One frigid weekend afternoon, I looked up from the computer and gazed at a building ledge on a building across the street from me. Sitting on the ledge were a number of pigeons, and I noticed how, as usual, they tended to sit only on the portion of the ledge that was in the sun. Then I noticed one particular bird. It was hunkered down, puffed out, and seemingly asleep. The shadow of the building across from the ledge crept along until it came close to the bird. As it touched and then passed over the sleeping avian, I was struck by how quickly the shadow moved. In just moments, the bird was in complete shade, where moments before it had been in complete sun.

This awareness got me to thinking about how the earth rotates on its axis, how surprisingly quickly it does so, and how oblivious I usually am to the fact that the earth is rotating even as it moves through space in orbit. Watching the movement of the shade across the building ledge allowed me to have an immediate visual experience of this continuous movement. It also got me to thinking about all the things we take for granted, without bothering to notice, not the least of which is the sun’s movement through the sky as the planet rotates on its axis.

The processes of the natural world unfold around us all the time, but for those of us who live in cities, especially, these natural cycles and rhythms sometimes escape notice. Even as I write, the shadow across the street almost fully covers the ledge now, and it’s been only about 10 minutes’ actual time. That’s how much the planet has rotated while I’ve been writing and pondering this experiment over the last few minutes.

There are so many opportunities in each day to pay attention to things we might normally take for granted. Generally, when I turn on water in the sink, or flip on a switch for electricity, I’m mindful of all the resources and people that go into bringing me that moment of luxury and am extremely grateful to be able to have water and electricity whenever I want. What I don’t know are the things I don’t even notice along the way, as with the rotation of the earth that tends to be pretty much out of my awareness until I have moments like I did when gazing across at the building ledge.

And so, this week’s experiment invites you to notice what you haven’t been noticing, as strange as that may sound. It invites you to be willing to be surprised by awareness that creeps up on you, as the shade did on the bird on the building across the street. It invites you to be open to noticing something that you’ve never brought into the foreground of consciousness before. It also invites you to be aware of those “aha” moments when you suddenly realize something you hadn’t fully experienced before.

Unlike most of the experiments, this one is more open-ended, in that it can’t anticipate what you’ll discover. The key here is to be open to being surprised by suddenly understanding or noticing something that’s been there all along but that was outside conscious awareness. It becomes an exercise in willing awareness, in opening to your environment with the intention of discovering something new before you even know what that may be. Allow yourself to be curious as you move through the week, without preconceiving what you may discover.