Hello Beautiful Beings –
“If I just keep noticing things then I will never get bored.” ~ Joel Primack
This was a realization he had when he was just 7 years old and went on to fuel his life long inquiry into the cosmos and life. It is a potent teaching for all of us especially as devices become more ubiquitous and demanding of our time and attention. We get ‘bored’ and pick up the phone, sometimes not even knowing why… it’s become a gesture of habit, somewhere we look to find stimulus and connection. But we all know that it’s not really what we are longing for.
I invite you to pause reading after this paragraph. Set a timer and take 5 minutes to look around you… out the window, into your body, in any and all directions and simply notice what is here. Use all your senses to keep noticing details, nuances, layers, patterns, familiar and new things. When you think you have seen, heard, touched it all, go further, what else is there here for you to connect with and notice?
Were you able to do this? Was it hard to put down the device, to keep gently inquiring into the layers of being that are constantly revealing themselves to us, movement by moment, if we tune in? We can cultivate this ability to keep opening to what is here with us in every moment. And I put it to you that this is what we are longing for… depth, connection, love found in attention. Not just the attention we recieve but the attention we offer. But we have to cultivate and build this ability, especially in response to modernity and its technological demands. I am not against technology but I do believe that we must keep our humanity intact and tend the way our attention is attuned. We must keep attuning to the mystery of life that is all around us and inside us to keep us awake, in awe and humble. To keep us from being bored and then doing and saying things without awareness and presence, without consciousness.
I have a beautiful eastern facing deck that allows me to sit in the mornings with my cup of tea and notice…the changing light, the dogs and their humans walking by, the bird song…moment to moment deepening. I also have time to notice what is present in me…my body, mind, heart, soul…on that given morning, and how it oscillates and shifts and is constantly unfolding. I purposefully leave the phone inside and take the time to attune my awareness to life in these moments and allow myself to practice not getting bored but continually inquiring into what is unfolding, what else might I be missing? I invite you to find some time to do something similar…sit in the waiting room and simply notice, take a walk with eyes and ears attuned to the world around you, eat a meal with all senses awake…re-awaken your senses to light and sound and touch and see how this might give you more aliveness and less boredom. There is always more to notice!
This is exactly what we will be playing with in my upcoming retreat…Embodying Presence; Continuum Inquiry and Deep Perceiving Retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs, May 15-19…please join us!
May we keep noticing the world around and within us with ever deepening appreciation
May we attune, over and over again, to the mysterious depths all around and within us
May we offer attention as love to the world of beauty and terror that so needs us present
May we bring wild blessings and fierce love to all we encounter
Practice Prompts:
- Recommit to banishing boredom and engage in the simple practice of noticing life daily. Set a timer, if that helps, and turn off the beeps and buzzes of the devices and take some time to sit or walk and notice the world around you and within you. Open your senses and keep asking, what else? what else? and what else? Take time to notice how you feel afterwards and maybe write, draw or move your impressions.
- Consider what it takes to go deeply into a subject or practice. It takes repetition, curiosity, reiteration, and patience. It is easy to skim the surface of things and accumulate a lot of ideas but never discover the deep dimensions waiting in the ongoing practicing or returning to something over and over again. What in your life is asking for you to show up in such a way to start to recover or discover the depths of meaning, experience or purpose? Perhaps commit to a daily inquiry for the next 40 days and see what happens.
- I offer one to one sessions, in-person in Bend, Oregon, and virtually all over the world. These sessions are centered on supporting you finding nervous system capacity and resiliency through various practices including but not limited to Somatic Experiencing®, Continuum Inquiry, Safe and Sound Protocol and various embodying practices. Respond to this email or schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session.
Practice Opportunities:
In Person:
Virtual:
- Yoga for Resilience, Mondays, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Body of Insight
- All Levels Yoga, Sundays…Mar 30, Apr 19, May 10, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Two Dog Yoga
- 3 NEW CLASSES JUST ADDED…On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Two Dog Yoga
Inspirational Wisdom
Where I sit is holy, holy is the ground
Forest, mountain, river listen to the sound
Great Spirit circles all around me.
Who I am is holy, holy are we
Body, thought, emotion connection you and me
Great Spirit circles all around me
~ Traditional Native American Chant, true origins and timing unknown
