Seven years ago I took a spiritual workshop and one session was on perspective. The example was using a drinking straw…look through the straw…that is where your focus is. Now move the straw just the teeniest bit and notice what you now see through the straw has completely changed. It magnified how changing our perspective causes us to see more, to see differently.
That lesson has helped me immensely with my photography, but also with how I view what I see. We can get so intent on a particular view, that just by turning around and looking where we’ve just come from there can be another, different awesome view.
You will seldom see a bald eagle sitting in the middle of the road waiting for you to see it (though it happened once, but only because the eagle had dropped its fish in the road and was retrieving it).
Think of all the people who trip or twist ankles because they never look down to see where they are putting their feet? Or are so fixed on where they are putting their feet that they never stop to look up and around at what is going on around them.
The reason for this rant? I had wandered out of my studio to sit in my recliner which is right next to the family room window where I sat to continue taking notes from a book I was reading. I never looked past the chair; I was focused on what I was reading.
I heard Larry go out the sliding door behind me and next thing I knew he was right outside the window getting my attention. He pointed down the hill and there laid the magnificent five point buck alongside the drive down the hill in plain sight. The buck in all his stupendous glory had been invisible to me until my attention was drawn to him. I could easily have sat there and by never looking up would never have known he had ever been there. 
Think about it…how much is invisible to us by our own doing…or not doing in this case. The stuff we miss seeing by not expanding our awareness, our focus.
I have had many people tell me after seeing my photos of hummingbirds at rest that they have never seen a hummingbird still. Why do I you wonder? I have taken the time to look and listen, to follow their darting bodies with my eyes until I see it land. I cared enough to take the time to investigate, rather than walk away.
It is a matter of seeing it once and your brain imprints the pattern and then it becomes easier and easier to see.
I know this because I don’t see arrow heads or precious stones (yet) like friends of mine can. It is because they know what to look for and see what I cannot.
The first time I ever went into a thrift store or yard saleing with a friend my senses were overwhelmed and bombarded by so much stuff that I could never find the treasures but the more I went the more I could see individual pieces rather than just the overwhelming jumbled mass of things. Now I can go into an antique store and home in on a piece of crackle glass. YET, I take the time to look at everything because I want to be open to seeing and finding another treasure beyond what I may have been looking for.
Practice is the key. I remember what my friend once said to me…once you see something you cannot un-see it. Awareness takes practice…we have it, we take it for granted, but in our humanness we have neglected using all of our senses as our animal friends do.
We aren’t going to see everything all the time, everyone’s view is different of course but I try to remember to move my point of focus every day hoping that I’ll see more beautiful things or something old in a new and different way. I like to think that instead of looking through a straw I have graduated to a paper towel tube!
It is never a waste of time to turn off the television or the computer games (or look up from that book I am reading) and just gaze out a window or look around at your current surroundings to notice what you see. Get up and turn in a slow circle, you might be surprised at the new way you see something!
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| My kitchen windowsill, pretty colors, but I don't always see them. |
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