The More Beautiful World

The title of this post is the first part of a book title: The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. Yes it is quite a mouthful. The idea for this post came to me when I was listening to Krista Tippet's Interview of Marie Howe on On Being (you can listen here). In this interview, Marie Howe talks about an assignment she gives her students. The assignment is to write 10 observations a week, without using metaphor. Just 10 "naked" observations. It can be an observations of an apple sitting on a table, for example. The point of the exercise, I think, is to really tune into the world around her students, to make them pay more attention to the world. 

I believe that when we do this we see the beauty, we see the connectedness of things. We can possibly find ways that are possible for us to take care of the world around us. The world, to me, includes not just the physical world, but ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors. After all, we are all part of the world, part of the earth. 

I also think that when we focus, when we breathe, we can see that there is much to be grateful for. lt can give us a way to see beyond the fear that is so pervasive, to keep hope alive, because, after all there is much beauty in the world, even if it is "just" an apple sitting on a table. 

An observation for today: There is a folding knitting basket sitting to the left of my computer desk. It contains knitting tools, boysenberry colored yarn, teal colored yarn, a darning egg. The basket has wooden handles and wooden cross supports. The handles have a diagonally cut circles incised into them. The fabric is beige with palm trees on it. Some of them a slightly darker color of beige, others are green and brown. 

It would most likely be impossible to pay that much attention to everything around us. In fact we apparently have a brain chemical that helps us filter out much of the stimuli coming in so that we are able to focus. But, taking time to make an observation like this can be a way to slow us down for a few moments, to make our "monkey minds", as meditators call it, slow down and let go. 

Let go and see.






Just a note: all the images today are from my book, Opening the Heart: Meditations on How to Be (here).