Paint the way ahead in bold colors

~ Karin

A dream:
I was at a painting workshop and looked at a beautiful oil painting of a sandy path with purple heather at the sides. There were radiant bright colors with stark contrast.

Then, I was asked to describe what the workshop was about.

Awed by the mixture of lime green, pink, olive green, and purple,  I said, ”Here, we can learn to paint the way ahead in bold colors.”

I had this dream in November 2014, just when I started to set up this blog. I share it now because it fits in with the many messages of this time about stepping forward, reinventing, and envisioning a better future.

Dream big.

36 thoughts on “Paint the way ahead in bold colors”

  2. It is true Karin; in one sense we do ‘paint’ the world into existence, colouring it with our predispositions, hopes, beliefs, and so forth. If we look out at the world with greyish mood tones, that colour seems reflected back at us, even on those with neutral countenances. Perhaps your idea of boldly painting a positive mood of vibrant expectancy is one we could all adopt whenever we may suffer from indifference or negativity?

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Hariod. I agree, the way we look at the world, our perception and mood, colors the way it is reflected back to us. So, we could use that more often, painting a positive mood of joy.

      But I also think that the dream encouraged me to envision something and to not play it small. I have seen often enough that thought creates events. I have had many manifestations where I had a wish before and then something happened which fulfilled this wish later. So, I was encouraged to use this power in order to create. I was encouraged to make bold wishes.
      I don’t know your view point about this manifesting business. Maybe your view about this is different.
      Thanks for contributing here.
      Karin

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I am unsure precisely what you mean by ‘this manifesting business’ Karin, though it has echoes of New Thought principles it would appear. One needs to be cautionary I think, in respect to the psychological phenomenon of Confirmation Bias, and be mindful also of Behavioural Confirmation, in which anticipated results come about due to what are often unconscious influences being exerted. That said, thought is an aspect of awareness, which itself is non-local, and so analysing the whole in empiricist terms of cause and effect, of spatiality and temporality, may be fallible. I tend to be Popperian as regards this, and his theory of Falsifiability is a useful yardstick to apply. I suspect you would agree, Karin, that wishing things to manifest does not always produce what is desired, leaving aside the aforementioned Behavioural Confirmation. In other words, the principle is falsifiable, and with that being so, then one cannot arrive at a Universal Generalisation in the matter, such as is proposed within the New Thought movement. Please forgive me if I am leading the discussion away from the territory you intend to explore here.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. Thank you for your detailed and elaborate comment, Hariod.
          Yes, I meant wishing things or events to manifest.
          I was not sure what your view on this is. But now you have made it clear.
          I agree that it does not always work, and that means that there is no scientific proof of it.
          Thank you for your clarification.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

          1. Scientific proofs cannot always be established in certain areas of course, and the most egregious example of that is the phenomenon of consciousness itself. Insofar as a science of consciousness exists, then much of it rests on finding correlations between brain states and qualia, or subjectivity. None of this establishes what consciousness actually is though – the so-called Hard Problem as defined by David Chalmers. Some cognitive scientists, notably Daniel Dennett, have denied the existence of consciousness outright as you may know – see his book Consciousness Explained, or Consciousness Explained Away as his detractors would mockingly have it. For most of us, consciousness is a self-evident fact, and although science cannot tell us what it is, nonetheless, it is – to argue otherwise seems nothing but absurd and antithetical to common sense.

            Therefore, to dismiss phenomena purely on the weight or otherwise of anecdotal evidence – such as your theory of manifestation – is risky, especially given that in all likelihood no hard evidence will have been garnered under controlled trials. We are left saying the theory is falsifiable, but not disproven, and many assert that thought tends to find its mark, whether it be through prayer, visualisations, the power of mental volition, or whatever. It would seem as though the most balanced approach is to proceed with caution, allowing for known psychological phenomena such as I have mentioned, yet willing to embrace that which we cannot explain by conventional means, if the subjective evidence points in that direction.

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply

            1. Thanks for this detailed explanation.
              Falsifiable, yet not disproven. I agree.
              To be embraced with caution if the subjective experience points into that direction: Yes, since my subjective experience points into that direction, I embrace it.

              You see, I come from a scientific, materialistic background and was a complete disbeliever of anything woo-woo. But since 2006, I get these frequent strange phenomena. Burned out light bulbs during anger, coincidences which seem too odd to be explained as mere happenstance, and an inner voiceless voice which urges me to do things which I am scared to do. And now I am here on WordPress sharing and trying to find out who else experiences the spiritual path in this way. I see all the different paths here, and I am frequently wondering about the Buddhist point of view or rather lived experience. Do they experience what I get?
              That is why I was asking and why I am glad that you wrote about it in detail.
              Thanks a lot for your effort.

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply

              1. “I am frequently wondering about the Buddhist point of view or rather lived experience. Do they experience what I get?” – I spent 25 years as a Buddhist dry insight meditator Karin, all but living in a monastery much of the time (not ordained) and meditating between 4 and 8 hours a day over that period. I am very close friends with two Buddhist nuns as a result, and several other ordainees I know well as acquaintances and with whom I have contact. I mention this because on the point you raise as regards your experiences, then I would have two observations which may, or may not, be relevant to your experience:

                Two prime sources of unusual psychical phenomena: Firstly, emotive force. This appears to have two manifestations, which in my personal experience are increases in static electricity, such that interference with external devices may occur, or blue sparks of static electricity may emit from the body (typically the fingertips) when close to external electrical devices. The other aspect of emotive force is the increased capacity to communicate over supra-audible ranges/distances in silent thought – a kind of empathic channeling. Secondly, mental concentration. With this, then the physical world and immaterial (psychical) world begin to merge and become interchangeably indistinguishable. Apparently solid forms can be displayed before one and manipulated by thought, for example. And again, a form of empathic channeling may occur, so that one can read the mental frame of reference of the other without audio-visual clues. Several other effects occur too.

                The risk in experiencing such things is that we may begin to interpret experience falsely, and many do. As the mind is forced to accept that the physical and psychical worlds act upon one another, then the same mind also may become prone to fabricating experience, believing the results to be something more than just that – fabrications. In clinical psychological terms, this is known as Confabulation, and as with the Confirmation Bias and Behavioural Confirmation conditions previously mentioned, ought be taken into account in order to arrive at safe conclusions in the matter. This is the reason why all anecdotal/subjective reports are best treated with a degree of scepticism in my opinion; not to be dismissive, but to allow for genuine misinterpretations which can and do frequently occur for many of those who explore this area.

                Thankyou very much for this most interesting exchange dear Karin, and I leave you with my very best wishes for now.

                Hariod.

                Liked by 2 people

                Reply

                1. Thanks for sharing these very interesting Observation.
                  So you have witnessed or experienced these phenomena and you say that the mind is forced to accept that the physical and psychical world interact.

                  Like

                  Reply

                2. Oops. I hit send too early accidentally.
                  Thanks for sharing all this. That clarifies your point of view. So you have witnessed paranormal phenomena . I feel that these phenomena are lessons which point me to the fact that the psychical and physical interact. They force me to change my scientific materialistic world view.
                  Thanks for your detailed response,
                  Best wishes,
                  Karin

                  Liked by 1 person

                  Reply

        2. Dear Karin and Hariod,

          I hope you will forgive the delayed interruption here, as I am late to discovering this intriguing conversation. I was curious if Hariod would have the time to clarify what “Popperian” means in high level terms? I’ll put Google to work as well here in a moment… but think you could probably summarize in a few sentences what the key idea is to which you are referring?

          Also, in particular the previous statement to the Popper reference struck me, because whenever I think about manifesting, and the manner in which it is falsifiable but not utterly disproven, I think of the factors in our “personal” experiments which lie outside of our “control”. There is, for instance, quite an array of inner feelings and beliefs, often in “conflict” with one another. They may in a sense, be “competing” in some sense. But even further, if separation (of ourselves from one another, and of ourselves from all that arises) is itself illusory, and building on what Hariod pointed out regarding the non-locality of awareness, then there is clearly a faulty premise in the notion that each of us can manifest whatever we wish, whenever we wish it. Each of us, for instance, could conceivably manifest a winning outcome for our particular team in a sporting event, but this is paradoxical…? So it drives me to consider that whatever it is that hasn’t been disproven is contacted through the experience of unity– is a sublime and graceful movement in which self and other are dissolved, and what is is precisely what is desired.

          Let me close by acknowledging the power I felt in reading about Karin’s dream, and that I do think these feelings that come to us deep in the core of our being are indeed about manifesting beauty and truth, as they are indeed for all of us…

          Peace
          Michael

          Liked by 2 people

          Reply

          1. Hi Michael, how kind of you to join in the fun and discussion, and thankyou for expressing an interest in my wild and loose meanderings. ‘Popperian’, in the sense I refer to him (Karl Popper), really alludes to testability, or in his own terms, an epistemological theory of ‘Falsificationalism’. Can something generalised universally, such as the sometimes sweeping statements of the New Thought Movement, and Quasi-Religious or New Age nostrums generally, be refuted, nullified by experience, or are they absolute laws of nature? If such pseudo-scientific propositions as those are not subjected to the falsifiability test, or (more likely in the areas cited) evade the possibility of the same, then what reliance may we place upon them and what level of credence is it wise to lend to them? For example, in recent years there has been a great deal of chatter about the so-called Law of Attraction, which began with Blavatsky in the late 19th. century, and yet there clearly is no such ‘law’, merely some self-selecting anecdotal reports issuing from humankind’s inherent Confirmation and Selection Bias, and which increase in number in direct correlation with the populist marketing of the nostrum.

            It is easy to be cynical and dismissive in all of this of course, and anyone reading what I have, perhaps recklessly, written above regarding my own unusual experiences could be forgiven for thinking I myself am misguided due to my own biases and/or sub-conscious desires, none of which possibility am I able to disprove the existence of. It remains so that I am unable to deny those experiences to myself though, and this, in spite of the fact that I cannot explain them nor test their repeatability in any reliably controlled way. What I can say is that I have sufficient experience over some decades such that the effects recurred, time and again, when my mind was in the states mentioned – either deeply emotive or highly concentrated. Still, I cannot make any Universal Generalisation about such mental states because any assertion would be quite readily falsifiable within another’s experience. I think each of us are perhaps best guided by a cautious blend of inner, intuited conviction and direct, personal experience, the two being moderated by an ever-present willingness and healthy susceptibility to being disproven in any conclusions arrived at. That is why I am forever cynical as regards these people who claim to possess some ultimate knowledge, some final, immutable position of Self-Realization within the spiritual domain. A reasonable dictum seems to be that all is subject to revision.

            Happy New Year to yourself and you too Karin.

            Hariod.

            Liked by 2 people

            Reply

            1. Thanks for clarifying your point here, Hariod.
              I appreciate very much what you have contributed and am very amazed about what you have experienced.
              Happy new year to you,too.
              Karin

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply

          2. Thanks for your interest and your comment, Michael.
            I don’t think that the wishing and manifesting works all the time for everyone. It is just that I had many experiences where a wish was followed by the fulfillment, and often in the most improbable, ridiculous, and divinely humurous ways. And I am trying to make sense of them.

            I recall a part from ACOL where it says something like,
            ‘And now I ask you to request a miracle. So urgent is your return to unity that your request for a miracle will be fulfilled…
            (It is no exact quote as I am quoting from memory) .
            When I read this ACOL part, I thought that these little miracles and synchronicities are God’s/Source’s/Love’s way to give us little hints of remembering of what we really are, i.e. consciousness, in unity, and creative/manifesting.
            So, I think that having the experience of unity inside of oneself in the sense of having found the inner connection to Source is helpful for these miracles to occur. But also, the occurrence of these miracles helps us to remember and acknowledge the inner connection to Source.
            I cannot manifest any wish that I have. And yet I have experienced often that deep heartfelt wishes are promptly fulfilled when they occur on the basis of a deep genuine contentment. They are often accompanied by a feeling of peace and high joy and a thought like ‘oh, it would be sooo great if I could have XYZ now.’
            Peace,
            Karin

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply

            1. Hi Karin,

              I know what you mean. I find this to be a very interesting topic, because to echo a point that Hariod made, working with this field of information and possibility that we call miracles is an inherently personal experience. I enjoyed reading what you wrote, Karin, and I hope you didn’t think I was attempting in any way to express a differing sentiment. For me, these experiences, and those like your dream, are beautiful and healing– and like I said I also think they are also very personal. An intimacy with God that can only be experienced in our relationship and connection with the holy of holies.

              One of the “problems” I see with the analytical mindset that our culture so often applies to the matter of establishing what is real and what is not, or what is possible and what is not, is that personal events that appear to have universal application are considered irrelevant if they are not repeatable. In other words, we’ve done away with the personal altogether– with the inner, intangible, mysterious, knowing center of our being. These experiences defy the logic on which we’re normally running… There is undoubtedly Selection and Confirmation Bias at work in our thinking at times, as we’ve experienced, but we know it also when tumblers slide into place and the heart flutters with true recognition. For me personally, if you insist on taking away that type of knowing– that ringing of my heart’s bell– then I don’t wish to be part of the game anymore…

              I agree with what you are saying about miracles and moments of synchronicity instilling a greater awareness of the Divine within us. I actually think it’s difficult to say it is one way or the other– meaning that I think these moments are both a giving and a receiving, or to say it another way, they represent unity both in our stepping into unity (our giving) and by reminding us of it (our receiving). It is like a loop that cannot be pulled apart into pieces. And it is intensely personal… We each have a unique relationship with God, and so it makes sense to me that our awakening to the fullness that we are has this personal element.

              It is a strange thing. To Hariod’s other point, we still have to be discerning in our navigation of these paths. It is not impossible to wander into delusions, though who is to say what is what? I think the Love in our hearts– the deep and genuine contentment that you describe– is the litmus test. For me the point is not to establish these experiences as objective truths to be replicated in an external laboratory, but as symbols and gestures of unity that make sense in the midst of our own lives. In some cases they may have meaning for many, as is the case when dreams and visions are shared or received on behalf of an entire family or community. But in a way, each of us occupies the seat of a laboratory far more complex than any science we’ve ever invented…! Our hearts navigate this complexity with ease!

              Blessings, Karin!
              Michael

              Liked by 2 people

              Reply

              1. Thanks for your long response.
                I agree with what you said. It is intensely personal. It is not testable under laboratory conditions. And, yes, there are all sorts of pitfalls that come with the discovery of these things. Like not using enough discernment. Or trying to develop special abilities can become a sidetrack on the spiritual journey. And the journey is about waking up from the dream and not about creating a better dream.
                For me, it is valuable to find out whe else has experienced these phenomena. Am I going crazy or is this something common for people on the spiritual path? And it seems that many have experienced this, not only here in the WordPress community but also in several books I have read. Of course, it is only anecdotal evidence, and it would not stand a randomized double-blind trial, and there is the confirmation bias etc .
                Yes. So what?
                The same objections apply to the ton of near death experiences on nderf.org. I didn’t have a NDE myself, but after reading many NDE’s, (some of which have occurred during a flat EEG), I am convinced that they are real and that consciousness can exist independently of a functioning brain.
                Maybe I can turn this rant into a disclaimer in fine print which I add to any of the next posts about manifestations, answered prayers, and synchronicities ;-) .
                Peace,
                Karin

                Liked by 1 person

                Reply

  4. Wow …I appreciate the conversation between you and Hariod here , dear Karin ….the sharing of hearts and minds with loving acceptance and encouragement is truly an awe filled blessing …you are beautiful ! Love , megxxx

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Oh yes, I love dreams. They are a very important part of my internal guidance system, once I have figured out what the metaphors mean.
      Thanks for commenting!

      Like

      Reply

  6. Here’s to our paint pallet of creating our future bright with colours.. May all our thoughts hold the colour we wish to see within our world..
    Sending you Lots of Love <3 and I so thank you for sharing your dream.. Many of us now are starting to pay more attention to them and to follow our hearts..
    When we join our hearts and dreams, we are healing and painting our future with our hearts desires… May it be filled with Love and peace..

    Wishing you a very Happy Christmas Holiday and all the best for the New Year Karin..

    Blessings Sue xxx

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. Yes this is what came up for me too, IAM now packing all my brushes and small bold acrylic Colours to take with me to paint with my grandson and his school class where I will be inspiring them to paint the magnificent consciousness within and around them… So excited…

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

By commenting, you agree to the privacy policy, https://karinfinger.wordpress.com/privacy/.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.