Seeing With Your Senses

Seeing With Your Senses

This past September, I experienced my first bout of ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’. As both sons had moved on from home and I was alone. For the past few years, I had yearned to arrive at this place in my life. Now it was here. The house felt huge and empty with just me and the cat, Lila. What am I going to do?

Well, here had arrived the time to do interesting activities that I wanted to do! So, I downloaded Janet Whitehead’s free ‘Tiddley Bits’ -Self Coaching Booklet (From Musings and Mud Coaching Studio). The workbook is fun and helps people explore, dream, and discover your unique ways of being empowered as you move forward to where you want to be. The workbooks are really...Playbooks!

So I drove out to Shuswap Lake, to sit on the beach during one of the last hottest days of the summer. I enjoyed the fact that the holiday crowds had disappeared. I nestled against a huge log and gazed over the beach and the lake. I had peace and quiet with no motorized watercrafts! The Workbook was fun and my imagination had gone wild. I was prompted to write a story related to an issue that I might like coaching on. I chose ‘How to Earn A Living’, as I am in midlife transition. Kinda sounds boring, but not from the viewpoint of a little girl !

Halfway through my story, I got the urge to go in the lake. As I entered the water, it took my breath away. I worried my muscles may defy me and cramp up as my heart beat wildly. I restrained any screams that wanted freedom, as I merged forward up to my neck. I stayed focused with deep breaths. Because, it would be really weird or silly to see a woman whooping and shrieking all by herself in the lake. Soon enough I fluttered in the water enjoying the hot sun casting sparkles over the water, as it rhythmically rocked me back and forth. It was cool to be at eye level with the lake. This reminded me of a poem I wrote during a camping trip a few years ago. The poem ended,

“...When thoughts are still, where does earth or sky separate, and water begin?”

Memories drifted me back to a time when I could manage the cadence of canoeing along to the trance of,

“Reach, dip, pull- Reach, dip, pull- Reach, dip, pull...”

I was curious as to why a lady had to sit right next to my blanket, when the whole beach was available? I left the lake with the weight of gravity grounding me on the beach. We chatted as I dried off in the sun and of course she had to ask,”What kind of work do you do?” As it happened, we were both ‘in the same boat’ in our lives. We acknowleged each other’s challenges and agreed how certain services could be more helpful than stressful, to support rather than hinder rehabilitation.

She carried on her journey and I thought back to my workbook story, wondering how to give it a, ‘Happily Ever After’ ending. Gazing back at the lake, the sparkles had me wonder, where was the sparkle in my life... right here..right now?

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The experience of Synaesthesia is profound sensory awareness. Good memories come from a sharpened awareness in the present moment.

As Laura Sewall says in her book,

“We remember the moments when our attention is fully drawn to a particular color, form, or whisper, to the sounds we hear and the scent of a place entering into us –

the moments when our focus sharpens.” 1. Pg 60

Sewall continues on to say,

“The revelation born of seeing and feeling in one seamless synaesthetic moment is that nothing in this world is unrelated, not a single thing. The boundaries blend as if a heightened awareness has begun to reveal permeable membranes between the things of the world, and between ourselves and the world. Distinctions blur and relationships emerge, shimmering and shining like light on the water. Where does water end and light begin, anyway? We see the glitter, the relationship itself. Each thing of the world becomes more than it once appeared to be. And all of it quivers, dense with possibility.” 1. Pg61

Where is the sparkle or glitter in your life today?

Where have you felt most connected to the environment?