A chapter from Candice O'Denver's "Clarity in Everyday Life: A Handbook and Guide"

1. ACTING POWERFULLY IN THE WORLD
How do we learn to act powerfully in the world? Short moments, many
times. Without that we will just be flying around with limited understanding,
and we won’t be able to help ourselves from having emotional reactions to
situations that will lead us off in many directions. But if we just give
ourselves some time to get grounded in the clarity of open intelligence and
gain a confidence that is unshakable and unmovable, then we are going to
be okay. We’re not going to have to wonder what to do, because we’ll
always know what to do.
This doesn’t mean that we are going to just walk around with a big smile
on our face acting like some kind of sweetie­pie; no, wisdom can also be
very wrathful. But there is a big difference between the wrathful compassion
of open intelligence and getting angry, blowing your top, being out of control
and saying anything you want. This type of response has no beneficial
purpose; you hurt yourself and you hurt other people. Wrathful compassion
is always motivated by love and wisdom, and the recipient, if they’re
receptive and open, will recognize that it’s motivated by love and wisdom.
When you ground yourself in the clarity of open intelligence, you have an
incredible power to see all kinds of things you couldn’t see before. Think of it
this way: you can see in all directions at once! You can see everything that’s
occurring, whether it’s within your physical space or not, and you can also
see how it’s going to pan out. Open intelligence is timeless, so not only can
you see what’s occurring now, but you can also see how certain things will
lead to other things if they continue to go that way.
From the clarity of open intelligence, you’re no longer bound within
conventional constructs. If you are an environmentalist, a doctor, an
engineer, a bread baker or whatever you happen to be, you’ll have an
entirely different perspective when compared to a person without that
insight—no matter how brilliant that person might be. From the perspective
of clarity you will have a power that simply isn’t present if there is no
certainty in open intelligence.
Once there is no cage of conventional intellectual speculation about how to
solve problems, then all kinds of new ways of looking at problems open up.
If you have burning issues that are really important to you, then you want to

2. act from the clarity that comes from certainty in open intelligence. You don’t
want to be acting based upon your data.
There’s tremendous power in the practice of short moments, many times,
because it’s not grounded in some kind of airy­fairy state or some
abstraction about who we are. The final responsibility is in every one of us
and in what is right here—nowhere else. As long as we are seeking for
something, we are trying to get out of the here­and­now in some way, but
the here­and­now is really all we’ve got.