I think it pisses God off
if you walk by the color purple in a field
and don’t notice it.

Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Sometimes we can get caught up in the rush of every day or the familiarity of our routines. We can fail to notice the beauty in ordinary experience. When we travel or are starting something new, we are struck by the experiences, noticing, for example,  the energy and the qualities of  people or the way they do things differently. Everything registers in a heightened way. In these moments things seems more real, more alive. The brain cannot always function like that,  so it creates schemas to allow it quickly locate everyday experiences into familiar categories – cars, buses, flowers,  trees and so on. So in order to really see we have to go against an established habit. We have to slow down in order to really notice; focus in order to really attend.  Today let us try to  look at one or two  things we encounter as if for the first time: Open our eyes, pause, wonder, notice the details, celebrate life.