[shannon-renne]

I found this exercise was a great addition to my morning grounding practice. It created a real presence of self within the whole and opened up my senses to truly experiencing everything in the present moment. I found my nervous system relaxed deeply to allow more of the surrounding stimuli in. The birds and bare tree branches were a big part of my visual and auditory experience. Even living in the city I felt I was under this vast canopy of the tree network with feathered friends flying in and out – so much movement. I look forward to practicing this in different environments. I felt it was a great reminder of how much we can choose to be connected or wrangle in our energetic receptions/projection in challenging situations.

[shannon-renne]

I also found this exercise more challenging than the focused hearing. I am a “detail oriented” visual kind of person and the expansion into the periphery was difficult to hold. I was surprised how much I could see to the sides and noticed I could see further on my left side than right even keeping my head and eyes straight. That is curious. I found the straight gaze was easier when softened and blurred or my eyes would wander about examining details and relations of one thing to another. The soft gaze was meditative and I found myself going inward rather than “seeing” outwardly. I have not tried this while in conversation yet but am interested to see if I can keep my auditory attention while shifting my visual attention.

[shannon-renne]

I truly enjoyed this exercise this morning and was surprised how specific I could hear directionally. I was in my back yard with a park in the near distant left and could hear a woodpecker, the marsh sounds of dried grass moving and also the traffic of the busy road in the distance. To the right I heard the wind blowing and more birds, in front a few more woodpeckers, very loudly and opened my eyes to watch them for a while. I could here the quiet of my home behind me and the sound of air movement across the ice on the lake still further behind my house, below I heard a tinny pop of snow thawing, above I heard soooo many birds flying and calling. I tuned into my internal self and heard my own heart beat. When I tuned into the sphere it became so loud and busy- an airplane took off from the not to distant airport and I could hear the bustling of cars and beeping of someone going to open their doors and head out into the day. I had a sense of physical release of tension in connecting directionally and truly enjoyed the experience.