Hello my friends,

I took a walk instead of going to the gym today. It was early evening, warm and light.

Walking out of doors caught my senses unawares. I spend a lot time at the computer these days, thinking and reading, writing and working.

The scent of the trees and flowers brought me back into my body. Instead of walking while thinking about how to solve problems, I suddenly noticed roses, roses everywhere next to picket fences of older houses in the neighborhood.

I noticed loquats. Have you ever eaten loquats? There is tiny, delicious fruit inside the skin and smooth, big seeds within.

I was so aware of my ears and nose, hearing birds trilling and chirping, catching sweet scents drifting on the air.

I stopped in the vain hope of finding scent in a hedge of white roses. My luck was better with big, red roses, round like baseballs and intensely fragrant.

One huge rosebush was pruned into a huge conical shape, a giant solid mass covered in yellow-orange roses. We nodded hello, or at least I liked thinking that the breeze was part of some larger design.

One step at a time and feeling more alive, I kept on.

Trees! I kept seeing more and more fruit trees right on my block. Fig trees growing over the fences, loquats, laden with fruit. Prickly pear; sweet if you know how to gather them. A bounteous world was outside my front door yet I took it for granted and hadn’t even seen it.

I found the same attention helped me in dance class tonight.

It was a walk from rose bush to rose bush, from fruit tree to fruit tree. So many things I hadn’t noticed that pop into awareness.

I went slowly, enjoying the moment. Noticing my head weight on my foot, space in the hip joint, pressing the foot down. And then there is the Whole and in that blessed moment I cannot sense the parts… Noticing the fruits of attention is happiness on my feet.

Peace,

Dana

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