an image of a physical tree? Was it deciduous or evergreen? Large or small? Did you have a specific type of tree in mind, such as spruce or maple? Perhaps a tree you remember from another place or time? Was your image of a tree in color, and if so was it green?
There is no correct or wrong answer to any of the above questions. However, there is a best answer, meaning one that puts you more in control of yourself and your life.
First, most people do envision something tree-ish other than simply seeing the words, as words are symbols and we use the constantly in our daily lives to evoke and depict information to other people and even ourselves via to-do and shopping lists.
Our skill at using symbols such as words and images (such as an arrow) to create meaning gives us mastery in our complex and informational society. Our ability to see more than surface meaning is useful, however it can easily get in the way of all the positive thinking, visualization and intending taught by spiritual and religious teachers of many faiths and disciplines.
Unconsciously connecting to ideas or experiences not actually in the now removes one from the creative power only available in the now. The key word in the previous sentence is: unconsciously.
Few people look at the word TREE above and consciously decide to see or not see a tree, nor what kind of tree to envision just for the pleasure of it. The response the word evokes is a reaction. Some people even rethink their initial mental pop-up response, aiming to more correctly image whatever tree might be expected. While re-thinking one's tree to “create” the correct response may seem to be a creative or conscious moment it only buys in to a host of fears of failure and possible ridicule, which have nothing to do with the experience outlined of imagining looking at a painting. It's just a lot of old, unexamined, unconscious stuff that people lug around as it is supposed to help them in life.
Lugging around unconscious stuff that one injects into the present actually makes one less effective and unavailable to inspiration (for some immediate communication from and with a Higher Power or The Creator) in the now.
While counseling and various programs can assist a person with sorting through unwanted or negative experiences or thoughts, new, positive information, ideas and actions must consciously be used to replace the vacuum left by the old or a person will revert to their familiar and comfortably uncomfortable ways of thinking and acting (including addictions). This includes how we actually see the world when we look through our eyes, and basically that has only been addressed by purely visual art.
People of all faiths and beliefs place works of art, including stylized calligraphic prayers in their homes and places of business to inspire and remind them of their own beliefs.
Our lives are full of visual messages. We interpret what we see. Unfortunately, our homes and businesses and the whole world is filled with images and appearances that convince us we are not experiencing, being, doing or having the life we want.
What we see seems to be giving us feedback: messy desks and closets and rooms show us we are slobs; an accidental passing on the street or in a store before a mirror “reveals” to us that we are too thin, too fat, too old or not enough of something; unfinished projects are visual “proof: that we are lazy, don't follow through, and/or lack skills or funds to complete the project. Just driving home, or even taking public transportation reminds us that there are others who have better cars or even arrive in limos.
Try as one can to remain positive, to consciously acknowledge all these “visual “messages” reminding us of what certainly appears to be the reality while visualizing, thinking positively and attempting to use the law of attraction or affirm our divine blessings can see inaccurate or inadequate against the visual flow of oncoming messages about what we have too much of or not enough of.
Granted a consciously held and created belief or affirmation is more powerful that one that is unconscious. Only we consciously subscribe to unconsciously held beliefs all of the time! For instance, we accidentally break an inexpensive glass in the kitchen. For the average person memories of breaking things along with “tapes” of critical voices, possibly authority figures “pop-up” in our minds informing us not only how to clean it up but also possibly that we are klutzes, careless, unconscious, etc.
A more aware person will be glad for those unconscious pop-ups because they can be easily reviewed and experienced thus releasing their energy. However, simply affirming, “I am graceful and conscious” only partially fills the vacuumed left by diffusing the old unconscious beliefs and experiences of being a person who breaks things.
Even the logical appreciation that we have all accidentally broken things is not enough to fill the void.. There one is, actually confronting the glass, looking at it as it is cleaned up. At the moment it seems a visual reminded of one's inadequacy. And then in memory, the visual reality of the broken glass exists.
What to do?
First, see (imagine) the glass as energy --- energy that appears to be in the form of matter. Simply in scientific terms, that is what the glass is.
The energy of the glass is not broken. It all remains; no energy or even matter is actually lost when a glass breaks. It is just reconfigured or realigned. So a person who breaks a glass can think of themselves as a person who reconfigures and realigns things (even accidentally) rather than a person who breaks things. It is easy, even fun, to look at the glass and see that it is certainly reconfigured and realigned!
That imaginary glass, once “viewed” as energy revealed a lesson. In fact, the whole physical universe is essentially energy called branes or strings, according to elementary physics. Not just energy, but energy that is binary or dualistic, comprised of opposites.
A universe founded on energy and or dualism concepts as the essence of existence is found in the basic theologies of most of the world's great religions and paths. Of course, in the basic theology held by all Christians and Jews, whatever branch or denomination, when the Creator speaks (in Hebrew) the universe into existence in Genesis !, the letters of those words represent the essences of the universe. Amazing, but true M Theory physicists agree that there are 11 branes in our dimension of the universe while their opposites are in other dimensions; thus, 22. There are and always have been 22 Hebrew letters!
Founded by Judy Rey Wasserman, UnGraven Image Art theory uses binary symbols (Torah font letters) for every stroke in a painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. The binary symbol-strokes visually reference the pre-matter branes, which we cannot actually see even with the newest particle accelerators, as they are so minute. Thus the strokes overlap each other, intertwine, glaze over each other, but can be “felt”, while here and there one peeks out to remind the viewer. All the strokes align into an image, a narrative picture. For instance in the Genesis: Sunset-Sunrise series it might seem that one is looking at a sunset in the Hamptons , but the painting vibrates with strokes, which are the actual focus of the work.
For Jews and Christians seeing that we are surrounded by and moving in the very words of our Creator, always and especially in the now, are visual messages that affirm, bless and inspire us.
Then when there is a mess in the kitchen or on your desk, you can see the mess as a challenged to be blessed by “playing with” and realigning the energies. See a world of energies, all easily reconfigured, where taking public transportation is an adventure in seeing other people, and experiencing the Creator's love and energy (words) everywhere.
See a world that vibrates with possibilities and where challenges affirm the universe's (and for believers, The Lord's) confidence in you as a re-aligner, reconfigurer and even creator of energies. As such person it becomes easier and fun to be confronted in many of life's daily nows with energies to experience and realign or reconfigure.
As a person who experiences the reality of being a realigner and a reconfigurer of energies you can easily receive the blessings of the moment, think positively, use and affirm the Law of Attraction, and the secret potential of the universe unfolds before your unique affirmative creative vision. It is all energy. Even thought is energy. You can work with energy – you do that all the time!
Reading this article is a step in understanding a new theory and way of seeing – perceiving—the world. Next, comes the practical experience of the theory and that entails actually, visually seeing the world this way. That is why UnGraven Image Art is inspirational.
When you change the way you actually see the world you change your life. There is a difference between perceiving everything as energy (and even the very words of the Creator) and understanding that this is good science and theology. Understanding does not mean ability to apply that understanding, but it is the important first step(s).
Learn to perceive every moment of now as a blessing and affirmation full of possibilities along with challenges. See more. Then share the vision.
