I am currently finishing up a wonderful experience of teaching a six week online class on the spiritual principles of manifestation with my colleague Freya Secrest.  We asked people in the class to choose a practical project to work with, something in their real lives that they wanted to manifest.  My project was getting my house painted.

In the process of completing my project, I discovered that I wasn’t just “painting the house.”  I was practicing making choices by feeling into and balancing inner and outer energetic relationships.

An essential foundation for exploring each project was to establish good partnerships among all the elements involved. I needed to find a good, affordable painter. The job must be well done with visible attention to detail.

I wanted good quality, environmentally friendly paint that would hold up in the sometimes harsh Colorado weather. I wanted the color of our house to blend in with the other houses in the neighborhood.

It was important to me to honor the land and living things around the house, avoiding damage and disruption to the environment as much as possible.  I have taken up providing habitats for pollinator bees.  Their boxes are mounted on the sunny east wall of the house.  So I had to make sure the house painting process didn’t disrupt the bees.

And, since much of this project has involved internet research,  I had to maintain a good relationship with my computer (not too hard…I am a wanna-be techie geek in a parallel life).

I especially wanted to honor and nurture my relationship with the house itself, and with all the unseen beings and presences that comprise its wholeness, its intention, its connection with the land and with the soul of the earth.

At last the plan was in place, but—I was still obsessing over the paint color.  We have lived here for seven years, and I have never liked the dull yellow color of the house. I wanted a color I would really love coming home to.

I wondered how to make sure that the color I chose enhanced the life of the house itself. I work from home, and we also hold many meetings and gatherings here.  Our family, friends and colleagues visit here. All of this activity holds intention toward spiritual connection, participation and community-building.  I wanted the house color to somehow reflect and be a portal for that intention.

After studying different colors for quite awhile, I began to notice that I was tuning into a living vibrant sense of each color I liked. Each color gave me a different feeling. I could feel even subtle differences between the colors in my body.

I found that I could attune to the energy and identity of the house itself in the same way. I imagined expressing my own spirit through each color I felt drawn to. I would imagine the house “dressed” in each color I liked. Then I imagined “being,” living as my house, painted that color. I was exploring the sense of looking out from this house and participating with the world, as this house, painted this color.  In this way I could sense whether the feeling-expression of the color matched both the feeling-expression of the house, and the feeling-expression of me.

I went several times to Home Depot and had special colors mixed.  One time, the man behind the counter explained about adding 10% of this color, or taking away 50% of that color and adding 20% of another. Finally I said to him, “I can’t think about color in numbers!  The numbers just pile up in my head and I get confused!”  He stopped talking, kind of squinted at me, and suddenly said, “OK, I get it. You are feeling the colors, not thinking about them!”  My jaw dropped.  To be understood by the paint mixer man in Home Depot instead of being thought weird? Very confirming.

I finally chose a warm silvery gray with subtle green tones, called Mossy Oak.  I even like the name!

When I described to my husband my experience of choosing the color, he kind of went inside himself for a minute.  Then he said, “Hmmm.  I never thought about it like that before.  But when I imagine the house painted this color, I can feel it drawing in the wild open space behind us.  The color makes a connection with nature somehow.”

The sense of our house painted in Mossy Oak lifts my heart. It has a feeling of connecting with the earth itself. It feels quiet and warm and inviting, a deep standing holding space, a good place to live.  It feels like me.

If you are interested in learning about how to deepen into your own individual intuitive perception style, Freya and I will be teaching a new class on connecting with subtle energies of the earth and other realms. 

The class begins on Monday, October 19, and is offered through the Lorian Association. We will be hosting a free introductory teleclass on Saturday, October 17.  We would love for you to join us!

Learn more about all this here: 
Working with Subtle Energies Teleclass

Dream House painting by Lila
5th grade school project, 2011-12 IAEA Student Art Show Gallery
http://www.artsonia.com/museum/art.asp?id=14180909