The Spot in Which I Sit
With time and proximity I feel calm
February 2, 2025
Humans need pauses, not like pauses in conversation, but when you’re staring at the sea or the sky and can scan time without feeling like you’re its victim. - SAGG Napoli
Everyday for the next seven days I will return to the same spot in my backyard garden and sit. It is a practice my friend Micah introduced in, Locating Yourself Within the Web of Relationships. Though we have our separate lives, I thought it may be an interesting practice to share and experience together. What do you think? Do you want to give it a go?
The Sit Spot
There’s a makeshift bench, a reclaimed 2x8 board atop cement tiles, I have up against the north fence line. So when I sit my view is actually southeast and it’s expansive. I have many sit spots. I love them all and they’re all a little different. I regularly mix them up depending on time of day, season, whether there is sun or shade, or if something is blooming nearby so I can watch the bees or hummingbirds — but this week it will be the bench along the fence. Because it’s February the view I once had during the height of the summer is a distant memory. The garden is seemingly asleep, muted, subterranean, restoring itself. I can make out each of the nine garden beds by how the ground swells. Yet today, they lie cold and hard under a thick layer of leaves. My eyes like following the pattern even though it’s faint: aisle, bed, aisle.
The practice of sitting in the same place over time
Having a sit spot is a very simple practice—one of mindfulness and connecting with the energy of the earth. You find a spot close to your home. It’s really accessible. You want to be able to get there quickly. The point is to sit frequently, everyday or a few days a week. Let’s begin this week. It may be right outside your door, in your garden, at a park nearby, on the fire escape, or even by a window.
Sit for 15-30 minutes. All you do is keep your eyes open and observe what’s happening. That’s it. You open your senses. You become more intimate with that place. The birds, the clouds, the trees. You're locating yourself within the web of relationships that you’re enmeshed in and you start forming little threads with all the beings around you. The rustle of the wind through or around things, the leaves falling, the sounds of trees, the sunlight and shadows cast. The beauty of it is that many of us often think we have to go somewhere to have a nature connection. Good news is, you’re on earth already. Take the time to be a human being. The practice slows you down.
By having a sit spot, inevitably there is a perspective shift of having contact with the natural world. Humans are rather self-absorbed—in denial of our very impermanence. But when you’re outside and you touch a 500 million year old rock, your existence is so tiny. It’s very good for us to get that reality check.
Returning again and again, even season after season
What does it mean when I return to something again and again? Devotion, discipline, interest, a feel-good effect. All of the above? I’m bringing this back up because I think it has value. And I also wanted to conduct a little experiment because I’m very curious about the potential ripple effect and of being less self-absorbed and more revelatory of the surroundings.
Shall we begin?
Yours, Erin
*Durastanti, Claudia. “SAGG Napoli.” apartamento, issue #34 Autumn/Winter 2024-2025