It's Time to Wake Up

Most of us go through life without being fully aware. (There are whole books written on this topic.) We get up in the morning, throw on our clothes, grab a cup of coffee and a muffin, and face day the same way we've been doing it for years. 

But what if we slowed down just long enough to notice, to wake up, to look at our world with new eyes. What if we paid attention to how the space narrows as we step through the bedroom door and then opens again as we move into the kitchen? What if we woke up enough to notice in slow motion detail the miracle of our hand grasping the warm coffee mug and lifting it to our lips? What if we allow ourselves to become aware of the three dimensional nature of our living space, how one space flows into another. What if we take time to notice, in slow detail, all the different shades of red in the painting on our living room wall?

I don't do this very often - I manage to keep my self and my mind much too busy. But when I do take time to awaken, the world around me blossoms like a fresh spring flower. Sometimes it happens if I have my camera with me. I remember early one morning noticing a blob of bird shit on a railing, normally a yucky thing I would have walked right past or taken a sponge to. But when I took the time to frame it in my viewfinder, it became a lovely shape against the grain of the dark rail, something to photograph and mount on my wall instead of treating it like a blob of disgusting offal.

But there is another step to this waking up process, the step I like the best. It's when I become aware of being aware. It’s the self who says "This is cool! Look how I'm paying attention to my hand grasping the mug!  Look how I'm aware of paying attention to the birds at the feeder." I call this guy the observer, not the observer who stands apart and isn't involved, but rather the one who is truly awake to himself and to the world around him. This "observer" feels like the real me, my core self, the best part of me. It's a shame he's awake so little, but when my busy self remembers to pause, to step back and let him come forward, it feels wonderful. And in some mysterious way, he's the one who's aware enough to make the best decisions, to guide me wisely through life.

I don't find this easy, not because I can't wake him up, but because my life gets so full I forget to do it. (Now that I write this, I'm determined (again!) to keep him awake as much as possible!)

So play around with this, have fun, and let me know what happens.