Earlier today, I mentioned the saying, "Think Globally, and act locally," and I wonder how many have any idea of how to put such a thing into practice. A friend of mine, years ago, introduced me to a concept he called "dual awareness." The idea is that you put your full attention into what you are doing, but hold the slightest vantage point in consciousness to observe your own application of attention. You could say the principle is to "do it while seeing yourself doing it." It seems too simple to have effect, but the overwhelming tendency is to forget... to allow your activities to become unconscious and your attention to wander from the task at hand. You will have to work at it.

There are all kinds of mysterious things about the universe. There are many, many things which we don't understand. We observe coincidental ocurrances that seem too much to be mere coincidence. We take leaps of conjecture and faith from those observations to create belief systems which become formalized as religions.

But the Wisdom of the Hands isn't about getting spooky spiritual. There is no need for that. When our attention is placed fully on the actions of our hands and we hold a simultaneous awareness of higher principle by putting quality workmanship and attention to detail as our primary motives, our work takes higher form. Others see that quality and feel things in the work that they may not fully understand or be able to explain, but will interpret as beauty or even love. When you have used your hands to express your highest human qualities in the making of an object, do you believe that others will feel and understand your work and respond?

I'm just silly enough to believe that when these qualities are placed within work, they have the power to touch others through the boundaries of time and space. Have you ever walked into a museum and been moved by a work done hundreds of years before? If so, you may know what I'm talking about.

The statue in the photo above was hand carved in China over 600 years ago and is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Curators found a secret compartment with a scroll which held the signatures of the carvers. Do craftsmen have the power to touch hearts through time and space? Visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum and see for yourself.