I posted this on the web with a couple photos -- I recommend you read it there for full effect!
http://www.6seconds.org (and it's below as well for those who'd rather just get on with it!)
:-)
-J


Uncommon Vision

While my intention is to live consciously, it is all too easy for me
to take for granted what lies just beyond my vision. Or, more
accurately, what's within my vision but just beyond my awareness.

Yesterday was one of those glorious Northern California "winter"
days -- calm, quiet, and cool. My grandmother, Charlotte, has been
longing for a walk on the beach, so we jumped at the clear skies and
found ourselves on La Selva Beach. It's a long, wide, flat beach, one
side stacked with vacation houses, the other the Pacific stretching to
infinity.

Charlotte will soon be 83, and she's obsessed with seashells. Her
house in Montreal could be a seashell museum -- literally every
surface has shells, fountains she's made with shells, picture frames
filled with shells, she's even made serving trays out of shells.

So, naturally, as we walk Charlotte is looking for shells. But our
beaches have few, and they're plain, boring muscle, oyster, and
sometimes clam shells, so I'm not particularly engaged in the shell
hunt. Emma and Max, however, are consumed with the fun of
hunting for treasures, and Charlotte is awake to the world.

"You know, I just love shells," she says as if I might not know.
"Look at this -- see the texture, and the ripples -- and turn it
over and see how there are so many colors inside?"

I suppose at one time I was as excited as Max and Emma about our
"plain old shells," but recently, I'd have to say no -- I haven't seen
what Charlotte saw.

"I like the broken ones," she confides, "because you get to see into
their little houses and the swirling patterns hidden there."

What allows her to find such wonder in the mundane? In his remarkable
video about seeing this way, Dewitt Jones says, "If you believe it, you
will see it." I certainly agree -- and wonder what creates the belief?
What allows that possibility? I suspect it's emotions -- I look at
Charlotte and say: "If you feel it, you will see it."


The feeling of possibility, of excitement, of curiosity -- of
appreciation. It opens her eyes to look with a smile, to look inside
those little houses. To be alive with the wonders of the world.

It's an awakeness -- that excitement to explore, to know, to play,
and most of all to appreciate the moment. I believe it's the reason
she still has the energy to compete in ballroom dance -- her sense
of wonder and appreciation turns into the very force of life.

The wonder, for me, is how it both encompasses her and ripples
outward to others. How one person's unique vision -- a vision from
the heart -- causes others to look with smiling eyes upon the wonders
all around. On our walk, it's rippling to the children and me. And
who knows where the ripples go from here?

----------------------------------------------------
Please share, and keep this part too!
This is an EQ Reflection by Joshua Freedman of the Six Seconds EQ
Network. To learn more about increasing emotional intelligence for
yourself, your organization, or your school, please visit
http://www.6seconds.org

©2004, Joshua Freedman.