The Daily Practice of Noticing

The light has a way of stretching across the day as though it doesn’t want to let anything slip past unnoticed. The leaves are fully open now, shimmering with that deep, early-summer green; sunlight filters through them in thin, golden sheets. Even the shadows feel alive. Morning birdsong threads through the edges of the day, and the air carries the soft hum of everything growing. It’s a season that invites looking—real looking—because beauty is everywhere.

Grief left me empty. I remember the shock of finding awe even under deep grief. Grief broke me open and left me with space. It changed my capacity, my noticing. Finding tiny moments of awe kept me alive, kept me going.  Photography has become my way of collecting moments of awe.

It’s a daily practice for me. Some images I share, but many I don’t—sometimes because the photo still feels like practice to deepen my own attention. I share the ones I think will move others the way something moves me. There’s something sacred about the ones that remain tucked away, the ones that exist only as reminders of presence: a slant of morning light across the studio floor, the way rain beads on a screen, a blossom beginning to droop, beautiful to me.

Photography has become a kind of prayer for me.

I practice using my editor’s eye to help sift through everything that clamors for attention so I can find what’s actually holy. It teaches me which details deserve reverence and which can quietly fall away. There is so much visual noise in the world—so much that demands to be seen—yet the lens offers a kind of sanctuary. A frame. A boundary. A way of saying: Only this. Only now.

Attention is devotion.

And awe, I’m learning, is a form of readiness. When I lift my camera—even to capture something simple—I can feel the shift inside me. My breath slows. My senses sharpen. The ordinary can become luminous. I start noticing the “secret moments” I would otherwise pass by: the quiet arc of a petal, the mirrored sky in a puddle after rain, the shadow of a branch stretching across the path like a line of poetry.

These aren’t just images. They’re invitations. They’re reminders that holiness is rarely loud; it glimmers at the edges of things.  I make room for this kind of organic surprise in my paintings too.  It’s amazing how I have to train my eye to see what’s actually happening on a canvas.

Maybe you have a daily practice like this—something that helps you listen more than look, something that helps you see what’s sacred in your ordinary life. Maybe your prayer is the attention you give to what moves you, even if you never speak it aloud. Not all devotion has words. Some devotion is simply readiness. Some is awe.

What quiet moment today is asking for your devotion?

May this June draw your attention gently toward what’s sacred, and may each moment you truly notice become its own small prayer.