With Fresh Eyes

I noticed trees in my neighborhood - these blocks that I’ve walked regularly for the past 16 years - as if I were seeing them for the first time today. 

It was as if I was awakening to the full truth of what has always been in front of me, an expanded and more complete vision of the world I navigate every day.

As I heard the breeze blowing through the leaves and the trees as if for the first time, I had the unbearable realization that that particular sound from that particular moment from that particular breeze from that particular tree will never be replicated.

I felt like I was gliding along almost weightless up and down the blocks, and several times had deep emotion arise as I witnessed flower after flower of perfection.

Yesterday I stared at my neighbor’s giant pine tree’s branches dancing in the breeze and experienced a very natural ‘altered’ state, these trees and their arms waving around so gracefully and gently, just so alive and full of grounded wisdom.  

Many times before I have relied on these trees for messages (especially during the dark time 10 years ago). 

And yet most days I ignore them, not really ‘seeing’ them. 

Sadness, there.  A desire for more presence, more noticing, more gratitude.

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The interaction of the air and trees and sun was especially present today.

And I was walking earlier, I was just so struck with, ‘how could this all be possible?’ - both the majesty of nature on full display, even here in the middle of a huge city, but also how most of us are completely blind to it.

And then realized, if I was seeing my neighborhood (my comfort zone) with such a limited, narrow perception before - how have I been viewing myself?  

And how have I been viewing my close ones?

Have I been missing the full truth, the full story, seeing through limiting glasses?

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Importantly, I have been hearing the birds sing more clearly these days.

The other day with my son on the couch I was so struck by the song of a bird in the backyard that I looked at him in awe and asked, “Did you hear that?”

He had not, but despite a moment of thinking I was being funny, he returned to what he was doing (being used to me and my ways enough).

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To open to this expansion, the level of sensitivity required seems to need time, space, and silence (no distractions, of course).

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Today on my walk I opened wide to the richness of the Mother Earth and her unbearable love for us in every moment, I observed her attempting to express her love for us through flowers, through the breeze and the trees, through the way the sun hits the Earth, every moment attempting to caress us, displaying beauty all around us that we ignore and blow past, so distracted, such lack of presence with the mother, and I felt the unbearable pain of the mother’s love - unrequited.  She just wants to be noticed, appreciated, and loved back, yet is often ignored, extracted from without regard or reciprocity, that abusive and narcissistic relationship humans have with the earth.

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That intensity on today's walk is a lot to feel, the whole thing is a lot to feel, and yet there was still the sense that I was only scratching the surface of the massive feeling/sensation wave that became available to me in these moments today on that walk - full surrender to it felt frightening and destabilizing, too ‘crazy’ - like a kundalini awakening that I didn’t quite have the time or space for today.

I'm sure this heightened sensitivity/altered state that has been present for the past week or so is the result of where I am in my cycle, but there is also an aspect of it that feels like a more permanent shift, as if I will never listen to the breeze blowing through leaves in the same way again...

Now, as I finish reading this last page of my book so I can fall asleep, I’m shown this quote at the end of the chapter:

Miracles rest not so much upon healing power suddenly coming near us from afar, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that, for a moment, our eyes can see what is there around us always. - Willa Cather

[Reposted from my journal.  This writing is deeply personal, but felt important to share.  As I sat with whether to post this, it was a moment where the chance of what might happen if just one person becomes inspired to look at nature in a new/deeper/more present way won over any ego based worries/cares about what other people think.]

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Leigh-Anne LoPinto is a visionary of the new paradigm of relationships. As a psychologist, relationship coach, and breathwork teacher, she has spent 14 years working with individuals and groups to heal relationship wounds, develop secure attachment, and overcome codependency. She specializes in conscious relationships and spiritual partnership, using relationships to evolve on a soul level.

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