It is still summer, and yet it is feeling like fall more and more. I am still picking dahlias from the garden and feeling the warm sun as I walk the trails, yet I find myself noticing the early signs of fall. Noticing is part of mindfulness. Noticing is simple really. It is not coming to conclusions or telling ourselves a story about a memory, it is just observing. Being an artist requires a great deal of "noticing" and not getting caught in personal perceptions. It sounds easy yet it is not. It takes alertness and discipline to just notice, to just see, to just feel. Nature teaches us volumes about that kind of simplicity because it is not self-conscious. It is "unutterably" itself, as David Whyte says in his poem "Everything is Waiting For You".
The next time you go for a walk practice just noticing. Then the next time you have a shower do the same... feel, hear, smell, taste.... be in that moment and then notice how easily your thoughts fly off to solve some problem or go over some conversation.
"Living well is not about being calm, it is about being present". -Judith Lasater
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