To Observe

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Observing a deer in the grass.
(photo W Hayes)

Yesterday our son Wiley showed me a geode he had found. I didn’t ask where. I was impressed from the start. Maybe you don’t know what a geode is? Heck, I don’t even know if I am spelling it right. It is a hardened glob of molten lava. This one was a little smaller than a baseball and roughly spherical. They are spewed out of a volcano and traveling maybe miles through the air cool and form along the way. There is an outer shell and if cracked open they can be full of beautiful crystals. This one had white quartz crystals inside.

I’m so jealous, what a find! We have volcanoes all around us with the closest being Mt Rainier which is approximately 50 miles as the crow flies. Guessing that is where it came from but how long did it roam around waiting for Wiley to pick it up?

But it is more than random this meeting, the guy has a knack. He is very observant and highly tuned in to the structure of things and slight variations set off alarms. He has always been a wiz at finding four leaf clovers. He can pretty much do that in his sleep. I may have found a few in my life but it is hard work for me and not fun. Several years ago he noticed a structural difference in a nettle plant that set it apart from others of it’s species. It was growing along the side of the Camino here and I don’t know how often I had passed it not seeing. It was a genetic variation and rare.

Well, what am I getting at? Yesterday we were talking about St Luke in the Bible, the physician, and his knack to observe and report details. I am thinking basically about beauty though and how it is tied in with observing. Cris, the dear, our CSABC, recently quoted D. Whyte on the topic.

“Beauty is the harvest of presence. Beauty is the cultivation of presence.”

stuff to contemplate loves, Felipé.

6 thoughts on “To Observe”

  1. May I offer a little synchronicity? A few days ago I had a dream about a geode, and I was interpreting it–in that we have these stones, born from the earth with outsides that may be common but our insides, our souls, being these beautiful crystals. Thanks for posting this, as it makes me remember to finish the essay about this this very topic…

  2. Wiley is an inspiration, huh? This post seemed to be the stop sign/braking notice I needed today. And appreciate today. Summer is bright, and induces a kind of Scandinavian survival manicism –”Make hay while the sun shines”– that was surely imperative eons ago.
    Being a little manic, being a little depressed ( grey skies of winter) are both, I’m thiunking, met best by ‘this moment’. Presence. Now.
    The geode find is really spectacular. Deep earth history, and beauty, tossed Wiley’s way a zillion years ago. Discovered in a moment of being present. All this is somehow joyful stuff, stuff that leaves me in awe.
    Thanks.

    1. Steve-O ~ so great to see you the other day. I trust that you made it back home uneventfully. Did you catch up to your saw? So yea, Wiley is an inspirational guy. He can really pick up on certain things that the rest of us pass by. He is really into the structure of things. We all have our superpowers! Hello to everyone. Felipé.

  3. a fun fact is that geodes also have a particular smell, kind of like vanilla pipe tobacco smoke, especially when they are first cracked open. I used to love doing this as a kid.

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