A Frame of Mind?

Have you ever captured just a glimpse of something? A brief moment when something ordinary is lit in such a way as to offer an extra-ordinary perspective? I suspect this happens to all of us.

The trick is to notice. And I did.

The morning walk along a nondescript, weedy back-lane presented such a moment. Engaged in deep conversation with the woman who lives in my head, I was suddenly blinded by the sun rising sharply above the rooftops as I crested a rise in the road. Light diffused through the seed heads of grass setting their pink tassels aglow with light.

I had been bemoaning the lack of subject matter for my blog post. Nothing new seemed to be happening in my garden. I felt there was nothing I hadn’t written about before. Had I exhausted all the possibilities it had once offered? My frame of mind was askew.

I’ve been thinking for some time of taking an extended break from posting rather than labouring to write something too ordinary, something substandard. But the insight nature provides in its metaphors for life are endless. I just needed to set that frame straight.

That morning when I saw the sun set the pink grass aflame, I was struck by the notion that the very same thing happens with ideas. They can come when we least expect them, in a blinding flash. A phenomenon we refer to as insight.

• the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively (called noesis in Greek).

And insight always seems to come just when I need it. The ‘inner sight’ that moment gave me was to appreciate how important it is not to dismiss the ordinary, nor the mundane. Embrace the skewed frame of mind that is a perfect foil for a new perspective. It offers up an opportunity to find another perspective, another angle from which to ‘see’ the true nature of ‘ordinariness’.

Perhaps my negative thoughts about posting were clouding my view. Perhaps I needed to hone my senses, allow them free rein. Surely anything less is to not honour every moment.

With just a little insight, we can make the ordinary, extraordinary

 

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” 
― W.B. Yeats