23 It's All About Intention

It's ALL about intention? Yup! That's what I said. Every interaction we have with others, every project we undertake, meal we cook, job we do, is infused with the intention we bring. In this episode I read a sweet chapter from my book, "Jane Street Cooperative Garden" about ways to observe intention's role in our lives. I also read from the first part of my upcoming book, "A Path To Be Spiritually Free" in which our intention manifests in everyday situation. 

Transcript

   Hi. I'm Laura Pallatin. Welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show, where we break with restrictive religious and cultural  indoctrination and create our own personal spiritual path. The title of this episode of the podcast is it's all about intention. And I think  if you listen to every single episode I've done, the element of intention is there. It's a thread that runs through everything in my life. 

In past episodes, I've read from Walk in Your Own Footsteps and the book I'm writing right now, which is A Path to Be spiritually free. And I do have a chapter on intention in my latest book, A Path to be Spiritually Free. But as I was preparing for this episode, I remembered a chapter I wrote for my novel, Jane Street Cooperative Garden. And I think  I think you're really gonna enjoy it.

Um, it was a special chapter for me. I was doing the dishes, and it just almost unfolded, uh, in my mind. I had to stop doing the dishes and go write it out. So let's listen to the theme song, and then I'll give you just a little bit of background so this will all make sense. But It really is a wonderful stand alone chapter, and, uh, and I think it beautifully illustrates the concept of intention.

  Welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show.  Together, we will learn, laugh, and grow.  Breaking Dodger nation  rise above our nation  and  so  welcome to to the practically spiritual show. 

     the way my book, Jane Street Cooperative Garden, came about is that I have been a very fortunate, intuitive, empathic woman. My path in life brought me into  interactions with loads of people who taught me spiritual principles and truths that have enabled me to fulfill my life's mission and start to work with you  and help other people to break their indoctrination and then start their own path. I feel I have been incredibly fortunate.

And I know a lot of young people who are intuitive, empathic people who are growing up in in a world that doesn't necessarily get them. A lot of us feel strange and outsiders because not everyone that we interact is on the same path, right, on the same level. And so we interact with a lot of people who are hurting and are confused, and in part because we are told that being intuitive empath isn't even real. 

Historically intuitive empathic women and men were important members of their communities. When Christianity asserted itself, of course.  Um, we had the witch trials that actually started in the fourteen hundreds. Most of us think of Salem. Right?

But actually, it's a a lot lot older than that, and  a lot of people died.  The people that wrote the history are also the people that are responsible for the murders.  So it's really impossible to know how many women and men died.  But it was certainly a a purge, at least an attempted purge.

And I had this idea, like, wouldn't it have been cool if instead of capitulating  to the Christian people that were murdering women and men who were intuitive empaths and wise people, seers, and healers in their communities. Wouldn't it have been cool if they created this secret society?  And in my mind, I just created this  this community, this idealized group of people who hid who they were from the greater outer community so that it could survive. And one of the precepts that I came up with is that they only taught intuitive, empathic granddaughters. Now I know men were killed in this time as well, and certainly not all men are bad men. 

It's just that most of the people that were murdered were women, and it made sense from a survival standpoint  to exclude men in the early iterations of this community.  I'm working on book two.  Hopefully, I'll be bringing everybody together. But in book one, It is definitely a group of women who teach their granddaughters, who they have seen are intuitive empathic.   It's kind of a heroine's journey of  survival and instruction and love and community.

 To set up this particular chapter, it's  it's a grandmother and her granddaughter who she's already identified as being intuitive empathic. The granddaughter has started the process of becoming part of the community, and she has questions. So they're doing dishes together, which is  a wonderful way to spend time together, right, and ask those questions that come up when you're just hanging out.  

The two people having the conversation are grandma and Catie.

 Jane Street Cooperative Garden chapter twenty. It's all about intention.  

As grandma was washing dishes and I was drying, I was thinking about a conversation I'd heard as women were waiting for the start of the gathering. One of the ladies was sharing a problem she was having with her daughter. 

 It was an ongoing struggle she brought to the group as everyone seemed to know the situation well. When she finished explaining, she paused and added,  it's all about intention. Right? And then all the ladies nodded understandingly. 

 I had heard this phrase many times and made a mental note to ask grandma what they meant the next time we were alone.  "Grandma, when miss Lucy said it's all about intention, what did she mean? I hear this pretty often around here, and I think I get it. But I wanna be sure," I asked.  

Grandma paused for a minute and reached for a towel. 

"   That's a really good question," she said.  "We have so many expressions which hold great meaning to us, and we use them so much that we assume the meaning is clear to everyone. I'm glad you're asking the questions, Catie."   she then walked over to the lighted cabinet where she kept pretty glasses she collected from a local blowing artist. 

Each glass was different from the others in a distinct way. They were all the same shape, but they differed in hue and intensity of color, swirl of glass. Some were iridescent and some had metallic looking flakes in them. She had around twelve of these glasses. I'd noticed grandma seemed to usually prefer a rainbow colored opaque iridescent glass at the front of cupboard. But to make her point, she reached past the rainbow one to the back of the cabinet and lifted up a light blue glass  with white and gold flecks swirling from bottom to top.  

 She turned to me and said, "each of these glasses is beautiful in its own way. Today, I chose this glass because I love the light blue color. It reminds me of clarity and clear thought. The gold flakes make me think of sparkles of imagination.  You may not know this, but this glass is slightly out of round, so I at a discount.  The imperfection reminds me that I don't need to be perfect to be perfectly is suited for a given task."   

Grandma had a sparkle in her eye when she said the discount part. She loved bargains. She continued, " if I chose this glass thoughtfully and when I look at it, I'm reminded of clarity, creativity, and valuing imperfection. I am being intentional.  I am using intention to drive my thoughts and my actions. Some may observe the color blue as properties on its own. Colors are vibrations of light.

Choosing the blue color could help to calm me down, but my intention in this choice on this day is clarity, creativity, and embracing imperfection.  Does this help you to understand intention?" She asked.  

I nodded. The concept made sense to me. It was a way to program thoughts with a trigger to remind me of specific goals or ideas. I like this, but I still felt like I was missing something.  "But it's all about intention?" I asked.  

 Grandma paused for a moment and then said, "okay. Think about this. Intention is important in actions.  If you hug a person out of duty, the hug is stiff and uncomfortable.  While you fulfilled the task of a hug, wrapping your arms around another person, you haven't given or received the love and warmth which can come from a hug.

Think about grandpa's hugs.  He gives all of his love to us when he wraps his arms around us.  That's intention in action. We can feel his love pouring into us as he takes us into his arms."  she put down the glass and thought for a moment.  "Another example of intention in action is cooking. I honestly believe I can taste the love Frances bakes into her scones. Can you?" Grandma asked.

I understood this one very well. I'd often wondered what made Frances's scones taste so special. I watched her make them. She hums and moves around the kitchen like she's dancing. When she gets to the part where she forms the sticky dough into a disk, she pats the mound with such a gentle hand it looks more like she's cajoling the dough into shape than forcing it. Then she places the scones inside the oven and closes the door with a satisfied look on her face.  

I'd watched her make them many times without unlocking the key to what made them special. Most of the ingredients were from the same market everyone else uses, so no magic there.  But the result was undeniably  magical. Every bite caused a fight between my desire to get to the next bite and a yearning to have the little pastry last forever.  

We finished the dishes, so I sat down at the kitchen table to consider what grandma had said.  It's all about intention isn't simply a phrase. It's actually a way of life.

It means doing everything mindfully from from choosing the glass I drink from. Creativity,  loving one another. When we live our lives purposefully,  it truly is all about intention.  This was a big lesson for me, which has inspired all of the best parts of my life. 

At this point in the podcast, after I've read an excerpt from something I've already written, I usually expand on the concept.  In this episode, however, I just wanna read a little bit more  the first part of chapter five, which is  intention,   from A Path To Be Spiritually Free  

 Intention is a pivotal component of our spiritual lives. Everything we do, create, and experience is influenced  by the intention we bring with us. No aspect of our life escapes this important ingredient. 

When we start with love, when love is our foundational intention,  everything we create exudes love. We are always creating all of the time. You may feel you're not a creative person, but I would argue that everyone who is alive is creating all the time. For some reason, we usually associate the word create with arts and crafts.

Yes. Writing books, making art, playing music are all forms of creation, but so is initiating a conversation  in that moment of risk, when you greet a stranger, you are creating an experience for the other person.  In small and large ways, We are all creating  all of the time.  When you greet a friend warmly, you are creating a safe and welcoming environment for them no matter where you are.  Conversely, when someone yells loudly at another person, we feel the anger flowing off of them even if they are physically far from us.

And we can hear it, and we can see the faces of the people impacted by the anger. We also feel the intention of the interaction.  In this way, negative intentions create an experience of negativity.    Intention is very powerful, and being mindful about how we use our intention is a pivotal element of our spiritual lives.   

It was very interesting for me to read a chapter from Jane Street Cooperative Garden for you because, obviously, that's a novel, and it's a story that's very close to my heart, and especially that particular chapter because it just so flowed so beautifully. I could  I felt like I was there with the characters more or less listening in on their conversation.  Um, and then the The other book, A Path to be Spiritually Free, and, of course, that's just the first part of the chapter, but it still communicates the same concept.  And for me, every single thing I do creatively, um, is infused with intention.  

I remember growing up, uh, having to say a prayer before I ate. And the funny thing about that to me is I was raised Catholic, so we said the same rote words, and I never really gave up much thought. And then as I started my spiritual life  and and I as I'm cooking and as I'm creating food and I'm imbuing it with my intention,  To me, that's more of a prayer than any prayer I ever said before I ate food because it's it's infusing my love and my intention to nourish   and just love the people in my life.

 There's a reference in A Path to be Spiritually free speaking about how just having a conversation with someone is creating this space for them. How powerful is that?

 I love being able to do book signings and and art shows because I have somebody come up to me, and we share these moments, and we both walk away feeling  uplifted because we both brought positive intention to that interaction.  And in this way in this way, we really can infuse our world and our loved ones with positivity. 

I was speaking with someone recently about how I view my goal, and I believe that he and I are aligned. And I hope to get Joaquin on the show soon and you'll get a chance to meet him because he's amazing. 

This is an analogy that may or may not make sense to you, but I I feel there's a potential for the world to spin toward positivity and light and back into darkness. And I know that there are people who benefit from spinning toward darkness.  People who are afraid and confused, are vulnerable.  And, unfortunately,  There's a lot of folks in this world who wanna capitalize on that, who wanna make money from that. 

And people like me and  my friend Joaquin and somebody else that you're gonna get to meet, Mezdeline.  We are all spinning the world toward the light. And that's my intention with everything I do and every fiber of my being. And that's why when you listen to my podcast,  My ultimate hope is that by the time you get to the end of our time together,  you feel better. You feel yourself looking toward the light, and hopefully, you're starting to see around yourself your opportunities  for spinning the world in that positive direction. 

Because I am not alone,  and, honestly,  There's no hope if I was.  There's a lot of people out here, and and I honestly believe  that the people spinning the world in the direction of light, we are gaining on them, and we're certainly not gonna give up. Yay.  

So that brings us to the end of another episode. I hope you enjoyed it.

Uh, I would love to hear from you if you have an opinion about Jane Street Cooperative Garden, if you'd like more from that.  I I, of course, dearly love that book and all the characters, so any excuse to go visit them is always welcome for me.  Um, now just for a little housekeeping, I make it really easy to reach out to me. So if you're  interested in  more about Laura Pallatin. I'm on Instagram,  uh, Facebook,  threads, and TikTok.

I've made a website for the Practically Spiritual Show dot com, all run together. And also, I have a website for me and my artsy stuff, laura pallatin dot com.  I would really like to create a community around this idea of breaking religious and cultural indoctrination and supporting one another on finding our own path. And to do that, I am collecting email addresses to make a at least quarterly  newsletter. And hopefully, some other ideas will come to me as far as ways to build this community.

I I think it could be really special.  Certainly gonna be a different kind of community because we have to support one another as we all have our own experience, and, historically, communities are about shared experience. So can you have shared experience  of supporting one another in unique experiences? Let's find out. WHat do you say?  Until next time,  take care of yourselves and remember, there is no them. There really is only us.

  Thanks for listening to the Practically Spiritual Show.  I mean it. Thank you so much for sticking around to the end. It means so much to me. See you next time. I love you.