“A soft sea washed around the house,
A sea of summer air . . .”
– Emily Dickinson –
Breathe deeply of this soft sea. Breathe out heaviness, breathe in buoyancy.
Nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week – porch beams shadow each other:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince,
“is that somewhere it hides a well.”
– The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry –
Nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm. Drink from your well, then become one.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
I’ve been reading Julia Cameron’s book It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again. If you’ve ever read Julia Cameron, you know she gives assignments. In this book, one of the assignments is to take walks each week without your phone. This resonated with me big-time. Now you could say that’s because I’m just set in my ways and out of date with the current phone thing.
(Full disclosure: I’m of the generation that grew up with rotary dial phones tethered to the wall. If you wanted to have a private call, you hoped the coiled cord connecting the handset to the base reached far enough that you could duck into a side room and shut the door – not all the way, of course, because of said cord. Still, unless you were lucky enough to have phone in your bedroom, it was the best you could do.)
But I do have a smart phone. I’m on Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr. I take pictures and check email on my phone. I’ve read ebooks on it. I tote it with me as I carry the dirty clothes downstairs two flights from the second floor bedroom to the washer and dryer in the basement. (I’m hoping to hear from an agent and don’t want to miss the call. Good excuse, right?) But I’ve also seen how the little screen that connects us to the wider world 24/7 can also disconnect us from the smaller here-and-now world that we inhabit physically. So when I read Cameron’s assignment to go for a walk without the phone, it hooked me. I asked why leave the phone behind? (Why is my personal first-responder on most occasions.) Here’s what why told me.
1. To de-agitate
You know that center post that turns back and forth in a washing machine? Right. The agitator. It stirs things up. I’ve noticed that constant online connection does that as well. At least to me. Leaving the phone behind for a while is a way to let the sediment settle and nurture the calm in my soul.
2. To not take the easy-out
Concentrating on the screen is like hanging a “do not disturb” sign on our forehead. Which is fine when we need to be onscreen. But it can also be an escape from connecting with the world in our vicinity at the present moment. We can retreat into the cocoon of online.
3. To become aware
So this is the opposite of retreat from the present moment. We get to pay attention and see the gifts the day has for us.
4. To experience with all our senses
Paying attention allows us to take in the sights, sounds, aromas, flavors, and textures around us. There’s good stuff there.
5. To connect with reality (not virtual reality but real reality)
Taking in the present world with our five senses lets us connect with reality and the emotional lift that our surroundings can bring. We enjoy the rain shower not because someone posted a GIF of rain slipping down a window but because we smell it in the air and see the drops sparkling on our own windowpane and catch the wet coolness in our palms.
6. To keep ourselves company
Since we can connect to the online world 24/7, we never have to feel alone even if we are – which can make it scary to put down the phone and realize no one else is around. But when we put down the phone, we have the opportunity to connect with our self, to discover our self, to keep our self company, to learn to like our self – and if we don’t, to figure out why and maybe what to do about it.
7. To process
News and weather and the latest trends splash over us in wave after wave after wave. In the momentary troughs between those waves, pundits and twitterers and bloggers and analysts process all the info for us, telling us what we should think about it. As a result, we never have to think for ourselves – what a relief, because there’s more breaking news that I really should be up on, and . . . enough already. Putting down the phone lets me climb out of the waves and find my footing on dry ground. It lets me process what I’m hearing and seeing and make up my own mind about what I think. (Another plus for keeping your self company.)
8. To refill our spirits
On-screen time can be draining. Lifting our eyes from it allows us to absorb the peace of the moment. Not every moment is peaceful; I get that. But most are. And the thing is, the more we recognize and soak in the calm, peaceful moments, the more serenity gets stored in our hearts, so that we can carry the calm into situations that are not peaceful, occasions begging for our calmness to add sanity into the mix.
9. To experience the uninterrupted flow of time
Time seems to flow differently when we’re online. An hour can go by when we feel like it’s only been 15 minutes. Real time ticks steadily and peacefully past. There used to be a saying about being so bored you were watching the grass grow. Sometimes we can use a bit of watching grass grow and flowers open and bees drone on, doing their bee thing. Inhale simplicity. The gift of the moment is uniquely yours, a treasure that’s yours and yours alone. And in a sharing world, it’s okay to tuck your moment into your heart and leave it unshared.
10. To prove we’re not addicted to it
I heard a news segment on the radio about addiction treatment programs that are popping up to treat . . . yes, screen-time addiction. We can get sucked into overdoing anything, I suspect, including the phone. Like a closet alcoholic, we say I can leave the screen, put the phone down, silence the incoming pings for a day . . . or maybe half a day . . . or an hour at least. Maybe we should challenge ourselves by saying, Prove it.
Nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week – an air plant that blew off a tree in Texas:
Shadow of the Week – from my trip to Princeton:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
This comes from a children’s classic (can you guess which one?):
“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.
. . . sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun – which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so.
. . . sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries.
. . . sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure
. . . sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true
. . . sometimes a look in some one’s eyes.”
– from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Wishing you the awe of forever and ever and ever.
(And once you have it, carry that calm.)
Nature of the week – a heron in Texas:
Shadow of the Week – also from my Texas trip:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
– Henry James, quoted in Edith Wharton’s A Backward Glance –
What are your two most beautiful words? I’m partial to Henry James’s two this week, having enjoyed long, lazy afternoons for the past few days on vacation at a lake in Texas. Hot outdoors, cool and air-conditioned indoors, visiting with family and friends, eating ice cream mid-afternoon. Summer afternoon.
I wish you a vacation that frees you from the usual daily stresses this summer.
Nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week – blooming hibiscus:
Shadow of the Week – pool umbrella:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson –
I spent last week at a writers’ conference in Princeton and realized again just how much a change of location draws our attention to our surroundings. Of course even in unfamiliar places, we can stay stuck in our own thoughts (or focus on our smart phones). But to a child, a new place is an adventure. And that’s what I had last week – new paths, different gardens, benches on the green where I could sit and simply notice the world around me. Adventure.
In my last post, I suggested six ways to notice the world like a child: Sit in a swing, angle yourself, squint, focus on moving water, squat, and get bored. Here are six more ways we can enter into that space of childlike wonder.
2. Look up. I love trees, especially treetops. I love how the top branches reach toward the sky and dance in the wind. But when I get busy, I plow through my day at eye level. So notice the tops of tree. Gaze at the stars. Watch a jet make a vapor trail. Look up and discover.
3. Imagine. Children specialize in imagination, which is an extended way to notice the world. Imagining takes noticing to the next level. Remember when you were a child and looked up at clouds? Maybe you not only noticed them but also imagined that the cloud shapes were elephants or ships or whatever delighted you. My daughter-in-law and I often walk at our local botanical gardens. One of our favorite trails passes among trees where roots vein out across a ground carpeted with moss. We almost expect to see fairies come dancing through.
4. Experiment. Make something happen. Toss a pebble into a pool, listen to the splash, and watch the ripples. Blow a dandelion. Blow bubbles with a straw in a glass of milk. Stir the milk and watch the vortex.
5. Follow through. Sometimes we notice but turn away too soon to absorb the wonder of the moment. Blow bubbles, watch colors wink on their surface, and then follow through by continuing to watch as the bubbles float away. (Seriously, how long has it been since you’ve blown bubbles?)
6. Linger. This is like following through, but I think of it in the context of an unexpected moment that strikes us with a sense of wonder in passing. I grew up in West Texas, where the sunsets can be spectacular. I now live in Nashville, Tennessee, where trees block the view. But a few months ago, an amazing sunset turned billowing clouds overhead every shade of brilliant pink and orange. Along some of the busiest streets, people stepped out of shops and pedestrians paused on the sidewalks, and for a few moments, it seemed like the whole city looked up and lingered in awe.
So use as many senses as you can, look up, imagine, experiment, follow through, and linger. And use those moments to nourish peace and cultivate loving kindness. Then carry the calm.
Nature of the week – flowers in Princeton:
Shadow of the Week – lamp shadow in Princeton:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Do you have some time off this summer – maybe a week or two of vacation? Can you carve out a bit of down time for yourself? It’s a good habit to get into, allowing ourselves down time. Time to simply be. Even five minutes does wonders if we can let ourselves relax into it, especially if we spend the time in free-form noticing, being in the moment, being aware – like a child.
When I was a child, I spent a lot of time simply being. Free time was free, and there was lots of it. The only screen we had was the television, there were only three channels, and it was turned on only at select times. So I read, or I found something artsy-craftsy to do, or I simply sat and noticed and pondered. Even now, when I think of tapping in to a sense of wonder and deep calm, I go back to that state of being that taught me how to notice.
Children are experts at seeing and sensing wonder in common objects that adults often rush past. Here are six ways to train yourself to notice like a child and set your sense of wonder free again.
Were you fortunate enough to have free time as a child? Were you allowed to get bored? Did you experience simply being? What did you notice during that time? Next week, I’ll post six more ways to notice like a child. Meanwhile, nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week – from my Wednesday Walk at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens:
Shadow of the Week – from my deck:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“[S]ee what is all around you just waiting to be seen.”
P.T. Barnum
I’ve been learning to paint with watercolor, and I’m especially intrigued by the paintings of Yuko Nagayama. Her first point of “Watercolor Wisdom” is “Don’t just look at something. Observe it! Observe and get a feel for it.” Observing may involve touching, squinting your eyes to more easily see light and shadow, and appreciating shapes.
So this week, observe what’s around you waiting to be seen.
And nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week – Observed these flowers, had to paint them:
Shadow of the Week – scissors and spiral on my desk. (I’ve been writing a lot.):
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise. . . .
– Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill” –
Pause sometime this week to look at nature with quiet eyes. Watch the play of the wind and the shift of the shadows. Let the shape, color, and scent of a flower imprint on heart and mind. Hold it. And carry this calm.
Nature photo of the week – bellflower:
Shadow of the Week – leaf on leaf:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Where you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow.”
– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden –
Tend is short for attend. Meaning pay attention.
Peace is found more often by paying attention not to what’s trending but to what needs tending. Sure, sometimes they’re the same. But be aware. Pay attention. Nourish peace, cultivate loving kindness, carry the calm. And tend the roses.
Nature photo of the week – tiny beauty blown off a pine tree:
Shadow of the Week – from flowers on my deck:
Text and photos © 2016 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.