Visual Framework for Change - Users Guide

You may use Visual Framework for Change as an illustrated guidebook, just like the one you take on a trip to an unfamiliar place. This book is for individuals who like to examine life and its changes from many points of view. Each chapter covers a different landscape of life, together with its challenges and opportunities. You are invited to enjoy the visual scenery as well as the written ideas. Here are several alternative ways in which you might find a sequence and a pace that suit your needs.

1) Get an overview. Read the summary at the beginning of each chapter, which highlights the terrain ahead. Then pause to think about how the patterns in the coming chapter relate to each other.

2) Observe nature. The book illustrates life’s changes with paintings that depict nature. You may look at these visuals to provide yourself with a sense of what the change feels like. For example, clouds building up on the horizon indicate “restraint.” Until the clouds have come closer, they cannot deliver any rain.

3) Meditate on the metaphor. A second illustration containing dreamlike imagery accompanies each change. View this image as a meditation or a way of inquiring into the deeper aspects of the issue. In Image Nine • Restrained, a pile of books on the floor depicts “restraint.” These books (knowledge) need to be shelved (organized) before the information is easily accessible.

4) Contemplate the choices. The written material explores two ways to view change. One approach arises from personal identification (ego). The other comes from a global understanding (essence).

5) When puzzled by an image, you may read the italicized comments in the text that briefly describe what the artist had in mind.

6) Start by reading an explanation of the artist’s process at the end of the book in “Story of the Doors.”