In an earlier post, well actually, this blog’s introductory post, I wrote of the benefit of learning to live more horizontally, and by that I meant living more in the moment by feeling more in the moment. Horizontal living entails greater awareness of the sensory experiences occurring all around us. And in succeeding posts, the goal of this blog has been to help facilitate your ability to access this “horizontal” awareness.
Really being “in” the moment requires our ability to see and feel and touch and taste and hear the ongoing’s of life surrounding us. However, it is our human nature to be one step ahead preparing for future moments; and many times our thoughts are looking behind and dwelling back there, at life already lived. It is quite hard to suspend ourselves from the vertical onslaught of time, and experience a moment contained and exclusive to itself. Yet, if we voluntarily access our senses within a given moment, our senses give us the ability to engage and become absorbed into a span of time where we feel most alive and most connected, integrated throughout the soul and the body.
For instance, I’m rocking my one year old, reading him a book before his afternoon nap. And unintentionally my mind is wandering to the unfinished laundry, and the unachieved run I was probably never going to get in that morning, and oh, I forgot to renew the library books online, and gross, is my leg hair really that prickly? Lucky husband…. And abruptly I pop back to the rocking chair I’m sitting in.
Suddenly I realize that this boy is heavy. He is no longer a baby. He will only get older, heavier, more independent. And I am missing it. I feel overwhelmingly ill that there have been so many instances inadvertently squandered, due to my own disconnection from a beautiful moment with this boy, who is fleeing babyhood, moments never to be regained.
And so I refocus. I begin to feel the tops of his feet all porcelain and smooth. And I smell his newly cleansed, lavender emanating, curly hair. I look into his big brown perfect eyes. And hear his enthusiastic gibberish pointing out familiar animals on pages that we've read a thousand times. And suddenly I’m fully aware. I’m “in” this moment and I am consequently satiated with intense love and happiness for this boy's life that is mine to care for.
Ultimately, when we engage with our senses, we immerse our entire self into a life’s moment and in return we gain greater purpose, connection and life affirmation.
I enjoy reading Michael Gerson’s opinion column he writes for The Washington Post; and recently I read a personal article he wrote, “After my cancer diagnosis, seeing mortality in the near distance.” He remarks on his change in perspective caused by this cancer diagnosis. I love what he notes concerning his “intensification of physical experience;” he writes,
I was fortunate to see mortality in the near distance. As I awaited to learn my fate, I noticed an effect on matter — an odd intensification of physical experience. Things around you offer more friction and hold your attention longer. Commonplace things like the bumps on tree bark. The light filtering through floating dust. The wetness of water. A contrast knob is turned, revealing the vivid pleasures of merely existing.
This heightened awareness applies to strangers in the street, who suddenly have faces. An unsolicited smile, the obvious creases of worry or pain, engage your emotions...All of this is a function of a shifting perception of time. When the days seem limited, we more fully inhabit them. The arrow of time makes decay inevitable — and each moment unrecoverable. So we gain in appreciation for things as they are when we realize they will eventually be otherwise.
It is my issue to readers to participate in this heightened physical awareness, this horizontal experiential style of living where we fully engage ourselves with multisensory consciousness. Practice just feeling the grass underfoot and what that sensation brings. Smell the earth awakening from deadened winter. Go up and touch the buds starting to emerge from barren trees. Look and observe and really hear the emotion of your loved ones, as you engage in seemingly simple conversation.
And suddenly you will be connected to not only the moment, but to the earth you stand on, and the body you live in, and most significantly the people you interact with. And from this connectedness you will experience a more full life. Like Mr. Gerson said, you will begin to “reveal the vivid pleasures of merely existing.”