Awakening: A Spiritual Practice

Personal spiritual practices are so important to caring for ourselves, caring for others and the Earth, and to awakening to the miracles of life! I offer you this spiritual practice, as presented to us in the SoulMatters Small Group Ministry resource (if you are not sure what this is, feel free to ask me, as it is a resource that UUCL subscribes to and pays for!). Here it is. Enjoy!

Awaken to the World Around You… Right around you!

Alastair Humphreys is an adventurer. A serious one. He’s cycled around the world, rowed the Atlantic, walked across southern India, just to name a few. But lately he’s gone from big to small, from global and grand to local and familiar. In short, he ordered a 12-mile square map of the area where he lives, and he spent a year exploring each half-mile square on that map. The result? The world around him came alive again.

He tells the story of this local adventure here: https://alastairhumphreys.com/a-single-map-is-enough/

You can find a video of his explorations here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWIklzMA87e/

And read his reflections of what he discovered here: https://alastairhumphreys.com/category/a-single-map-is-enough/.

It all boiled down to this: the familiar world around him came alive again! So how might you do a bit of the same this month? You don’t have a year, so exploring every inch of the 20 some miles around you is not an option, but it wouldn’t be hard to find a few half-mile square spots to explore anew. Or maybe you lay out the map, close your eyes and randomly place your finger on a square. Maybe you look for a road you’ve not traveled on, and this time don’t drive it, but take it in more slowly by walking or biking it. Maybe you revisit one of the well-known and well-loved spots in your neighborhood and simply sit yourself down near it and soak it in for a few hours, or as long as it takes to notice it anew. Or how about taking a couple weeks and capturing pictures of your neighborhood, pictures that capture it from a new perspective or place it in a new frame. Or go on a treasure hunt to document as many of the unique sounds of your local world. And what about drawing or painting it? Whatever approach you use, the goal is not only to awaken to the world around you, but also – by your attention – to enable that nearby world to come alive!