A Visual Notes Edition of Noted -

Making magic out of paying attention.

Noted. A series of Notes on nothing in particular. Some direct observations, others fragments of fiction that breeze into my brain. Words found drifting by my mind during sleepless midnights, steady rhythms of rail journeys and everywhere in between. All demanding they be committed to paper or some such.

It began as a way to make writing a habit for my broken brain and quickly morphed into a place to collect highlights from Notes (I write most days) and an outlet to try things without my ego / inner critic banning me from ever hitting publish on a proper post containing them.

Because notes are the seeds that we sow, where good things always start, right?

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it” - Mary Oliver

I’m doing what Mary said. I’m deep diving into the brambles, blackberries and bees in my rented garden and taking you with me in this visual notes edition of Noted.

On first glance it’d be easy to dismiss this picture as ugly. The blooms spent, withered, past their best. Until you notice a bramble to blackberry entire lifecycle represented on a single stem. From bound up bud, to flower, to almost blackberry. It’s kind of amazing when you start to really look at the detail of each.

The delicate less-than-paper-thin flesh of the flower, a pure white beacon in a sea of green. The dustings of pollen luring the bees in. All the parts of the lifecycle and anatomy of flowers, names long forgotten and the subsequent visceral journey back to a time long ago - a vague remembering of the feeling of a science classroom with tall stools and a diagram on a blackboard or o.h.p.

The details, are often the beginning of a journey of some kind.

If you’re lucky, seemingly impossible things begin to show themselves when you start to take note. The flight of this bee appears as a blur as landing or taking flight. Seriously, how do those tiny thin wings carry such a substantially sized thing?

When you pay attention to something that you’ve looked at a million times before - but never actually seen, it feels like a gift to your soul, and it kind of is.

This “how to” will be headed for the paid subscribers “library”, but first will be publicly viewable for a week from posting.

Sign up for access to a newly seeded collection of simple, soulful, curious bits that make being human glimmer and shine in the most joyous of ways.

Find the magic in paying attention

How often do you really stop to take things in? Look at the texture of a thing before you feel it, mull over what colour something is, wonder how it came to be?

It’s entirely possible to see something for the first time after having looked at it a million times before.

I’m not sure when I first started to do this, but getting curious about my surroundings - looking at them with fresh eyes that take note with the enthusiasm of a toddler, is one of my favourite things to do. Making a mental note / written note / photo journal of what you find deepens the whole experience even further.

It’s a super simple way to find magic in the mundane:

1. Find a thing to get curious about. Anything at all.

2. Ask yourself why it’s interesting (and almost everything is, even the most seemingly mundane things).

3. Dive into that interest like it’s a cool glacial pool atop a mountain on a swelteringly hot day.

4. Make a note of it like you’re reporting or introducing it to someone with no experience of the thing.

5. Enjoy connecting with the things around you on a new footing and feeling your soul fill up a little more with each discovery and reacquaintance.

I hope that you have fun exploring and making magic out of paying attention, do remember the “tell about it” part and share your discoveries.

“This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” - Mary Oliver

I write Notes almost daily and they can be found here. Alternatively, if you haven’t already, subscribe for your Noted monthly roundup of highlights and unseen notes.