The Gold King Midas Really Wanted

Begin with an object.

It might be something you want, like the gold King Midas desired.

Or it might be something you don’t want—a recurring problem, fear, or frustration.

Sketch it on paper.

Don’t just think about it. Draw it.

The act of drawing makes you look closely. Your hand follows what your eyes are seeing. The object that seemed fixed and separate begins to become lines on a page.

Then stretch the drawing.

Take those lines and extend them outward.

Draw what the object connects to.

Draw what came before it.

Draw what it leads to.

Draw the feelings that arise from it.

You are no longer just thinking about the connections. You are physically drawing them.

That is the difference between reading a menu and eating the food.

Midas wanted gold because he believed gold would lead to happiness. But he stopped at the object. When everything he touched became gold, he discovered that the thing he wanted was separating him from what he really wanted.

The same process can be used with something we don’t want.

A recurring problem may seem like a solid, separate thing. But when you draw it and begin stretching it through its connections, it starts to open.

A feeling may appear.

Draw that, too.

Then stretch it through its connections.

As each connection is drawn and followed, the original object may begin to dissolve. Another object or feeling may appear, and you draw and stretch that one as well.

Whether we are moving toward something we want or away from something we don’t want, the process is the same:

Draw the object. Stretch it through its connections. Draw what appears. Stretch that, too.

Eventually, what seemed separate may begin to dissolve into connection.

And the connections may lead toward peace, stillness, happiness, love, and unity.

The object is the portal.

The drawing is the way in.

The stretching is the way through.

You draw your way into connection—and you may discover that connection has been drawing you in all along.