Have you ever thought about the small things and how they can change your life? Every second we’re altering our course, crazy isn’t it? I can remember one small discussion regarding Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man that changed my life path completely.
About 12 or so years ago a friend of mine started a discussion group in her home in which we talked about subjects tied to manifesting a life that we desired. The discussions ranged widely: coping techniques, spiritual concepts, aligning with authentic self, meditation techniques, the power of thought and a positive mind, visualization — always with a focus of ever-shifting our mood upward in the now.
At one of the early meetings, my friend brought in a list of emotions – an emotional scale that listed most of our human states-of-being from love down to fear. A discussion pursued regarding a drawing she had seen, at a lecture or in a book or somewhere, of the Da Vinci Vitruvian Man, with his top half, from the waist up, in the light and from the waist down in the dark. Whoever had altered the piece in this way had also overlaid the drawing with a list of emotions similar to the scale we were discussing, from love, joy and gratitude at the very top then continuing down the emotional scale into the dark regions of the drawing where anger, hate and fear made the bottom entries of the list.
The Vitruvian Man is the famous Da Vinci drawing of a nude male with his arms and legs outstretched in two different positions, somewhat giving him the appearance of making a snow angel. The drawing is reportedly a correlative look at ideal human proportions using geometry. Da Vinci used Fibonacci ratios to create a perfectly balanced Vitruvian Man, demonstrating how a human can fit inside a circle, symbolizing the divine, and also a square, signifying the earthly and secular aspects of our reality. It seemed quite clever to me that someone would add the scale of our emotions to this depiction of human and material world balance. And, I now find it mind-blowing that the discussion that significantly altered the intention of my spiritual path was centered on a piece of art known for depicting this kind of balance.
Although we didn’t see the drawing with the emotional scale inscribed on it and were only discussing what she had seen, the mental image, none the less, was burned forever into my psyche. This is because she told us that the list of emotions printed onto the light and dark version of the Vitruvian Man had the word ‘kind’ in the light just above the dividing line and the word ‘nice’ in the dark just below the dividing line. A discussion ensued about our perceptions of the nuances between the two words. Although the words are close in meaning, we all agreed that one could be nice without being kind.
Kind denotes a state of being. Kind comes from the heart. It is genuine. When a person is kind it shines through their eyes pouring out from a generous soul. It warms you. On the other hand, or possibly, in a different galaxy there is ‘nice.’ Nice I knew. Nice I lived. I knew what nice was because it was my constant companion. Nice can be kind, but it can also be a mask for deep dark wells of pain, depression, anger, fear and all the other lower energy emotions. Nice could be smiling and cordial at the Starbucks’ counter, and hurling a litany of colorful obscenities, once alone in the car. Nice can be more of a putting on an act thing. Whereas, we all agreed that day that kind is genuine, a more authentic state of being.
When I heard that this unknown genius had put ‘kind’ above the line in the light and ‘nice’ just below the line in the dark energies, it resonated with me to my very core. I knew I was living primarily on the bottom, dark side of the list and this spiked a yearning to ascend to the light side. I wanted to feel good most of the time – to be authentically happy, loving and kind – not just act like I was. I realized there was a lot of acting going on in my existence, and I was fully ready for the real emotions at the top of the list, a genuinely better life. It somehow sparked a desire or intention and became an important factor in how my life then evolved.
I’d love to hear about the little (or big) twists of fate that you feel changed your life or set you on a new path. Please comment below or on my facebook page!! Blessings!
Sandra M. Bell
Sandra M Bell
Author of “Lunchtime Joy Magnet” & personal coach
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