Notes
The answer is not to look for it. Nor do we attempt to predict or analyze our way into it. Instead, we create an open space that allows it.
As children, we experience much less interference between receiving ideas and internalizing them. We accept new information with delight instead of making comparisons to what we already believe; we live in the moment rather than worrying about future consequences; we are spontaneous more than analytical; we are curious, not jaded.
Practicing a way of being that allows you to see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe’s timetable.
Turning something from an idea into a reality can make it seem smaller. It changes from unearthly to earthly. The imagination has no limits. The physical world does. The work exists in both.
In most of our daily activities we choose the agenda and develop a strategy to achieve the goal at hand. We create the program. Awareness moves differently. The program is happening around us. The world is the doer and we are the witness. We have little or no control over the content.
The gift of awareness allows us to notice what’s going on around and inside ourselves in the present moment. And to do so without attachment or involvement.
As soon as you label an aspect of Source, you’re no longer noticing, you’re studying. This holds true of any thought that takes you out of presence with the object of your awareness, whether analysis or simply becoming aware that you’re aware. Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.
Each of us has a container within. It is constantly being filled with data. It holds the sum total of our thoughts, feelings, dreams, and experiences in the world. Let’s call this the vessel. Information does not enter the vessel directly, like rain filling into a barrel. It is filtered in a unique way for each of us. Not everything makes it through this filter. And what does get through doesn’t always do so faithfully.
To navigate our way through this immense world of data, we learn early in life to focus on information that appears essential or of particular interest. And to tune out the rest.
As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.
Pay particular attention to the moments that take your breath away—a beautiful sunset, an unusual eye color, a moving piece of music, the elegant design of a complex machine. If a piece of work, a fragment of consciousness, or an element of nature is somehow allowing us to access something bigger, that is its spiritual component made manifest. It awards us a glimpse of the unseen.
We receive these types of messages all the time, if we remain open to them. We might read a book and find a quote leaping off the page, or watch a movie and notice a line that moves us to pause and rewind. Sometimes it’s the exact answer we’ve been looking for. Or it could be an echo of an idea that keeps repeating in other places—begging for more attention or affirming the path we’re on.
Sometimes it helps to have a strong intention to find a specific answer, or to confirm a particular path. Other times, letting go of that intention altogether can help you find your way.
You might imagine that the outside world is a conveyor belt with a stream of small packages on it, always going by. The first step is to notice the conveyor belt is there. And then, any time you want, you can pick up one of those packages, unwrap it, and see what’s inside.
Look for what you notice but no one else sees.
A practice is the embodiment of an approach to a concept. This can support us in bringing about a desired state of mind. When we repeat the exercise of opening our senses to what is, we move closer to living in a continually open state. We build a habit. One where expanded awareness is our default way of being in the world. To deepen this practice is to embark on a more profound relationship with Source. As we reduce the interference of our filter, we become better able to recognize the rhythms and movements around us. This allows us to participate with them in a more harmonious way.
The purpose of such exercises is not necessarily in the doing, just as the goal of meditation isn’t in the meditating. The purpose is to evolve the way we see the world when we’re not engaged in these acts. We are building the musculature of our psyche to more acutely tune in.
Because there’s an endless amount of data available to us and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve, we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in.
We don’t have to understand nature to appreciate it. This is true of all things. Simply be aware of moments when your breath gets taken away by something of great beauty.
If you’re picking colors based on a Pantone book, you’re limited to a certain number of choices. If you step out in nature, the palette is infinite.
Nature transcends our tendencies to label and classify, to reduce and limit. The natural world is unfathomably more rich, interwoven, and complicated than we are taught, and so much more mysterious and beautiful.
There’s a reason we are drawn to gazing at the ocean. It is said the ocean provides a closer reflection of who we are than any mirror.
You can’t step into the same stream twice because it’s always flowing. Everything is.
The person who makes something today isn’t the same person who returns to the work tomorrow.
If we’re aware, we get to tune in to more of it. If we’re less aware, we miss it. When we miss it, it really does pass us by. Tomorrow presents another opportunity for awareness, but it’s never an opportunity for the same awareness.
It’s helpful to view currents in the culture without feeling obligated to follow the direction of their flow. Instead, notice them in the same connected, detached way you might notice a warm wind. Let yourself move within it, yet not be of it.
To the best of my ability, I’ve followed my intuition to make career turns, and been recommended against doing so every time. It helps to realize that it’s better to follow the universe than those around you.