Vison Board for 2010

This is a vision board. My friends Toby and Kerry suggested that I create something visual to inspire me on my life's journey. I turned to my other good friend, Photoshop, to help me create this digital collage.

All the things I love are represented here both as actual activites (canoeing, working outside) and symbols of what I want my world to feel like (natural with a little sanctuary inside). It's overly dark, I know, but I've always loved the I Ching imagery of how the dark fuel creates the flame. Darkness is the dimension where dreams are born. The flame represents the power of fire to fascinate, enlighten and destroy. The water reflects the light but it too has the power to extinguish the flame. The drop of blue water, where warm meets cool, represents an action by me to access both.

The horse images represent many things to me. The horse in the corner is the greatest horse of all time Secretariat. He was the love of my life back in 1973 when I was an 8-year-old horse crazy girl. Click here to see a video of his Belmont Stakes win. You'll see the power of this magnificant animal and I dare you not to get goosebumps as he wins by 31 lengths ahead of the other horses. He represents endurance and heart. The weather vane points to new directions in life and the labyrinth Minotaur, represents the journey within. In most legends the Minotaur is half man/half bull but I liked this image with him as half man/half horse.

The birds represent the dual application of my spiritual learnings. The dove is tribute to the legacy of my Catholic up-bringing and the hawk represents a looser, less dogmatic, and more natural approach to my spirtual journey. I love the formal aspects of the dove image, how art and light represent a classic religious mystery form as well as the image of what I call "highway hawk spirtuality" a mix of western belief influenced with aborginal nature spirits.

The hugging image is especially powerful. Its a wall of words hugging a female outline. The original image had an actual image of a woman but I cut her out so I could envision myself being embraced by my own words.

As for the words on my collage I plan to blog about them in future postings. It will give me the challenge of focusing on my vision and I'll post revisions to the collage as I go along.