What is the Plan?
During my morning walks I come along a construction site. Over the last months, I observed how two old houses were demolished, then the foundation pit excavated, walls coming up. First, I just observed; later, I started pondering on what was happening.
Many people are cooperating, material is arranged in a certain way. Slowly a house takes form. Or is part of it a garage? Why are things done in this way? I did not know. But it was obvious that all this was done with a purpose – there was a plan behind.
Later, a picture was hung up on the fence of how the house should look like, with information about the enterprises involved. And still later, there were panels with information about sale contacts. I didn’t want to buy an apartment, I just was an uninvolved observer – or was I not? Observing the whole process gave rise to thoughts about what observing this process did with me.
I started pondering again on what is the plan, the plan of my life, the bigger plan. What is the purpose? Or is there no purpose? Obviously, there is. But then what do I recognise and how do the details of my life, of the bigger life, fit into the purpose? Are the activities in tune with the plan? How am I planning and how am I supervising the progress of construction, in my life, in the activities involved? Where am I craftsman, collaborator? Where am I architect? Am I an executor and what is the direction of executing, what I am doing? What do I perceive of a bigger plan and how do my elaborations fit into it? Personality plans, plans without personal perspective, or with a bigger or lesser…
Like with the house construction I am observing things develop without my knowing the bigger purpose, but certain patterns give hints to understand the bigger plan. I remarked how I have been doing plans which ended up in “ruins of goodwill”. Or were they not ruins but stepping-stones for further working out? There is a masonic story that all bricks are needed for the construction of the temple…
I pondered on how I do my plan of the year – by noting everything in a calendar with ephemerides (positions of planets) at the beginning of a year, to mark things which need attention, and things which rhythmically repeat, like solstice and equinox meetings, journeys intended, ongoing meetings, important constellations. And then, in the course of the year, it is worked out.
It takes time to prepare the year but this helps to be in tune with many details, to notice them in advance. There is communication planning, keeping contact with people by contacting them at their birthdays, a part of networking activities. I noticed that many details get elaborated when you repeat and revise. And this way, subtle aspects of the plan reveal which were unknown or unnoticed before. And especially the monitoring and developing of relationships, team building, transforming conflicts into steps of learning.
There is a planning of the day, with what are the tiny activities which first one might not realise as important but which turn out to be so. The cornerstones of the day, like the cornerstones of the building. And thus, the construction of the days, the weeks, the months, the years slowly take shape, a shape which might be useful for the bigger plan, into which my activities might increasingly fit.
Such planning helps to be in tune with what I perceive as the purpose of my life, of life.
September 27th, 2019 at 4:23 pm
This is very beautiful writing, Ludger. A deep pondering & a very useful explanation of how to enter into a new year. Your words touch the heart in so many ways. Your writings here are a Teaching. Thank you, Risa
September 27th, 2019 at 5:11 pm
Thank you dear Risa for you loving feedback!