We need to love things that are ordinary and banal. We must look at them and respect them. We must open ourselves up to the density of the everyday world. Mindfulness does not need any special environment in order to happen. True, some surroundings can be more helpful or favourable, but mindfulness can come to us anywhere. As long as we make a little effort. As long as we remain awake and present.
— Christophe André in Mindfulness: 25 ways to live in the moment through art
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I love the phrase “the density of the everyday world.” How can we ever hope to sense it all, to take it all in and process it? The colour, the pitch, the tone, rhythm, pattern, texture, taste, scents? And then, our reactions and response to it all, complicated and tangled in experience, memory, wish, desire, fear, attachment, grief, hope.
These are photos from two fairly random days in my garden last year, 17 July and 27 August. The pics obviously transmit just visual stimuli, when there was also sound scent, breeze, and so on.
I know I wasn’t aware of even .01% of the things I could have noticed, but my brain or heart might have exploded if I had been.
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Nasturtiums (with insects):
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“The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.” – Hanna Rion
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Veggies (also with insects):
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The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution. ~Paul Cezanne
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Flowers with critters:
Dolichovespula norvegicoides (Northern Aerial yellow jacket) on ‘Ice Ballet’ asclepias
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“This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” – Mary Oliver
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Flowers without very obvious critters:
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“There is a beauty in the world, though it’s harsher than we expect it to be.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours
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Critters on foliage:
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“A woman’s whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.” ― Michael Cunningham, The Hours
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