"What you seek is seeking you." - Rumi
When I was a child, I was taught that our minds worked like mirrors, reflecting the world as it unfolded. But the wisdom of maturity and the lessons of the land I have discovered that our spirit works to make our mind its own storyteller. We are the authors of our experience, creating the tale in a complex ballet between perception and reality.
Exploring this deeper understanding, I have come to appreciate intention as a hidden current, flowing beneath the surface of our thoughts, directing the course of our mental river. Our expectations, moulded by intention, act as a compass guiding our attention and shaping our reality. The mind shifts the light of attention and weaves the world of perception based on both the sensory data and the fabric of expectation.
Finding the sacred in the mundane: Anchoring intention in everyday rituals
Rituals, which might appear to occur spontaneously out of mundane acts, are grounded in this cycle of intention and attention. They're born from the everyday, from acts as simple as the stirring of a morning tea or the arrangement of a workspace. And yet, through the lens of intention, these seemingly ordinary tasks take on a sense of profound meaning, becoming sacred rituals in their own right.
This elevation of intention is the fertile soil in which attention blooms. We attune ourselves to the sacred, creating a landscape that's ripe for our attention to explore. Suddenly, the unfolding of life's simple moments becomes a theatre of wonder and potential. Our attention is drawn naturally and effortlessly towards these details.
This mindful awareness transforms the mundane into something rich and strange, a bountiful field ripe for our attention to harvest. Our focus, now attuned to the rhythm of the sacred, makes the simplest moments of life bloom into captivating narratives of wonder and potential.
This practice is not about transmuting every moment into a revelation but to invite us to sink our roots deeper, to drink in the essence of life, to engage fully with the world around us. It is in this nurturing light of intention that we can truly see and appreciate the intricate patterns and complexities of our everyday existence.
Tangible anchors: Embodying intention in the physical world
The transformation of ordinary into extraordinary, of mundane into sacred, can be amplified through the power of physical cues. By pairing intention with tangible objects or sensory stimuli, we can create potent anchors for our mindfulness practice. In my next post, I’ll talk about the different types of anchors and cues I’ve found helpful.
