Sometimes, it feels as if you have wandered into a dream. And that’s exactly what I felt as I was walking in woodland yesterday…
The bright, warming light poured into the space like liquid, and illuminated, like ethereal motes, every tiny insect and floating pollen grain that traversed the space between this living substrate.
I breathed softly through my nose, allowing myself the thought that I was sharing the air with countless other beings. And feeling a sense of interconnectedness, I began to open my awareness toward a state of happy mindfulness.
I knelt down and examined a forest of mosses, dense undergrowth beneath its canopy. The greens were so luminous, soaking in the spring rays. Tiny insects, unseen at my normal eye-level began to resolve into focus, and I could perceive a busy day’s work unfolding.
Closer still, I used my loupe (hand-lens) to probe further. as I explored a square inch of woodland as if it were a square mile. Perception really begins to shift when you spend time looking through a loupe. You forget your own size and scale. And before you know it, you actually feel like your world has shrunk to the size of a postage stamp.
And as you move your lens ever so slowly through the thicket of moss, wondering what you’ll discover next, you really do begin to believe that you are climbing the limbs of some giant tree, or scaling the heights of a mountainous rock-face.
Finally, all worries and stresses forgotten, I move even closer, into a truly alien landscape no larger than lentil. Here, the greens take on a translucent quality, and you can almost see the circulatory exchange of organic, life-giving fluids.
Microscopic serrations snatch moisture from the air, droplets seem as large as boulders. And even here, as I am dimly aware of the birdsong drifting in from some far off scale, I see tiny mites and crawling insects that were invisible just moments before.
To think that I can stride through such an immense landscapes, folded infinitely upon itself, and not realise what stories are unfolding around me. Removed temporarily from my normal activities, and completely absorbed in my jungle exploration, I feel completely at peace.
There are no things at this level upon which I can hang my everyday worries. And as such, I feel I am catching a glimpse of how things really are. Existence without filter. I am truly seeing.
For this brief, dreamlike moment, I feel what it is like to simply be.
Mindful moments are hiding everywhere around us, just waiting to be discovered. If you’d like to read more of my mindful postcards, or would like to learn how to apply mindfulness in your own life, then sign up for my newsletter.
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