When you look, do you see wonder and inspiration or “same ’ol, same ol”?  How can we recapture our innocent eyes?

Kudos to the photographer who captured this glorious image of Stephen Broadbent’s sculpture, “Empowerment”.  To really appreciate the photographer’s genius, his “innocent eyes”, take a look at the entire monument erected over the canal at the Lincoln City Centre, Waterside District, England, UK and then maybe you’ll agree, it would easy, especially if you traveled this waterway every day, to be so distracted by the engineering and/or logistics (or just getting where you’re going) that you miss the sculpture’s awesome soaring inspiration.

Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be… Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.

— Erich Fromm

I wonder how many of us are looking at the world through jaded eyes that no longer see the everyday-wonderful in our lives?  I mean, it’s downright easy to get caught up in the daily dramas that clutter our lives… to find ourselves inured to joy.  And thus, we grouse our way through a litany of Ain’t-It-Awful’s until we’re drowning in icky, sticky, Woe-Is-Me’s…  Carl Sandburg put it nicely:

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

So What?

If we consistently yield to the hippopotamus in us, if we coast down the waterways of our lives seeing everything as mundane, so what?? Why does it matter?

Well, speaking for myself, here’s what I think: it matters because there’s so MUCH more to life… it’s a shame when I find myself cocooned in the blahs, looking out through gray lenses that obscure everything-wonderful with lackluster dullness… it’s a waste to find myself simply ho-humming through the motions when “I coulda had a V-8!”  I mean, why wallow when I could be soaring?  I’d like to look at my surroundings with sparkling curiosity; I’d like to learn to let my spirit soar.

For Instance?

Well, right now (thanks to a friend’s suggestion) I’m listening to the invigorating Bourbon Street Jazz CD, and it’s neat to feel the beat, to move to the tune.  The foot-tapping music infuses a lightness into me that wasn’t there pre-tunes.  I’d forgotten how much I like music in my life.  TV-as-background has become an accidental habit.  And all the bad news, all the tragic drama that’s “fit to telecast” inevitably drags me down without my even realizing it.  A long time ago I used a clock radio to waken me.  Now my TV blasts on at the appointed hour.  I think I’ll try changing that out and make my own choices about what I’d like to hear when I awake.

Then there’s El Niño and its spate of awful and awesome weather around the globe – floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, snow, ice storms.  Yet I, in my wisdom (NOT) complain because it’s too cold or windy to walk here in Southern California??? Hel-LO, Ellie! What are you thinking??? Must I remind myself to say “thank you” for all the goodnesses in my life??? Even for the sunshine and moderate weather I get to enjoy so often? Yes indeedy, I must.  So here’s my new wake-up assignment: with personally selected tunes playing, I’ll start my days writing out 5 things I’m grateful for…

Who knows how these two little changes might affect my ability to greet the day, to soar into my new 24 hours of possibilities? What else could I do to “let my spirit start to soar?”

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the ‘common wisdom’ that we cannot soar and say, “Just watch!”

— Bill Bradley

Imagine more small changes like…

• I could walk new paths instead of the same old route.
• I could stop and appreciate the honeysuckle when its scent tantalizes my nose.
• I could thank those silly weeds that grace my walkway with pretty little orange flowers.
• I could play more often with my art supplies while I listen to more good music.
• I could pluck that pretty rose and put it in a nearby vase.
• I could write posts which, in the making and the finishing, please me.
• I could end (as well as start) my days by listing 5 more things I’m grateful for…

Reality Check

Finding ways to let my spirit soar isn’t going to make everything hunky-dory around here.  I’ll still have my long list of stuff (that I don’t want to do, don’t yet know how to do, did I say don’t want to do?) and the same old 24 hours in a day to get it all done. Still, I’m hoping that the effort to launch will, at the very least, refresh my innocent eyes so that I can claim a place among those who soar:

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life’s circumstances to push them down and hold them under.

— Unknown

Well now, let me think about that.  I think I’ll reserve the prerogative to complain just a little, every once in a while.  As for the rest, I challenge myself to keep coming up for air. I dare me to join the ranks of the folks who say: Just watch!

When you look, do you see wonder and inspiration or “same ’ol, same ol”?  How can we recapture our innocent eyes?