When Christine made her vision board she had prisoners on it. At that time she was a full-time corporate coach, spinning too many plates she knew was not sustainable. She felt on the threshold of something big but had no clear idea where to focus.
This was an ideal moment to create a new board (to add to her portfolio of four). This latest was created a year before Covid. She had just begun to set up a charity called the Enneagram Prison Project to trial the Enneagram self-realisation tool among prisoners. But as we probed deeper in the coaching session, the symbolic meaning of the images, prisons and prisoners emerged as a recurring theme. Here’s what transpired next.
San Quentin prisoners
Within a month of completing her board Christine was on a plane to California, heading for San Quentin maximum security prison. One of five carefully selected trainees, she was about to learn first-hand from the American experience. Notoriously a place of execution, Christine breathed a sigh of relief when she learnt that only the week before the governor had closed the execution room forever declaring: “no longer on my watch”.
With jet lag, excitement and trepidation – and after three days intensive classroom training – she entered San Quentin itself and stood before 60 prisoners in neat rows. Otherwise known as the ‘Boys in Blue’, each prisoner sported a T shirt in a different shade of blue, reminiscent of the orderly balls of wool on her vision board. You can imagine her surprise.
Christine describes those teaching days as “life-changing, miraculous, grace-filled with so much love present in the room”. I’m reminded of the two angelic creatures either side of the powerful waterfall on her board. These angels are guiding their followers through a densely over-grown bramble patch, avoiding the shiny distractions on either side, and heading towards the light. This is a suitable metaphor for how Christine and her colleagues are guiding the prisoners to emotional and psychological freedom while being enlightened by the experience themselves.
Images chosen by the intuition are rarely literal representations of what is about to happen; they are numinous and must be unpacked imaginatively to understand their deeper significance.
I recalled Christine’s animal totem from the workshop – an eagle, which is also the US national emblem where her prison training originated – and a symbol of great power and spiritual growth.
Oscar Wilde
During the vision board workshop Christine had been strongly attracted to the black and white photograph of the men. Making no sense of it at the time, her rational mind talked her into returning the magazine to the box. Later her intuition insisted she go back and retrieve it although she had no idea at the time why.
Two days later Christine awoke with The Ballad of Reading Jail running through her head and knew instantly it was Oscar Wilde on her board. A bonhomie, a playwright and gay, he was convicted by the father of his lover (Lord Alfred Douglas) for leading his son astray. He wrote the ballad in exile in France after his release from Reading jail.
Nurturing home
Christine’s experience is an excellent example of what can happen when you allow your intuition to communicate with you through the vision board. In her case it reinforced her gravitation towards prison work, which represents the threshold that hadn’t previously been obvious or how she could flesh it out as a project.
When her regular work dried up during lockdown she used the time to nurture herself, her home and her workspace and to continue to develop the Enneagram charity. Lots of clearing, lots of organising, lots of sorting – just like the neat, orderly balls of wool and collections of antelopes, suitcases, framed pictures, arches, elephants all over her vision board.
“Seeing and experiencing everything aligned and in its rightful place has given me the greatest motivation and support during lockdown while preparing the ground for the next stage of my life. By allowing many aspects of my old life’ to drop away I have been able to concentrate on what is most important and make the greatest headway with it.”
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Mary Nondé has pioneered the intuitive vision board since 2010. She is the author of ‘Awaken Your Intuitive Vision – unlocking possibilities you never knew existed AVAILABLE ON AMAZON or from your local bookstore. Mary’s formula works well for procrastinators or those have hit the wall and are wondering what to do next. The IVB can help to get you moving again by envisioning possibilities you never knew existed.