Find Meaning And Purpose Through Intention Setting.
This week's musical tune to compliment the {field note} below as you read, meditate or do what you please: Jam Here.
"EVERYTHING WORTH WHILE TAKES TIME. PATIENCE. TRUST. SET AN INTENTION AND THEN LET IT GO. THE BUD OF A FLOWER IS JUST AS PRECIOUS AS THE SEED AND THE BLOOMING. LET NATURE WORK IT'S MAGIC WITH THE FINE DETAILS OF THE SUN, WATER AND SURROUNDING EARTH. IT'S ONLY NATURAL."
Have you ever felt like your day, week or month has slipped by? Have you ever heard someone say that time moves by way too fast? This is what can happen when we don’t allow for intentions to work for us in our daily lives.
Everything begins with an intention. If you don’t have it, you’re setting sail blindly, where the waters can and will direct your course. However, when you set an intention to guide you, you know where you want to go and the power of intention can guide you in the right direction.
Here is an example of the intention I made when I was dreaming of a tiny house...
To design. To build. To use. A tiny space under 400 square feet. Width 8.5 feet. Height 13.5 feet. A tiny space to put my own personal stamp on. 1. I’ve lived in big houses. 2. Small houses. 3. Micro Apartments and 4. Bachelor Units. 5. I’ve lived out of a suitcase. 6. I’ve lived with two frat guys in a one room apartment. 7. I’ve lived in a house with a pool and a zen garden named after me. 8. I’ve lived on my own. 9. I’ve lived with roommates aging from their 20’s to 60’s and 100's in dog years. … I’ve lived in more places than my ten fingers can count.
The average home size in the UK is 818 square feet. The average home size in Hong Kong: 484 square feet. Sweden: 893 square feet. Why do statistics show homes in the United States are Still. Getting. Larger?
Instead of referring to this intention as a tiny house, perhaps I should call it a "world house."
I no longer want to live with the idea of paying rent for a place I'm barely spending time in. I don’t want a mortgage tying me down right now either. I've come to terms that I'm not well suited for a 9-5 job or working 80 hours per week. I don't want my work to be a separation from my life where I feel the need to take a vacation away from it.
There are a lot of things I do want but not a lot I need. I’m experimenting with this notion.
I'm revitalizing a relationship with my belongings. I no longer believe in scattered storage spaces.
I appreciate my belongings and thank them for what they do or what joy they spark.
Voluntary simplicity.
I’ve cleared, cleaned and donated. There is less clutter, less consumption and less waste.
The “bigger is better” mantra is now old-school. One-of-a-kind has more character. I’m holding on to only things with meaning.
I'm embracing the idea of cognitive architecture. Renewal. Rebirth. Regeneration. Reimagining.
I believe in a new consciousness of consumerism: slow food, slow fashion. I believe in intentional manufacturing with “mindfulness”. I believe in investing in real shit that will last forever. I believe in quality over quantity. I believe in a friendlier environment and a lower environmental footprint.
Reduce. Repair. Reuse. Recycle. Location independent.
A tiny house on wheels serves my current functions, flexibility, mobility and lifestyle. Outside of this --- infinite landscapes. In this --- aesthetic experiences.
My heart yearns daily for a sense of reverence+wonder+awe. I choose novel spaces. I choose novel environments.
When I enter this natural space, I see and feel my dreams connecting. To create. To explore. To experiment. To practice. To pause. To expand. It’s real. It’s raw. It’s always changing and evolving. It’s always here and now, whether it's in a big house, in a tiny house or in a world house.
The tiny house will surely change through the seasons of time but right now,
I am dreaming of a tiny house because I love wide open spaces.
Whether you’re dreaming of stomping through rain puddles, turning your craft into a business or building your forever home, it all starts with crafting a simple intention. We can create a longer intention for a dream such as building a tiny house on wheels, such as above, or we can create a shorter one, to just set an intention for our day, or maybe an upcoming event. Here’s my take on the art of intention, how it’s worked for me and how it can maybe come to work for you too.
But first, what does intention really mean? Setting an intention activates your receptivity in a powerful way. What this ultimately does is help you to manifest and actualize that which is desired, whether that be physically tangible or not, by intending to attract or call it into your life, moment by moment. It is your compass that you come back to every time you need to realign with your vision.
To first identify your intention, you will first check in with your inner nature. A dream is far more likely to exist if it is aligned with what is for your greatest good. Therefore, it’s important to sit with your intention until it feels just right. You can also work with a body scan, one of the other 9 fieldwork exercises, to get a feel for where it sits in the wisdom of your body.
It would be easy to just make a long list of all that you want and desire. In fact, you could probably do it blindly! However, when you check in with your inner landscapes and values as suggested above, you begin to see and access what it is that you seek in a new form of acceptance.
Next, you will begin to set your intention by announcing it. It is important to be in the right frame of mind when doing so, and thoughts of abundance are more appropriate versus feeling poorly or scarce, for obvious reasons.
Lastly, it is important to remind yourself of your intentions so they remain on the forefront of your mind. As you go about your schedule, your day, or your activity, check in with yourself with a hand over your heart, and ask whether your actions are intentional or not in the direction of your dreams.
And what if you are not sure what direction you want to go? What if you have doubts? What if your thoughts have many "what if's," or "should've," "would've," "could've" narratives? Let's take a step back...
Once upon a time, my grandpa Tom built houses with my dad. They named their work space, “Moullette Development.” After the 2008 economic crash, they stopped building houses. As one chapter closed, my dad changed the work space to “Moullette Group.”
When I was a tiny thing, I’d stay up at night, study their blueprints and those of Architectural Digest, drafting up my own vision and versions of various tee-pees, yurt-like sanctuaries, magical forts and tree houses. I dreamed to build one of my own someday and have it simply be a space where I could just come to Be present with what I love most.
But then I grew up, and started to question how this dream could become a reality. With no prior construction experience, I questioned how I could ever come to build a retreat like such.
That's when I decided to just start where I am, drafting my dreams into the blueprint of a hand-drawn tiny house plan... Custom and semi drawn to scale.
What once started as sketches, has now birthed into multiple drafts of blueprints.
This blueprinting process has a unique space in my heart.
Starting as a 10+ year old recycled squared sheet of paper,
It’s slowly carved into makeshift, non-erasable, pencil-lined walls
With notings of half worn measurements, fractions and numbers
And drawn-in door + window placements and openings
As materials slowly make way into the material world of collecting, measuring and finding storage space until the physical build begins.
This is my raw material I set to canvas. May these individual collections each have their own fulfilled space + purpose.
With limited space being a critical component, this blueprint and I have really questioned in many sleepless nights our wants vs our needs.
It'll surely change it's shape + course as "Project Tiny House" organically develops + gathers strands of personality through it's own space + time.
Traveling from fingertips to eraser tips, it's passing current remains strong through loving eyes + voices with feedback + suggestion (and many times contradictions) from family + friends old and new + the local lumber yard. (I don't know how many times I've heard I should just buy a manufactured RV and just "move on with my life.")
Today, this tiny house is nothing more than an 11X16 sheet of coffee stained paper that just got rescued from a fall into the lake. Faded + damp, it sits by my side under the sun rays to dry.
After many sketches and ideas of a blueprint, coffee stained and fallen into the lakeside, I have finally landed upon a draft that just might work. You see, there were a lot of components that needed to present themselves, including the scavenger hunt to find windows and doors. Here’s the current plan:
And then after many workings, I created a draft for the first of my capsule wardrobe, an eco-tee. I imagine it’ll be quite flattering with it’s mindfully placed lines sewn with silky soft organic threads. Here's th first blueprint of a clothing pattern made:
Today, I wear Grandpa’s worn in jean jacket that was a hand-me-down. It’s a little large and boxy, but the meaning behind it fits just right. It’s also a good feeling to know there were potentially up to 1,800 gallons of water saved by not buying a brand new one.
Drafting a blueprint for our life, or at least this chapter of our life, is much like setting an intention. Here's a fieldwork exercise to get started:
I invite you to take inventory of where you're at right now. This might be in the category of health, work, play, relationships and love, inspiration, or something else!
To start, you might want to examine these five things:
Who you are
What you believe
What you're doing
Where you've been
Where you're going
Then ask yourself, What gives your life meaning? What is it you are doing or can do to make it even more worthwhile and valuable? How can you begin to experience more growth and fulfillment?
These views will alter through your seasons of change, just as the tiny house blueprint has gone through many visions and versions of its own too. The important thing is to center yourself in this blueprint as if it's your compass that's guiding you along your path. From here, it's simply a matter of living in alignment with your truth, and staying the course, one magical moment at a time.
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