Joyful hope

A vision without a task is but a dream.
A task without a vision is drudgery,
A vision and a task is the hope of the world.
- Church wall, Sussex, England, circa 1730


This is an early map to a sustainable life.
It’s never about the doing or the dreaming,
The vision or the task,
But the sacred marriage between them.

The world’s longest list of tasks, even when completed will not change one’s life. Not unless the list is a series of steps taken to support an intended vision. The act of holding the vision, and being present with each step, is its own sacred journey and is the joyful hope of the world.

Dreaming, and day-dreaming, as a stand alone activity can be great ways of relaxing, bringing personal renewal and exercising muscles of imagination, and those are all great things. Dreams can hold a non-linear, intelligent depth of mapping, and can offer an almost magic path through seemingly unopenable doors. I’m a big fan of dreaming, but pathological escapist dreaming is its own drug and can degenerate into its own prison. Being the keeper of a vision birthed forth from an ideal is just as tiresome and often more lethal. Too many people have died in the name of religion along with insane amounts of hate and dissonance. A vision birthed from the connectivity of self, meaning really feeling one’s place in the sustainable systems freely gifted, comes forth as a vision with gravity, legs, and a will to grow and flower.

The Sanskrit word Dharma literally translates as that which upholds or supports. In English they squish the definition into the word “law”. I prefer to see it as taking our places supporting and upholding nature’s sustainable systems or laws. Dharma is often translated as one’s righteous duty… to do?

Zen Master Dogan said: “Those who see worldly lives as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions: they have not discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.”

I love that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma. I get that but those of us who do are still in the minority. Mankind as a species does not understand the peace that comes from living within the laws of nature. A lot of pathos could be eliminated with some basic gardening. Being green or sustainable and upholding ones place in the system is considered to be an optional life choice. Absolutely, if one is not attached to the future of the coming generations, it’s optional.

In 1830 Charles Lamb thought himself clever when boasting; “A Garden was the primitive prison , till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it.”~ True that Charles. The definition of sin; to miss the mark. In its adolescence humanity sinned itself out of the garden and into possible extinction.
Clever lucky humans.
Heartfelt Dharma is out ticket back…
sustainable-vision interwoven into every task…
The hope of the world.