This morning’s object of attention: a small glass inkwell, filled with water from the River Ceiriog.
I carried it down to a quiet stretch where the water slips between moss-covered rocks beneath an archway of trees. To the naked eye, the water looked almost empty. Clear. A few tiny fragments of moss floating near the surface. It would have been easy to stop there.
Most of us would.
The Ceiriog is a familiar companion to those of us who live in the valley – we walk beside it, cross it, pause to watch light move on its surface. But familiarity has a way of making us forget to look. Attentive wondering begins with a different assumption: that even the most ordinary things may have more to disclose.
I placed a drop of water beneath the microscope.
Another world appeared.
What had seemed empty was anything but. Tiny strands of moss and algae filled the field of view. Among them, creatures moved – so small they had been entirely invisible only moments before. One appeared to be patiently pulling strands from a clump of moss, engaged in work that would have gone completely unnoticed had I not stopped and looked more closely.
An entire life, unfolding in a few drops of water.
Iain McGilchrist writes about attention not as a spotlight we shine on the world, but as a relationship. The longer and more gently we attend, the more the world seems to offer itself back. What first appears simple gradually discloses unexpected depths. A river is no longer simply a river. The object becomes the doorway.
There is something quietly reassuring in this. We live in a culture that encourages us to move quickly – to skim, to glance rather than see. Yet the living world seems endlessly patient. It waits. A drop of river water can hold a universe, ready to reveal itself whenever we choose to look.
The world grows richer as the quality of our attention deepens.
Further Reading
Readers interested in the relationship between attention and perception may enjoy the work of Iain McGilchrist – this is his official website.
His books, particularly The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things, have profoundly influenced my own thinking about attention and our relationship with the living world.
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