Today I want you to slow your walking pace until the ground reveals itself. Many years ago I sat by a patch of mud, present and attentive to what was there. I looked not with tunnel vision but with peripheral vision, owl eyes some call it.
When we go about the world walking at our usual pace, the ground becomes a blur. The texture and detail remain invisible. Small lives are not registered and the depth and density of what is growing right in front of us is entirely missed.
As I sat by this patch of mud, it took awhile before it slowly revealed itself. What I thought was initially a patch of mud with the odd impression of some insect or animal suddenly opened up to reveal a vast community of beings that had traversed this patch.
I simply hadn’t arrived in my body and had not been present enough to see it.
This unhurried practice opens up layers of the living world that normally remain hidden to those who move through it at the speed that the distraction economy demands.
What might you find today if you’ve slowed down enough to read the ground you are walking on?