Our teacher led us into the reprieve of an infinity-shaped garden, brush and reaching trees shielding us from the city’s bustle and prying eyes.
She told us to find a spot. To use our senses.
I borrowed a patch of sunlight near the edge of the garden. I crouched low, closer to the scent of soil. With my eyes closed, lids glowing gold, I inhaled deeply and exhaled slow. The air tasted of moss and white petaled blooms. A north wind brushed my cheek, softly, the sting of cold light as a butterfly’s wing.
I pressed my fingers into the soft earth and imagined roots sprouting from my nails, winding down through dirt, around stones and worms. Above me, I pictured a beam of sunlight tethered to the crown of my head, pulling upward into the sparse clouds.
For a moment, I was a tree.
Birdsong sharpened. A sudden flutter of wings. The sounds, always there, now crystalline. A Steller’s jay. A crow. A shrill, red-breasted nuthatch. Sunlight soaked into my skin, warm as freckles. The haze of construction and horns drifted and faded.
I opened my eyes and narrowed my focus to my borrowed square of light. I ran my hand along the damp spines of pine cones, watching them split and crumble. Unfolding. I counted six shades of green. I squeezed beads of dew from blades of grass.
In a patch of clover, I found a small insect with iridescent wings and a long, delicate nose reminiscent of a mosquito. It climbed onto my finger, paused, explored the curve of my knuckle, then lifted into the air, flitting beyond our shared patch of sunlight.
How much life this small square holds. How many sounds, tastes, textures…
The insect moved to the far end of the garden, my awareness moving with it. It is not only this patch that hums. It is every patch, everywhere. Alive, asking to be noticed. To be considered. To be honored. All of it shared.
How much do I miss when I do not kneel long enough to notice?
Because the truth is: this patch did not grow louder. I simply grew still enough to hear the hum beneath my feet and above my head, all around me.
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