Looking and Seeing

Look.
See.
Within the Flower
sits the Bee.

My mind races from thought to thought like the flashing of the pixels on a computer screen. I think everything is still and silent ~ until I am focused on the Bee. Then I recognize that I've been in that strange outer world of technology and light. It's the world I've created, the world in which I operate most of the time. The world of busyness and speed.

There's a difference between looking at something and truly seeing it. While striding past a patch of flowers, heading toward my car, I noticed the bright tones of gold and orange blossoms and the subtle dark green leaves. The stunning contrast caught me up short and I turned to look more closely while grabbing my camera in my bag. This was the first step ~ I looked at the composition of the patch of flowers.

When I stopped to regard the patch more closely, the movement of the bees in flight above it caught my attention. I stood still for the space of a few purposeful breaths, slow and deep, allowing my eyes to travel the bee's dance. That's when I saw a number of the bees landing on blooms, strolling through and collecting pollen.

Seeing the bees land and dance on the blooms, I raised my camera, focused and snapped the picture. The entire process didn't take long, yet it required that I pause my perpetual motion long enough to slide from noticing to looking to seeing. Each step brought me closer to the bright dance of flower, pollen and bee.

I am grateful for the flash of color, for my eyes that saw it, for my mind that recognized its beauty, for the deceleration it brought. My world is full of moments like this.

What do you allow to slow you down? What catches your eye? How do your traverse that chasm from looking to seeing? How often do you notice whatever is in the natural world around you? How diverse are the feelings you have when you slow down?