Being Attentive to Spiders and the Breeze

I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. I love this book. Here’s a quote I want to share from page 53:

The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

It’s amazing how much of life passes us by without our knowing it. Recently, I’ve started doing what Cameron calls “Morning Pages.” Upon waking, I pull out my binder and write three pages. Well, they are actually half-pages produced by the paper cutter, but it works for me. The content of these pages is more of a “stream of consciousness” approach. That means writing whatever comes to mind. In actuality, there is no “wrong” way to do morning pages. It is really a form of meditation. It helps us to turn off the analytical left brain for a while and to turn on the perceptive right brain. (I’m sure there are many who would say I don’t need this, but I’m doing it anyway.)

There’s something to be said for nurturing one’s inner child. Children and adults approach the world so differently. I remember being with a friend of mine and her small daughter several years ago. Unbeknownst to her mother, the child discovered a small spider on the playset. Her eyes grew large as she became more and more intrigued. She reached out to touch it. “No, no, no,” I said. “You don’t want to accidentally squish it.” At that, her mother turned to see what was going on. “What are you doing?” she asked her daughter. Not thinking, I replied, “We’ve found a spider.” I wasn’t ready for the reaction. The mother screamed and grabbed the child. The little girl, now having learned the appropriate response to spiders, began to wail and cry. No longer was the spider fascinating. Now it was terrifying.

Adult anxieties of the world are understandable and often wise. I would not suggest tickling a wild Tarantula’s belly. Sometimes, actions bring nasty consequences. But in the midst of our caution, we have to be careful not to let life pass us by. We need to notice the spider. We need to feel the breeze for no other reason than because it is there. We need to notice the coffee as it warms us from the inside. We need to pay attention. It makes all the difference in the world.