Not too long ago, during a workshop I attended, the instructor asked the attendees to walk around the room. So I got up and walked around the room.
After a few minutes, she asked us to walk around the room in fascination.
Then, after a few minutes more, she asked us to walk around the room in discovery.
As I held the experience in my consciousness, I realized fascination and discovery as an adult have been about reacting to life… not creating it.
What would life look like, feel like, become if I were to live in fascination as a state of being instead of a state of reacting?
How much of my life has been about walking–going from one experience, one relationship, one day to another? Getting up in the morning, having a cup of coffee, eating breakfast, working, running errands—putting on my many roles in an automatic mindless way.
For some time, there’s been a longing, an aching in my heart for something more. I have fond memories of waking up in the morning as a child so excited to begin a new day. What amazing adventures and discoveries will I make? I lived in fascination.
I could spend hours just lying in the grass watching the clouds float by—being mesmerized. Feeling so much in the moment, so present, so apart of an amazing world. Of course, as an adult, I don’t have the luxury to lay in the grass and watch cloud formation for hours. And that’s not the point, either. The point, I’ve stopped living in fascination—being in the moment—living with my whole body, mind, and spirit engaged.
As I write about living in fascination, my whole body comes alive. It’s open and receptive to discover something new in this moment. My skin tingles, my eyes are wide, my mind is engaged. I feel so alive. It’s not because the world has presented me with something special. It’s because I am presenting the world with something special—my openness and receptiveness to create and see anew.
As much as I love the experience of living in fascination, the tendency to react to what’s in front of me at any moment is familiar and strong. It happened the other day when I was creating a clay sculpture for a class. I had an idea for the sculpture and I started executing it. And the more I executed it, the more I hated it.
Finally, I cleared my mind and took the sculpture and wadded it into a ball. I played with the clay in my hands—loving the feel of the clay moving as my fingers and palms pressed against it. As I became fascinated with the clay and it’s malleability—I saw a figure starting to emerge. The figure was more alive and beautiful than the original. The pleasure of the experience and the outcome exceeded the place where I began because I remembered to live in fascination.
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Thank you to Debra Witt for a glimpse into your creative, appreciative mind and life.
