S L O W I N G D O W N
Sometimes to notice, you have to slow down.
Slow Living on a Rainy Day — Niamh at Fairyland Cottage on Ireland’s southeast coast
I’ve written a few words in the past (The Risk of Slowing Down, Nov. 2013) about slowing down and noticing things, taking time to be surprised. From that,
“For me, time in the garden is a series of slow-motion moments that lend themselves to surprise, that instant when something is revealed that was hidden, when my sense of “how things are” is shaken, when what I see or hear is not what I expect to see or hear (or feel, taste, touch). And in that moment there is the possibility of anything, of everything, because I am untethered and unknowing; I am awaiting and receptive. I’m awakened. It’s a precarious place of risk.
“The surprise of noticing is a sign, I think, that there is a lot we don’t notice ordinarily, and that our expectations — what we expect to see — may blind us.”
Love this