Walking through Central Park this morning, the wind was blowing mightily, moving layers of gray clouds through the sky with astonishing speed.  What captivated my awareness was the sound of the wind moving through the bare branches of trees.  It was unlike any sound I’ve heard before – deep and roaring, somehow louder than when the branches have leaves.  The sound would begin somewhere behind me or to the side and I could hear it rapidly approaching.  Finally, the wind would pass by me, pushing me along the path with its force. Throughout the walk, the new sound would come from time to time – not constant, but visiting me at various places along the way, noticeably loud and insistent.

The sound of the trees reminded me of a quotation from this year’s edition of the Follmi meditation books – the ones I mention from time to time that have a daily meditation from a particular culture, along with beautiful photographs.  This year’s book is from Africa, called “Origins”, and one of the day’s meditations went as follows:  “Listen more often to things than to beings.  The voice of the fire can be heard.  Hear the voice of the water.  Listen in the wind to the sobbing bush.  It is the breath of the ancestors,” written by Birago Diop.

My adventure this morning got me to thinking about the magic and mystery all around us in nature, and what a gift it is to be surprised by something unfamiliar in an environment we know very well.  Of course, we can also be surprised by nature’s might, as when a natural disaster occurs.  This isn’t the level of mystery I mean for our exploration here.  For this experiment, I invite you to pay attention to small encounters with surprising or unfamiliar qualities in your environment – qualities that may have always been there but outside your everyday awareness.  The first step in working with this experiment is to create the intention to be willing to notice something new.  Setting the intention is like tuning in a radio.  You go to a particular kind of station for a particular kind of music, for example.  In this case, you create a particular intention to attune you to a particular kind of experience.

Another example of this is when I walked into my apartment one evening and went into the kitchen, where I had some large lilies in a vase.  Turning on the light, I happened to get into a particular position that allowed me to fully experience the fragrance of newly-opened flowers.  It was stunning and I stopped in my tracks and just breathed it in a few times.  The blossoms hadn’t been open when I left in the morning, and it was a delicious surprise to find myself met with such a beautiful perfume.  What the moment offered was an invitation for me to take the time to really experience this new element in my environment, to soak in my encounter with it. 

As you can see, these aren’t dramatic examples, but they are small moments in the day that added to my nourishment, to the delight of surprise conveyed by the natural world.  My day was enhanced by the fragrance of the flowers in the same way it was deepened by the sound of powerful wind blowing through winter trees.

Just as we do with all the experiments, play with this one.  Allow yourself to notice what’s around you, and invite yourself to have one small discovery each day, when possible, and to relish that addition to your experience.  If nothing comes on a particular day, you might take a moment to recall a time when you did have a magical surprise that brought a moment of delight or awe.  The gifts are all around us.  The key is to attune ourselves to the magic and mystery of the natural world and see what we notice.