Looking, part one.

After being stable for the last six months or so, my daily spiritual practice has started to shift and expand, spontaneously. The core is still the same but both new pieces involve the act of looking. It's not something I was expecting to explore, but it makes sense in light of wanting to slow down and be more attentive. Speaking of vision specifically, I think of how much time I spend in front of screens, searching for new information and absorbing so little as deep knowledge. I don't want to sound totally anti-technology; obviously I find the internet incredibly useful for gathering information and it would be hard to abandon it entirely. Yet at the same time I find the speed of technology easily tends toward shallowness. It's easy to spend a few hours skimming websites and wikipedia entries and then think one has gained mastery over material. (I'm reminded of Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer sucking the information from books in seconds and then being bored because there's nothing left to learn). 

All of this information lends itself to overwhelm, as well. It's easy for me to think that if I'm going to know something about, say, herbalism, I need to know Everything. How many plants are there? Is that even a reasonable goal for myself? In fact, I would wager that most people who have used herbal medicines didn't know hundreds of herbs but rather a handful of herbs they knew very well. Herbs they'd cultivated deep relationships with.

A few weeks ago I watched the first part of The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner, a documentary on the visionary founder of Waldorf schools, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophy and it seems a thousand other things. He was a truly amazing man and any one of his achievements would be enough for a lifetime. One of the people interviewed in the documentary spoke about learning to look at a plant with sustained attention, and to really see it as it is. Now, I don't believe that it's totally possible to see things "as they are" as I don't think there is one way something "is," but I appreciate the intent of looking at something without putting all  sorts of ideas and associations onto it. This is something I do in my professional life as a counselor (or at least, I do it when I'm really on my game) but I find harder to translate into the rest of my life.

So, this is a new piece of my daily practice. To look at the ferns in the meditation room and not think about the Victorian fern craze, or how amazing it is that I have kept any plants alive and what I want to work on in the yard, but to sit and just notice the pattern of branching and the shades of green. To just give my attention to the plant, as simply as I possibly can. (Which, of course, is not so simple, at least not everyday.) I sit with no agenda beyond trying to look as intently as I can, which perhaps sounds tense but is actually one of the most relaxing parts of my day.

The other piece is actually quite new, so stay tuned to hear more about it...