The summer before my son James began preschool, I would find him in various corners of our Hornby Island home, talking to himself. “I’m getting dressed and having breakfast,” he’d chant out loud. “I’m putting my peanut-butter sandwich and juice in my lunch box. I’m walking to the school bus with Mum. I’m taking the bus to pre-school. I’m making lots and lots of friends. I’m having so much fun playing on the slides and swings. Everyone loves me at preschool. I love preschool.” His big brown eyes shone with happy certainty as he repeated this story, with minor variations, all summer. And when he did go to preschool that September, the story he’d told unfolded just as he’d known it would. He made many good friends, had lots of fun, and everyone loved him.
No-one had taught James about creating his own reality — it was something he did naturally. We come into this world knowing how to live a joyfully engaged, fully creative life. Newly incarnated, we know who we are, where we’ve come from, and the infinite treasure of the spiritual gifts we bring. We are born with a storehouse of practical, sacred skills with which to navigate through life.
One of those skills is being able to envision reality with such precision that we shape the future with our vision and intention, as James did that summer he was three. This is one aspect of sacred vision — being able to see the spiritual reality that underlies and forms the blueprint for our physical world. Like all natural abilities, it can be strengthened through training and practice, or it can atrophy through ridicule, disbelief, or neglect. In our determinedly materialistic culture, children learn to shut down their inner knowing and clear vision. Or at least, to hide what they see and know so thoroughly that eventually they grow into adults who are confused about what they truly want, and who don’t know how to get from where they are to where they want to be.
And yet, clear seeing is an innate and essential ability, one that allows each of us to see and know the truth of any aspect of life for ourselves, without the need to rely on external authority. It also gives us the power to transform ourselves and our environment in ways that are precise, methodical, and highly fluid. This is the basis of energy alchemy and healing. By seeing the energetic patterns that have resulted in disharmony, disorder or disease, and by energetically altering those patterns to bring them into alignment with wholeness and unity, you can transform not only your physical and emotional self, but also your work, your business, your relationships, home, environment, and even the planet itself. You can attune to the soul level of whatever issue you choose to address, and restore it to its natural state of harmony and flow.
Sacred skills are not “out there”, in the realm of the transpersonal. They spring from the radiance and power of our own incarnation, are anchored in our everyday lives, and draw us toward a greater love for and engagement with our world. Practically speaking, they result in more vibrant health and well-being, and greater clarity, focus and purpose. They bring us into loving relationship with others, enhance our spiritual power and presence, call us to active, creative service to that which we love, and return us to our natural state of abiding joy. Sacred skills are our birthright. I wish you the joy of claiming them, owning them, and using them to shape the life that is truly yours.