Attention and Magic

Aesthetic Experiences in Autumn

Oct 24, 2024

Light through the leaves behind my home in the afternoon.

Poet, Jarod Anderson writes, “There are two paths to magic: Imagination and paying attention…. Paying attention is about intentional noticing, participating in making meaning...”

I love this idea that we contribute to the magic and wonder of a process by our careful attention.

This quote comes from Anderson’s newest book, Something in the Woods Loves You. I read it this fall thanks to a beautiful post about the book on the Marginalian by Maria Popova.

I read this week that the word aesthetic relates to sensory experiences, to ways we experience the world through our senses.

This inspired me to record some of my favorite sensory experiences of the season:

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The feel of cool breezes on my skin.
The coziness of a warm sweater.
The smell of fallen leaves.
The scent of woodsmoke in the air.
The tart taste of the last tomatoes from the garden.
The sweetness of the first squash we harvest.
The sound of leaves rustling as I walk in the yard. 
The calls of crows in the trees.
The sight of warm colors emerging at the leafy ends of branches.
The glow of light through leaves as afternoon sun filters through the forest.

Looking up into the leaves from the base of my tree.

Autumn is also a season when we anticipate the dark of winter, the sky visible between bare branches, a dormant garden.

I noted in an earlier newsletter that the last of the monarch butterflies emerged and flew away. The butterfly houses are washed and stored for next year. Packing them up, I took a photo of the delicacy of the empty chrysallises left behind.

Empty chrysallises - the band of gold just barely visible on their fragile forms.

Autumn feels like a season of change, inviting wonder. It is also filled with reminders of ephemerality in nature, and in our lives.

Further on in his book, Anderson writes:

“We must choose to notice.

Thankfully, when I have trouble summoning my awe, or lack the energy to seek it, I can lean on words, that wonderfully portable, sharable magic poised to rescue me.”

He follows this with several pages of words of encouragement, a pep talk he uses for himself and offers as a tool for connecting with others. The ones that stood out most powerfully to me had to do with impermanence:

“Impermanence can be daunting, but don’t lose sight of what else it is. A giver of gifts and a finder of paths.”

“Impermanence means possibility.”

“Leave room for the next version of yourself.”

In my writing, I have been working on a chapter on Space, on ways we inhabit different kinds of spaces through creative practice and the ways we can hold space for each other in the process of discovery and creation.

Autumn feels like a liminal space, a threshhold time of transition and change in the natural world and in our lives. Liminal spaces bring potential, as well as uncertainty, and reminders that what is ephemeral is also beautiful. We are drawn to the beauty of the season’s change. May the sensory embodied experiences of this season ground us amid all the other changes.