Marisha's Tale

Under Mary Cayan and Laurie Phillips’ expert and insouciant direction of small group workshops, I learned about Vision Cards. I first used my cards to steer myself through two huge life events, which happened to coincide: the end of my twenty-year marriage and the publication of my first novel. Because the divorce process was wracked with grief and fear, I suspected I might duck the joy and expansiveness possible with the novel launch, unless I went about both in a focused way. 

Vision Cards were my method.  The cards I made embodied feeling and intention and made steps toward goals easier to take and less formulaic.  The cards I made were dreamlike rather than reasoned, yet those dream images beckoned powerfully, more powerfully than a verbal resolution ever could. 

These days, I’m using Vision Cards to steer myself along as a single mother of a lively twelve-year-old boy.  His welfare is central to me, yet the Vision Card workshops have also brought to mind my own ongoing quest for joy and full life. 

A long-held, barely admitted dream to own a kayak became a reality. After my latest Vision Card session, I found a way to swing the cost, and trips out onto rivers and lakes in my kayak reliably bring me back to that sense of being a kid again, sniffing the wind for what’s next. 

“[An] enthralling first novel … that surprises us with fresh insights….Chamberlain’s ear is finally attuned to every nuance of The Rose Variations, a novel graced by a profound respect for the humble particulars of life.” —James Wilcox, New York Times Book Review, Feb 22, 2009