On my way across Central Park one morning, I was captivated by both the smell and visual delight of *green*.   Since I often walk off the cement paths, into where the trees and dirt become my sensory world, I found myself enfolded in the smell of early-morning green, and the beautiful sight of new spring green all around me. At the same time, I felt the earth under my feet, squishy after an overnight rain, but not so wet as to make it a problem to walk on it.  Also, because it was early morning, I heard the sounds of birds, alive to the beginning of a new day.  A particularly brave cardinal brought the delight of his red color to one of my favorite paths, where he pecked at seeds on the wet ground as I approached.

As I experienced this feast for my senses, I got to thinking how fortunate we are to have so many ways to enjoy the world.  I also thought about how particular senses are more vivid to some of us than others – that we tend to have preferred senses that dominate our awareness and others that are there, but less in the foreground of our experience.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to explore your senses more deeply.  Discover which are the most familiar and comfortable for you – those that are the ways of knowing the world that you turn to first.  Then, take time to truly and deeply experience these senses.  For example, as I walked amongst the trees that morning, I allowed myself to really take in the smell of green.  It’s a fragrance I haven’t had much time with since I moved to the city from the country, and it’s a smell that always moves me with its inherent qualities of richness and life.  Also, each spring, my eyes fill up with the wonder and beauty of returning green.  My vision is a sense that fills me constantly and for which I am so deeply grateful.

Then, after you have deeply explored the senses that come to you most easily, notice what happens if you begin to pay attention to some of the others.  For example, if you tend to be a visual person, notice what happens if you physically touch things in your environment, and explore that sense more deeply.  Each morning, as I walk across the park, I have one particular tree friend where I stop and place my hand on the trunk and just feel the texture of the bark under my hand.  I also put my foot on one of the large, old roots and feel the quality of support I discover there, registered on the bottom of my foot.

If you are primarily a person who first experiences the world through what you hear, take some time to pay a bit more attention to the visual feast around you and notice how it is to really drink in the colors and shapes you encounter in your world.  Whatever they may be, take the time to notice them.  If you are someone who is primarily moved by the texture of things, take some time to notice how things smell – the odors or fragrances you encounter as you move through your world.  Take time to fully experience them, and to notice what it’s like to more deeply smell your world.

As with all the experiments, there’s no right way to do this one.  Instead, it’s an invitation to more deeply engage the feast that is the world of sensation, and to experience how you register your senses in your body and in your psyche.  If you discover something that brings disgust or discomfort, notice that, as well, as it is one of the important ways you know your world.  It’s one of the ways you know what you want to move toward and what you may want to move away from.

Remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion, and to allow judgments to arise, move through and move on without your having to add any energy to them, push them away, or otherwise engage them beyond simply noticing that they have paid you a visit.

And, most of all, enjoy exploring your experience of being present, of consciously taking the time to notice what moves in and out of your awareness, remembering that it is this very awareness that offers the possibility of choice.  To be able to more consciously choose how you want to move through a particular moment, a particular experience, is a great gift and I hope you will enjoy receiving it again and again.