Printed in the Conscious Creation Journal
June-July 1999, Issue 6
I Have A Theory: Imagining the Future – Now
by Kristen Fox
Over the last year or two, I have run across a number of individuals who have a vision for some kind of “center,” whether they call it a healing center, or a retreat center, or simply a center for community gatherings. The descriptions are often similar as well – a large building or two on a large tract of land, perhaps with smaller dwellings scattered about for longer-term participants. Most of the people with these visions want to create a haven of sorts, a place where people can go to find peace and pay a little extra attention to themselves. These seem to be the most prominent kinds of “future visions” generally discussed in new age-type circles.
Whether or not the plans for these centers actually come to fruition or not, it seems to me that the ideas behind these centers are, in essence, attempts at finding new templates for society. Their current, concrete validity aside, these ideas could also be translations of the energy or vibrations of “future” societal templates as seen through the framework of the “present.”
As we step more and more fully into unity, that is, we step out of duality, welcome home all parts of ourselves into wholeness, and come into our power as conscious creators, we more fully embrace these new vibrations. As we leave behind reactivity, we find we are creating every now, in bigger ways than we ever did before. As we leave behind a belief in past and future, we find more room to move in the NOW, and discover that the next moment really ISN’T created yet and looming ahead with finality.
Given this, I find that I can’t really use many concrete terms to describe my own future imaginings because I’m simply not THERE yet. I can’t project “ahead” based on the present like I used to because I have a completely different relationship with time itself.
It took me a while to shake the linear timeline it seems I’d always had in my head, including the belief in linear, cause and effect type of consequences. “If I don’t do THIS now then later THAT will happen.” After all, it seems so REAL. I was as surprised as anyone when I realized that, for myself, the theoretical idea of time not existing had become more of a reality than just a provocative idea.
Then I began to wonder – without being able to project into the future the way we used to – based on past trends, for instance – how do we know where we’re going or what we’re creating? I mean, where do we go for our visions for tomorrow? Most of the general ‘visions for the future’ I’ve run into on the web involve, in some way or another, having LESS than what we have now – but it’s my guess that those kinds of ideas are easier to have at the moment. First, because we’re waking up out of a dream based in LACK and NOT HAVING, and that’s been our general focus. Secondly, we’re used to looking to physical reality to project ahead instead of inside. And in order to create what hasn’t yet been created, we have to use our imaginations!
Imagination
I distinctly remember how I used my imagination as a tool to avoid embarrassment in high school. Whenever anyone developed a new slang term or told a joke that I didn’t “get”, I would, automatically, look inside for the meaning. Right now, I can recall that sensation of extending my feelings or energy “outward” (Like in Star Wars – reach out with your feelings, Luke!) and then suddenly I would “get” the meaning. (God forbid I look STUPID in front of everyone, geek that I was. <grin>) I did this all automatically, never really paying much attention to what I did, and it always worked. And then I remembered how I used my imagination to create a family swimming pool, a free Video Game set, and other things I wanted.
As a kid, I didn’t “know” that there was a huge dividing line, a supposedly “immutable” boundary between what was “imagination” and what was “real”. And yet as I got older, I learned that it was less and less acceptable to use my imagination EXCEPT in specially designated areas, such as painting, drawing, writing, etc. In many areas, I followed the rules instead of looking for my own way, which kept the “future” pretty much predictable and similar to the NOW, and therefore “comfortable.”
Then, of course, I found out about reality creation. I found out that I’d been doing it in small ways my entire life, but that these moments had escaped me as “use of the imagination” because they also happened to be at least somewhat “predictable”. The seemed to create more and more along the edge of what I’d been taught was “possible”. For instance, creating my new car, exactly to my specifications, in a USED car lot, without ordering it or specifically requesting it.
But then I started to have more and more ideas about creating outside these lines. You know, if you create what you want by focusing on it – you can create the perfect job. You can create the money directly if you don’t want a specific job. You can create ANYTHING, no rules, no nothing. And I looked really closely at all of the implications of this – I can create anything I can think of. So many things that I knew were POSSIBLE and yet, practically speaking, for SOME reason, seemed just out of reach. What was stopping me from stepping into this wondrous world? Why was I still insisting on NOT having all these things I wanted?
Thunk. I had found the wall, built with bricks of what was real and what wasn’t. Physical was real, non-physical was “just imagination”. Imagination had no “real” effect in physical reality, except maybe to distract you from what was going on in front of you. I hadn’t realized that I had trained myself to NOT use my imagination in certain areas of my life, for many reasons. Whether it was considered impolite to disagree with someone, whether it was considered “stubborn” or “discompassionate” to insist on “having your own way”, or whether it was considered “dangerous” to not have your full attention in physical reality.
Side story: I actually realized one day that I hated doing the dishes because I didn’t like focusing on dishes exclusively. That is, I wasn’t “supposed to” NOT pay attention to what I was doing. I slapped myself in the forehead (I seem to be doing that a lot lately!) and realized that I could “daydream” while doing the dishes! DUH! See, I had been trained so well to PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I WAS DOING, etc. that I had been unconsciously cutting off a vital part of myself. Since that subtle and yet momentous moment, dishes have become a LOT more fun and inventive!
In this same way I kept wondering where the ideas for what our “future” was going to be like were going to come from if we could no longer base these ideas on any projections or frameworks or structures from the past. After all – imagination was just imagination, but reality was reality. Right? There were certain things that were okay to create and others that weren’t. Right?
Obviously not. <grin> But that’s what I had unconsciously been BELIEVING for a long time. I don’t remember the exact point of when I finally uprooted that belief, only a few weeks ago now, but every since then I have been exercising every “imaginable” imagination muscle I have and it’s like an entire world or an infinite number of worlds has once again opened for me! I can see, feel, or create whatever I want! (The feeling of energy flowing through me is intense!)
What would be really cool to have available in stores? What would be a great way to create a new kind of house? Do I like going to the grocery store or would I prefer simply having a replicator to create food out of thin air? Or do I want to just manifest what I want already in my pantry, like the Celtic legend of the bottomless cauldron? Do I want to eat at all? Does my future include commerce and of what kind? What kind of relationships do I want to have? Where do I want to visit and what kinds of experiences do I want to have?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It doesn’t FEEL to me like anything in particular is going to simply disappear or go away, although we’ll most likely be changing our RELATIONSHIP with physical reality overall. “Peace, harmony, and love” are nice words, but how do they translate into actual experiences? Does peace mean that we’ll walk around having polite conversations all the time, or does peace mean that we’ll each be at peace with ourselves, and be completely accepting of our own power and creativity and “higher” selves, thus being able to more fully enjoy the dramas we create? Does harmony mean there’s never an argument or does it mean we understand that everything is interconnected and ONE and that “conflict” is also an illusion? Does love mean that we’ll be in such a state of bliss that we’ll never feel anything else? Does it mean that we won’t “need” money anymore and so dispense with it or does it mean that we’ll understand that money is simply a tool that we create for ourselves and use it like we would a screwdriver or a paintbrush and not believe in it’s “lack”? Could be all of these things or none of them.
Watching television yesterday, I wondered if things like Monster Truck Rallies (not something typically classified as a “spiritual” experience, although I’m sure it could be. <grin>) would be “going away” because of the shift in consciousness and the idea didn’t really feel right. If anything, I think we’re opening up to have ALL that we each want, and are accepting diversity instead of judging any part of it and resisting it.
So, I’m going to set my imagination loose on the “future” for a moment here and just right down my own ideas, from my own perspective, here for you to enjoy. As people become more aware of who they really are and express themselves more and more within the realm of their integrity, they’ll follow their joy more and more.
The “exciting dramas” will be based on discovery and creation, both inside and outside, instead of ONLY duality and struggle and limited beliefs. Years ago, I read Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama book, about discovery and investigation of an unmanned (not human) space ship coming through our solar system. The drama of the exploration was gripping and I read the entire book in half a day, turning each page with excitement and expectation of what they’d find. A few years later I read the sequel, RwR 2, that Arthur Clarke wrote with Gentry Lee. It was still a good book, but the overall flavor of the fiction itself had turned from the excitement of discovery to characters having personal agendas – being more interested in what their experiences with the ship could mean to their careers, competing with each other, for instance, than being genuinely interested in this huge “unknown” and being there with the experience. Needless to say, the “future”, to me, feels more like that first book.
And I don’t see our uniqueness going away just because struggle might. Actually, I see people feeling more comfortable to express even more of who they are, releasing old party lines of what its okay to be. As we dismantle the walls we built around ourselves, we’ll be stepping out into new territory. We’re coming to the end of an era where we think that everything we can see around us has already been explained, and we’re just about to realize there’s an infinite dimension of “newness” out there that’s both exciting and perhaps a little frightening and yet interesting all at once. When we realize that time and space are just base assumptions for our perceptions in physical reality, who knows what interesting things we’ll find to do with it. There’s more than one way to “do” physical reality, I wager. <grin>
It’s also interesting to think of how things will change as we move more and more into choosing EXACTLY which experiences we want. For instance, we may no longer simply assume that we have to travel over time and space to get somewhere else. We can choose the cross-country journey in a vehicle or on horseback, perhaps, to enjoy THAT experience, or maybe we can teleport is our chosen experience is just to BE somewhere else. This is just one example of getting to choose something that we always just assumed wasn’t a CHOICE.
Having said all of that, I invite you all to play with your imaginations. Visualize yourself opening a door marked “future” and take a peek inside. Right NOW.
©1999, Kristen Fox. Printed in the June-July 1999 Issue of the online Conscious Creation Journal. http://www.consciouscreation.com/ (Feel free to duplicate this column for personal use – please include this copyright notice.)
Kristen Fox is an Applicational Theorist- she “discovers” theories and then applies them to her life to see how they “work” in physical reality. Kristen also had a monthly column called The Art of Conscious Creation, in the midwestern new age newspaper called The Edge. You can visit her homepage and other projects at http://www.consciouscreation.com/