Walking through Central Park one morning, I found myself paying particular attention to the shapes of the individual trees I pass each day.  Often, I’m enchanted by the sense of all the trees standing together as a collective impression, with so much green all around me.  On this particular morning, I found myself tracing the shapes of different trees with my eyes and I discovered a whole new way of experiencing these familiar friends.  Some of the trees I already know as individuals, with their particular form and movement.  Others, though, have become generic “trees”, part of the overall landscape.

As I walked along and took the time to look at each individual tree, I found myself enjoying the sense of discovery that came with really looking at the details of these trees.  I was finding a new experience in something I do every morning of the week. 

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to take a new look at your familiar surroundings and discover some things you haven’t noticed before.  With me, it was a shift from an overall impression to an awareness of more specific, individual shapes and textures.  For you, it might be noticing the play of light on surfaces you look at all the time, or the particular sounds of a familiar environment.  It doesn’t matter what you choose.  The opportunity with this experiment is to allow yourself to discover novelty – to experience something new in what’s familiar and part of everyday awareness.

As with all the experiments, be sure to play with this one.  From day to day throughout the week, expand or deepen your curiosity about your familiar environment and notice what else you discover.  The key is to shift from an auto-pilot and really engage awareness, inviting novelty and discovery.  To enhance my experience, I’ve taken a bit of time on my walk each morning to look at even more details around me, and to expand my field of vision to include more individual trees across the way.  I’ve always seen them as individuals, but not really, if you know what I mean.  While working with this experiment, it’s been a constant morning delight to discover new things about trees that have been part of my daily commute for 10 years now.

As an additional piece to this experiment, you might notice the impact on you of engaging curiosity in this active, deliberate way.  For me, it’s an enlivening experience and I arrive at my office more alert and awake than I might when I’m paying less attention to what’s novel about my surroundings, or to what I haven’t noticed before.