The notion of “creative visualization” — in which deliberately
imagining something can make it manifest in the real world — is a
practice almost as old as the idea of magic itself. These days it’s
back in fashion, thanks mainly to The Secret, Rhonda Byrne’s
mega-bestselling 2006 book and film based on the premise that if one
wants something passionately enough and thinks about it intently
enough, the “law of attraction” will deliver it. Adherents claim
they’ve visualized and received everything from love to health to
wealth. A typical visualization video, released under Byrne’s auspices
and scoring more than 2 million YouTube views, intersperses images of
money falling from the sky and marble statues turning into gold with
all-caps assertions such as “I AM A MONEY MAGNET,” “MONEY FALLS LIKE AN
AVALANCHE OVER ME,” “I AM RECEIVING UNEXPECTED CHECKS IN THE MAIL,” and
“THERE IS MORE MONEY BEING PRINTED FOR ME RIGHT NOW.”
Kerry Hargraves was practicing creative visualization long before
The Secret made money fall like an avalanche over its author.
Hargraves remembers relishing Shakti Gawain’s book Creative
Visualization and other such New Age classics more than twenty
years ago. “It was one of those things that come into your life and
then you get busy and you forget them and then they come back into your
life years later,” says the Oakland resident, who now leads monthly
“playdates” for adults in which visualization exercises are followed by
freeform finger painting. Hargraves’ next Art of Being Present
Creativity Playdate is set for Saturday, July 18, at the
Flamingo Surprise Warehouse (809 50th Ave., Unit 6,
Oakland).
The idea arose a few years ago at a women’s networking retreat,
where corporate-manager-turned-professional-sign-painter Hargraves was
asked to create an activity for the group: “I suddenly thought: We
ought to finger paint.” After guiding the dozen-plus participants into
a visualization, “I said, ‘Okay, try to finger paint the feel of a pine
cone. Finger paint the taste of a peach.’ The feedback afterward was
phenomenal.”
She believes that visualization “works,” within limits: “Sure, there
is a certain amount of what you would call magic.” But to make things
manifest in the real world, “there’s also a bit of what you would call
action.” Even after the most fervent visualization, she says, “you
can’t just sit on your behind. You have to go out and do
something.” Acquisition of riches and spouses, The Secret-style,
isn’t her workshops’ main goal. Just as important, Hargraves says, is
the power of art and visualization to “bring your concentration into
this moment, right now, channeling feelings from the mind through the
body into the hand. It’s very relaxing as the everyday dreck we have to
deal with falls away.”
She supplies paper and water-soluble tempera paints, and plans to
add acrylics soon because “that way, we can get into the metallic
colors — and people really like the shiny things.” Participants
can finger paint on standard sixteen-by-twenty-two-inch sheets or on
gigantic sheets two feet high and nine feet long. Participants are
encouraged to wear clothes they don’t mind spattering with paint
— but for those who forget, Hargraves has a pile of “great big
men’s shirts to cover up with, like you did in kindergarten.” 1:30
p.m., $25; free if you bring three friends. JoyinHand.com
