As we step into the last evening of the last day of the year, I have an announcement to make: I’ve changed this blog’s name (along with my Facebook page) to “Scattering the Light” in readiness for the New Year, a new era and moving forwards!

I’d been struggling a bit with the old name  of “chasing the light” for some time because the very act of chasing, pursuing or seeking something suggests that we don’t already have it, that we are in a perpetual state of ‘lack’ – which seemed to contradict everything that I am about (and therefore what this blog and much of my writing and gathering of information is about). As such, ‘chasing’ is a mindset that is self-perpetuating, one that guarantees that we will remain in a state of pursuit without ever arriving – NOT where I intend to be in 2013!!

Chasing is a pointless activity at the best of times. My dog has the right attitude to it, disdainful as he is of other dogs that chase – he simply sits himself down and waits until their dizzying circles bring the right back to where he has been all the time!

As with all things – love, light, happiness, joy, God or whatever you seek – you will find it the very moment you realise that you don’t need to seek it, every time! Moreover, you will always find it residing where it has always been – right there inside of YOU. I already have all the light I will ever need, shining brightly inside of me – we all do – and all I am trying to do here is remind everyone else that may have forgotten that all-important truism, even for a moment; to share that realisation around by scattering it to the four winds as the message-within-a-message of all that I write and all that I do so that it spreads amongst as many of us as possible in the coming year.

Taken straight from Wikipedia, “Light scattering is a form of scattering in which light is the form of propagating [spreading – disseminating – multiplying] energy which is scattered. ” If that doesn’t perfectly describe all that I am about, I don’t know what does!

Yes, this is the second alteration to my social media “identity” this year – but then its been a massive year for me measured against the yard-stick of personal growth, consciousness-expanding and working out something of what I am all about, what my purpose is and where my life-journey is taking me. I regard the new name as a hat I have decided to wear, one that better suits my purpose as I step into the year ahead; and that purpose has altered perceptibly over the past twelve months.

More than ever before before, my once disparate roles as artist and spiritual adventurer have merged to become two sides of the same coin, mutually dependent aspects of all that I Am – one being the means of expressing my ever-expanding conscious awareness of the other.  On top of that, this year has seen art settle into a new role as just one of many means by which I express myself, one (albeit important) pencil in my toolbox, as I have found myself needing and longing to use a myriad other ways to make my essential-self heard.  Not that the gleaning of all this new breadth to my creative-self has, in any way, resulted in a reduction in how much I express myself through paint since I now find that the less I seek to specialise, the more I seem to produce on all fronts; there seems to be no limit to possibility, no pigeon-holing or  rules to be adhered to once you expand creativity to include all areas, all methods and all things and that is where I find myself at the start of a new year. Its all flux and flow for me – and I welcome all that and the vast array of possibilities it brings!

Along those lines, and if you follow my post, you’ll note its only a couple of months since my last change of blog-name which, in a world where building an audience, a recognizable ‘brand’, is deemed all-important, might seem commensurate with my lack of commitment to achieving either; and yet I say that getting the name right is far more important than sticking to the wrong one like glue.  So why the fixation on a name, you may ask; what’s the big deal?  Well, if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand about aspirations and goal-setting in the past year, its that what we label ourselves, what we mentally imagine ourselves as being, right down to the little phrases we use about ourselves in casual speech or in jest, is absolutely KEY to what we achieve and the reality we create.  It goes right down to the level of how much we self-criticise on the inside and how much we say all those pre-programmed and supposedly ‘harmless’ phrases to ourselves like “I don’t deserve it” or “I’ll never be able to do that”.  Who we imagine we will become (even – or, perhaps, especially – subliminally) is who we do become – end of story – so if you don’t like what or where you are right now, know that its the direct product of what you’ve been imagining for yourself in the past, including all those negative beliefs set in place by parents, schooling, past experiences and the culture we live in.

Likewise, set a positive goal, an aspiration, a role description, a creative title for yourself (or your blog!) – and the more descriptive or visual this is, the better – and you are far more likely to achieve that version of yourself at some tangible point in the future than if you leave it to chance. Such actions set into motion the first yet crucial baby steps in the direction of what you want to happen THE VERY SECOND you create that mental image and focus on it as ‘who you are’ – yes, at the sub-conscious level but please  know that the sub-conscious is the very cauldron of our lives, the hub of all creation from which we cook up  all that we come to experience in the future, down to the finest details. To that end, I spent last year’s New Years Eve creating a massive, colourful and detailed vision board depicting all of my aspirations for the coming year – and what a year I’ve had!

On that note, I would say the branding of a creative outlet such as a blog is all-important as you summon into being the version and expression of yourself that is the very focus of your creativity, the ‘you’ that you share with all the world. And if that branding needs to re-invent itself from time to time, just go with it and grow with it, because there’s nothing more limiting or counter-creative than trying to squeeze yourself into a label that no longer fits ‘who you are’.

And so, as I embark upon this new leg in my creative journey – where the goals of sharing thoughts about who we are, where we are and where we are going, about new science and living deliberately in a vibrational world where we share oneness consciousness and realise that we are all minutely and profoundly connected to each other are right ‘up there’ with photographing sunsets and light prisms on frost or painting sunbursts through trees and moments of sudden radiance –  the word “scatter” seemed to cover all of what I do far better than any other that came to mind.  The phrase “scattering light” brings to mind a radiant explosion of tiny shards of light dispersing through space and across the earth, a zillion miles from the sun-their-origin yet still carrying the tiny rainbow-prisms of sunlight like tiny messages from source. Or seeds being dispersed far and wide to take root in virgin soil in order to spread the verdant message of the new era of peace, love and positivity that is dawning for humanity, if only we can see our way to nurturing it along a bit with our combined efforts, our words and deeds. We are all deliverers of this light – all of us who resonate with these kinds of thoughts, even those who only whisper the message hesitantly amongst chosen friends or to themselves in their quietest moments – and in a new spirit of boldness for 2013, I choose to shout about my own part in this ‘light scattering’ process. I feel it is all part of realising my full potential to do so.

And that’s one more thing about light – we all have it within us yet some of us tend to hold it back or ration how much of it we share with others; all part of the conditioning that we have lived under and which we need to throw off like shackles as we step into a whole new era of living to our potential. Nor is it a case of seeking to outshine each other – those days have also been and gone; its more about joining forces to create a perfection of unity that is like the brightest, whitest radiance that we can all be, together.  Much as the light fragmented though a prism demonstrates all the beauty of its constituent colours (as do we, with our individual gifts and characteristics), so the light is synthesised back into radiant white light again once the unity that is fundamental to it is remembered, just as humanity will be synthesised into the most radiant version of itself once we choose to remember how to bring our unique portion of the light back together with the light of everyone else! I could go on and on with this metaphor but I won’t – you get the idea.  Already, I regard 2013 as the year of being much more BOLD in my intentions (no more chasing for me!) and it starts right here, with this new hat that I have decided to wear. I think it suits me.

Related articles

• Scattering the Light on Facebook
• In 2013, choose to Be YOU fully and shine that beautiful light! (balpoint.net)
• Chasing Dreams (livevitale.wordpress.com)