What Catches My Attention?

What catches my attention is the idea that creation is the earliest sacred text. During the COVID lockdown, I found myself immersed in conversations with thirty-six long-term yoga practitioners for my book, Yoga Radicals. I invited artist Geisa Paganini de Mio to listen to each interview and create a generative scribing image in response. What surprised me was how often the same elemental patterns emerged across very different lives. Again and again, the images revealed earth, water, fire, air, and space. They revealed cycles of loss and renewal, grounding and expansion, discipline and surrender. The drawings seemed to be reading something deeper than the individual stories. They were pointing toward the larger patterns of life itself. What stopped me in my tracks was realizing that these practitioners had spent decades learning from the same teachers available to all of us: breath, gravity, seasons, aging, relationship, and the natural world. The elemental forces were not metaphors. They were living companions. More recently, I have encountered similar teachings while working with Indigenous entrepreneurs and land stewards. In these conversations, the land itself is often present as a stakeholder and teacher. Forests, waterways, animals, and ancestral territories are not resources to be managed but relationships to be honored. This way of seeing invites me to slow down and listen differently. What helps me read the natural world with an attentive heart is remembering that I am not separate from it. Whether through a drawing, a conversation, a stone, a tree, or a landscape, I am continually invited into relationship with something larger than myself. The older I become, the more I sense that creation is indeed an ancient sacred text. We do not read it once and master it. We spend a lifetime learning its language. And if we pay attention, it continues to open doors we did not know were there. Hide full comment

Such a lovely observation. I havae two to share, maybe three. We have a few humming birds that always visit our backyard. We do not have any feeder but we have a lot of flowers with herbs and foliage. I started observing one and approaching it first thing in the morning. After some time, it started coming closer and almost greeting me and comfortable to even rest on my finger. When I was late or busy, it would come to the kitchen window and knock on the glass as it inviting. I got curious abouttheir habits and read more about them. Stats and all that was interesting including how their colors shine during mating season etc., My interest turned into observation to habit to love. When they do not come or disappear, there is a feeling of disappointment. We grow a lot of mint and use it for our tea. Next to it is a small crack in the wall and bees have decided to make home there. Several visitors and guests suggested we seal it or call someone. We just decided to let them be. They never hurt even the gardners blowing leaves and sometimes directing the blower to their entrance and when he left, they resumed their buzzing. Their buzz too is like a "Hello sunshine" to us as they do not come out when it is cloudy. From concern about them, we now visit the mint patch to collect mint and have a chat with the bees. Several do die and we see some falling all over the backyard. We respectfully take them and put them in the soil nearby. We now have visitors, we sit in the backyard, we meditate there and they seem to have kept to themselves. When we go on a vacation, we try to mentally say goodbye and ask them to keep a watch on our place. Interestingly, during our recent trip, an intruder came to our backyard - I guess just exploring and the bees attacked him and drove him away...you can make your own conclusions. I have made mine. Love and gratitude! Hide full comment