“Watch where you put your feet.” ~ Karen Larson

During a Miksang contemplative photography workshop in Boulder, Colorado, we often went to the downtown pedestrian mall to photograph. Each day we were given an intention to be open to something different. One day it was colour, another day texture, then patterns, then concrete. All of us walked the same streets and saw totally different things.

Intention is very powerful indeed. 

My visual design workshops operate in a similar fashion. One week we focus on light, the next lines, and the next shapes. Participants are amazed at how quickly their vision shifts to the intention. They start seeing those elements everywhere. I’ve had several people tell me that, even though they were going through something difficult at the time, choosing to focus on the topic at hand added enjoyment to their lives.

Often, the word intention is used in a way that means manifesting some future goal or situation or outcome. This may or may not work because there are always things that are out of our control. We may not get the desired result and then we’re disillusioned. However, intention in the moment is almost always guaranteed to work. For example, if we are open to seeing colour, we will see colour. We won’t know which colours we’ll see. Instead, we’re open to whatever arises. This is a major difference in approach.

Intention comes from how we show up. 

The only thing we can really control is ourselves. So, instead of setting an intention for a desired result “out there,” we set an intention for a desired way of being. For example, we can set an intention to be open or to be kind or to not judge or to see beauty. Imagine the power in that!

This doesn’t mean that everything’s always going to be fluffy and wonderful. But, even in the most difficult of circumstances, we can choose what and how we see. We can choose our reactions.

In her fascinating book, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of the Artist (paid link) by Karen Larson, I read the paragraph below, which fits right in with this topic. John Cage had this very approach to writing music.

He could begin with an intention and open it up to the unpredictable. Most music tries to control its circumstances, just as most of us do. But there’s another way to live. Accept indeterminacy as a principle, and you see your life in a new light, as a series of seemingly unrelated jewel-like stories within a dazzling setting of change and transformation. Recognize that you don’t know where you stand, and you will begin to watch where you put your feet. That’s when a path appears.

Watch where you put your feet. Now, that’s intention.