Attention is Sacred: Thank you for taking care of it.
Our Cure-ations
I teach people who notice and feel deeply, whose systems process more and get flooded. We also gift the world with our exquisite attunement.
I heard myself say, as I began a class in the Art of Ensoulment on Efficiency of Energy, “Thank you for giving your attention here.” Twenty-five sensitives chose to attend to themselves, others in the class, and my teaching. I felt the gift of it.
If you are reading, I thank you, as well, for your attention. It’s physical, bodily, real. As you read, I hope you find nourishment so that your attention can playfully align with love and soulfulness.
I’ve been wondering. Is noticing a soul gift? I think soul is a real thing in our body, too. I experience soul ignite when we dance, sing, cavort, and feel true to ourselves. In the deep, fertile neutrality of soul, might attention/consciousness rise as a physical flower? If you have thoughts, I’d love it if you share in the comments.
Choices about where we give attention evolve into curations. I craft customized menus of art, love, nature, service, curiosity, and dreaming. I also need big hunks of meaningless, free-floating, gritty life. I delete a lot. I’m not interested in losing connection to down-and-dirty humanity, but I seldom read dominant culture news. Rather, I read trusted writers, those in my area of expertise, and subscribe to people with experience in oppression and mental health. Are you with me? I am here for the whole improv with pain and pleasure.
The balance of attention must go more to beauty and ease to overcome one’s negativity bias. How much attention to beauty and ease do you need?
Here are some beauty spots I entered when I had time for a little retreat—three InterPlay soul-friends on Substack.
Kelsey Blackwell, author of Decolonizing the Body, is an Ensoulment Coach writing at The Drinking Gourd.
Sheri Prudhomme shares her experiential research and questions about love, life, divorce, death, parenting and everything in between.
An Interview with Qais Essar on Makers & Mystics, contemporary Afghan composer who channels melodic designs through the rabab, a 2,500-year-old instrument. He shares how the rebab has become an extension of his voice and questions our Content-driven media for we who engage with sacred time and space.
A reading from The Druids Garden with Dana Driscoll, who wrote on Straddling the Edge, Deepening and Seeking a Way Forward in Climate Change. A lifelong student of nature spirituality and druidry, she is Grand Archdruid in the Ancient Order of Druids in America, a Druid-grade member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD), and a scholar honored for research on cultivating the bardic arts. Also see “The Mystery of the Stumps and the Spiral Path: How I came to Druidry.”
A film, Many Beautiful Things: The Life and Vision of Lilias Trotter, about a 19th-century British painter who sacrificed artistic fame in order to serve Love in Algeria. Trotter's artistic gifts were noticed by famous art critic John Ruskin, who believed she could be one of England's greatest artists. Instead, love and inner guidance made art her prayer and service her art.
A film by Jonna Jinton, In My Journey to Humming Mountain, Swedish artist, musician, and filmmaker living in the North of Sweden. As a sensitive, she shares stories, music, kulning (nordic herding calls), painting, ice baths, and film footage that includes her panic attacks related to making phone calls and a life-changing interchange with Sounds from Humming Mountain.
Again, I am honored to be in this dance with you. If you would like to share other beauty spots, let me know. Creating and curating for beauty is activism.
Love, Cynthia
Thank you, Cynthia, for your shout out.
Your post not only calls me back to an awareness of where I place my attention today, but also reminds me of a story about my eldest child. In 5th grade we were having him go through a series of assessments to see if we could understand more about his unique challenges with learning and with social interactions. In one session, one of the psychologists asked him if he saw things that other people don't see. He replied, "Oh yes, all the time." She encouraged him to tell her more. "Out your window there," he said, "there are small drops of water sparkling in the sunlight. Most people wouldn't notice that, but I do." ***We also gift the world with our exquisite attunement***
I love this inquiry: “The balance of attention must go more to beauty and ease to overcome one’s negativity bias. How much attention to beauty and ease do you need?”
My short answer: More
My longer answer: In recent discussion with an African medicine woman she suggested I cultivate a “sit spot” a place in nature I go to every day for five minutes and simply observe with all my senses. What a simple and radical idea I thought. I’ve been doing my best to follow this instruction and amazed at how much beauty exists in the corner of my backyard: hummingbirds, birds I don’t know the names of, bees, frogs, gentle breezes that make leaves quiver and the dahlias dance -- it all feels overwhelmingly beautiful, like a gift I barely deserve. What luck, I often think, to exist in such a place. And then amazingly the old adage holds true, what I place my attention on grows. I’m finding beauty in the most unexpected places: walking a crowded beach watching families interact, sweeping collected dust from the crevice in front of the bathroom door, calming my protective dog as she barks at the daily mailman intruder-- so much life, so much beauty. Thank you for lifting attention toward beauty as an important and necessary practice. Our world is rich with it when we make it a priority to see it.