The power of vision (“putting on the mind of Christ”)

When I draw a picture of the Mother Goddess, fleshy, long hair, with her embracing glance and her giving hands, she comes into existence a little bit fuller as a shared dimension, a dream, and a potential. The Mother, her image, is a powerful force indeed. And with the miracle of mutual understanding, we can then talk about her image and what it represents, and in doing so, project wisdom and compassion into that image, building more of those structures into our own minds, lives, and actions. Art can be stucture changing/conversation starting. The Constructivists sure thought so.

Our own minds co-create our worldview, and thus our world. That is the postmodern insight.

We also intuit potentials (the good, the true, and the beautiful) and deep structures/connections within our being-in-the-world, then project those dreamy qualities onto forms, weather that is a best friend, or visualized deities and archetypes. And by, for example, visualizing the Mind of Christ—(human consciousness infinitely one with God, infinitely one with all of us, infinitely wise and compassionate)—our own minds grow, and grow into that visualized state. Our own minds begin to take on those characteristics. Those cognitive or spiritual structures of consciousness begin to be built, and we begin to inhabit those new structures like a house or garden. As Ken Wilber might put it, the visualized state of mind eventually becomes a realized trait of mind.

Or, it could also be said that the imagined image of Jesus and his state of consciousness pulls us like a magnet into our own deeper potentials and most filling futures. It’s magnets and mirrors and smoke.