How to become a better noticer.

3 ways to get you noticing more outdoors.

Nature photo of the day: walnut leaves.

when you were little
you sat in the backseat
of the car, while your mom
rolled down the window
and sang along with the radio blasting
her voice reaching far into the sky

while you watched your favorite raindrop
race to the bottom of the glass
cheering it on
hoping it would win 
and if it did, you said "good job"
feasting your eyes on the victorious drop 

now you're all grown up
and you sit in the driver's seat
focusing on the road
moving ahead, a blur of familiar and new neural pathways
following each other
sometimes obscured by a few pesky raindrops
but if you were a child again, 
would you observe the raindrop race 

in the car, focusing is important
but when you are at home
or outside beneath the trees
or walking to work
or traveling

perhaps you're too busy
a tad too focused on where you're going
just like most adults,
to notice, 
because that's the responsible, efficient, normal thing to do
we're all taught to stop wondering
and wandering

when we age
albeit when we stop seeing and noticing
our way home is lost, or hard to find

observe the raindrop on the window again

- Csermely 

You might have read last Sunday’s post, in which my Mom,

Cheryl Magyar

, played a little game of I spy with my little eye. In this post she proclaimed me the “official noticer” around here. *Proud little smile*, well yes, thank you, I’ll take it. I’ve written about noticing before, and, as you see, I just can’t stop writing about it.

We have had a lot of welcome rain in the past few days, today, however, the sun is out and the sky is clear. The garden doesn’t need any watering now, and all we have to do is weed and transplant some kale and other cabbages.

The humans are happy for the wonderful sunny weather today, but nature truly relished the rain in the last couple of days. Including the swallows.

A swallow stretching in the morning light.

When you were little, did you ever just go outside, lay down in the grass and close your eyes, listening to the sounds of the earth?

You may wonder why being a better noticer matters.

The simple answer is: your life becomes more wondrous when you are outside, sitting in a park or in a meadow or working in the garden, when you’re observant.

Here you can see three peppers enjoying the morning sunlight. Upon looking closer, you’ll see a beautiful dot of light on one of the peppers.

On the second photo, you’ll see a bug flying by the beans reaching for the sky. And on the third picture, you can discover four insects of the same kind. Can you spot them all?

Take a gander at this grasshopper! He posed patiently for me to take a photo of him on this dewy grass blade on my morning walk in the yard.

Now it’s your turn. What did you notice outside, however small, on your last stroll in nature?

How to notice more.

1. Pick a color, go for a walk & notice everything in the color of your choice. If it’s green, you’re going to see a lot! Especially in summer. Herbs, grass, trees, basically everything is green in a good wet seasons. If the sky is green, go indoors immediately!

Slug's eye view.

2. When you go out on a walk, take a notebook with you, not your phone, and write down a list of 30 things you can find. A special tree, rock, animal, cloud or flower for starters. When you get home, draw as many of the things you noticed on your walk from memory or write a poem about them.

3. Grounding, with your bare feet on the soil is one of the most amazing ways to connect with the Earth. Feel the cool dew on the grass, if you have dew, or the crunching of snow in winter, if you’re feeling really intrepid. With your feet on the ground, the connection with Mother Earth is as strong as it can be. And when you’re connected to nature, it will be easier to notice things, even if it’s just the shadow of a haystack created by the morning sun, the shiny pearls on the dewy grass or the simple beauty of a dill flower.

I loved this wonderful post by

Kate Howlett

on telling the difference between things in nature, which is a big part of noticing. Many people, for example, get scared of hoverflies, thinking they are bees = something that could potentially sting, after all they have yellow and black stripes. This is because when we notice things in nature & don’t know what we’re looking at, we can get scared. Sometimes we even overreact.

Or we can be filled to the brim with awe, wondering what we’re looking at. But it seems that many people have a deep distrust for nature, and just as many humans are wary to use herbs for healing in favor of pharmaceuticals.

While we’re talking about noticing the difference between things in nature, remember what clouds looked like in your childhood. Look up. Do they look different today, or are they the same as when you were a kid?

As for the journal prompt of the day:

When you go outside, look down at the ground & notice what kinds of plants are growing beneath your feet.

How many of them can you recognize and do you know the names of them? Do you know if they are edible and what they can be used for? If there’s a plant you don’t recognize, look it up and learn as much about it as you can. I would adore to hear about the plants that grow where you live and how much you use them.

So, go out on a walk and start noticing this summer.

With gratitude for all you wondrous noticers out there,