An Active Will

"The life of a gardener is full of change and active will." - Karel Capek, The Gardener's Year

Will: 1) Desire, wish; 2) something desired; especially a choice or determination of one having authority; 3) the act, process, or experience of willing; 4) mental powers manifested as wishing, choosing, desiring, or intending; 5) the disposition to act according to principles or ends; 6) the power of control over one's own actions or emotions.

We all have wills. We have desires or wishes, choices, intentions - some that we voice, and some that live within us as seeds in the pre-spring soil. However, we do not all necessary have the disposition to act on these things, or the power of control over ourselves to make them happen.

In other words, we may all have wills, but they are not all active.

Could this be where we fail so often? That we discusses wills (e.g. dreams, objectives, thought, wishes) in the terms of "Do you have them?" rather than extended that concept to "Do you have the disposition and power to act on those things?" If so, we are doing a great dis-service to those with whom we interact and speak; we pretend that having is enough to actuate something instead of having plus doing.

Capek in The Gardener's Year spends a great deal of time poking gentle fun at gardener's because they are always in motion, always exercising their active wills. They don't (or can't) leave things to nature: they have to constantly work, rearrange, plant and replant, move, adjust, and nurture the garden in their care. They see the garden of their dreams in their minds; the gardener who is a true gardener is constantly working to make it happen.

Nor is an active will based on sight. As Capek points out (and any gardener will tell you), good gardening requires a vision that transcends the current appearance. They perceive what will be, not see what is - as Musashi said, "The gaze should be large and broad. This is the twofold gaze of perception and sight. Perception is strong, sight is weak." If we only based our wills on what we currently see (or Heaven forfend, feel) very little would ever get done. Part of any active will is a commitment to what can be, that thing in our mind - not what exists around us at the current time.

Is my will active? Do I not just have those things that I want or need to do, but the action and power behind them? Do I have the power of perception, the power to see things in my mind as I want them to be - and do I have the power to cling to that in the midst of circumstances which are not so?