Perception is what you see in the moment; a direct experience of the present before you have any thoughts about it. It’s a fully embodied delicious experience of now, without any need of meaning or purpose. Does this make sense? If so, it’s probably because you experienced it.

With perception, judgments have not yet kicked in. These are conditioned by past experiences and lead to worries about the future. Instead, you’re seeing just what is in the moment. Granted, this state lasts a fraction of a second for most of us. However, we can practice extending our perceptual experience, as well as noticing how conditioning rules and shapes our responses. Your past experiences will always be with you. You can’t get rid of them, but simply noticing how they affect you gives them less power.

Giving an example of perceptual experience is not easy because it occurs pre-thought, so how can you put it into words (or a photograph)?  Beth Kempton speaks to this in her book on the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi. She says that trying to define it is like trying to define love; you have to experience it to know it.

”Wabi sabi is a state of the heart. It’s a deep in-breath and a slow exhale. It’s felt in a moment of real appreciation of a perfect moment in an imperfect world. It’s about experiencing the world by truly being in it rather than judging it from the sidelines; allowing strategy to give way to sensitivity. It’s paying attention.”

Perception is all of these things and more. It’s a moment of true seeing. The best actions naturally follow from this state.

What’s place have to do with it?

If perception is grounded in the present, it’s also grounded in place. And, it’s not an isolated experience. Perception occurs in a particular place and time, with the ground beneath your feet, and the air and natural and built environment surrounding you. It’s embodied and sensual, including not only what you see, but what you smell, hear, taste, and touch. It’s dependent on your movement and the movement around you. In other words, it’s relational. Everything around you and within you affects the moment.

The other day I stopped at a lakeside park and something happened that I’d never experienced before. A red-winged blackbird dive-bombed the back of my head several times coming and going. It was startling and it hurt! He was protecting his nest and perceived me – wrongly – as a threat. As I thought about this territorial behaviour later, it seemed to me that we humans often exhibit similar tendencies, perceiving threats from the outside encroaching on our place. This is conditioning at its finest. Even the way we treat nature around us as something to be used for our benefit has territorial aspects to it. True perception, before conditioning, is equanimous. Perception is not territorial.

Everything and everyone has a right to be where they are, as well as a responsibility to the whole.

What does this responsibility look like? In my place currently, we’re experiencing record water levels in Lake Ontario and the creeks that flow into it. We had a similar situation only two years ago so this situation is becoming more common. When the creeks and lake flood, there is sometimes damage to homes and trees and toxic sewage goes where it shouldn’t. Beaches are closed. You can look at why this is happening – climate change, not appropriate riparian buffers, etc. But the moment calls for something different. You may need to stay out of the water, help someone clean up from their flooding or line up sand bags. In the future, you might look at appropriate native plantings or how you can reduce your carbon emissions. You can show responsibility for the health of your place as an activist, a volunteer for an organization, or simply by loving your little patch of the planet. If it suffers, you suffer.

Besides maintaining the health of your place, focusing on your relationship with it helps you to see and appreciate what’s there and what works. When you really think about what makes you happiest, you might find that it rarely comes from acquiring shiny new things or going on exotic trips somewhere else. The greatest moments of happiness arise when least expected, in ordinary moments of openness, like witnessing the ducks gathering to greet the sunrise, noticing the peony bud ready to burst, or feeling the warmth of your coffee cup on a cool morning. These are perceptual experience and they’re firmly grounded in place.

In the Place workshop (in session now), I’m hoping that participants will have many perceptual experiences in their place and that they’ll feel a sense of belonging and responsibility. Learning facts and figures is fine, but it’s not the same as direct experience. As Beth Kempton said, you have to move beyond strategy to sensitivity. You have to be grounded in relationship, not just a detached observer.

How do you have this perceptual experience of place? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Go for a walk and pay attention to the sensual experience – sights, sounds, smells. Touch and taste if possible. How does that change your experience of walking. What do you see that you might not have if lost in thoughts?

2. Visit one place and sit for twenty minutes or more. Just sit and observe and open your senses for the first ten minutes. Then, sketch or paint or write or photograph in response. If possible, visit this place regularly for a deeper experience.

3. Try this guided meditation from Emergence Magazine on a walk, based on the idea of forest bathing.

I wish you many wonderful experiences in your place.