Small Distillations of Beauty
“Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention.” ― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
“But seeking is a kind of work. I don’t mean heading off on wild road trips just to see the stars that are shining above your own roof. I mean committing to a lifetime of engagement: to noticing the world around you, to actively looking for small distillations of beauty, to making time to contemplate and reflect. To learning the names of the plants and places that surround you, or training your mind in the rich pathways of the metaphorical. To finding a way to express your interconnectedness with the rest of humanity. To putting your feet on the ground, every now and then, and feeling the tingle of life that the earth offers in return. It’s all there, waiting for our attention. Take off your shoes, because you are always on holy ground.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
Play break, get out, hone in.
Seeking without expectations, outcomes, productivity, measurement.
Out of the external noise, grind, churn.
Into enchantment, borne of attention, exploration, noticing.
In this very place.
Holy ground.
“That’s what you find over and over again when you go looking: something else. An insight that surprises you. A connection that you would never have made. A new perspective.
More often than not, I find that I already hold all the ideas from which my enchantment is made. The deliberate pursuit of attention, ritual, or reflection does not mystically draw in anything external to me. Instead, it creates experiences that rearrange what I know to find the insights I need today. This is how symbolic thought works. It offers you a repository of understanding that can be triggered by the everyday, and which comes in a format that goes straight to the bloodstream.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
