Walked for hours today, on familiar territory but with renewed awareness, thanks to a book by Claire Thompson recently given to me by a perceptive friend.
Mindfulness and the Natural World is one of the simply meaningful editions published by the Leaping Hare Press. (That name in itself is enough of a connnection for me as David Brayne's unbelievably rich painting of a leaping hare has long hung on my wall, purchased in the far off days when I had money to invest in art.) I already have
The Art of Mindful Walking by Adam Ford in the same beautifully produced series - these books deserve to be better known.
What I am most grateful for today is the reminder of the difference between looking and noticing, and the concomitant quality of mindfulness as an active state. Walking with all the senses is a direct experience, complete in itself and only stifled by the process of thought. Claire Thompson's opening chapter 'We are Nature' joins up all the dots of existence and expresses my own feelings of belonging in the natural world where - as she puts it - 'I don't feel alone, I feel alive.'
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