What turns your head?

No.

I don’t mean the upper trapezius muscles, sternocleidomastoid, C1-C2, or C3-C4.

I mean - what makes you do a double-take? What makes you reflect for just a second when you’re walking and unintentionally see something you consider beautiful or mysterious? Or, beautifully mysterious?

Me? What makes me turn my head?

• a perfect music verse over a tight beat.

• the rustling of the trees at the behest of the wind.

• a sentence in a book that makes me wonder all day long.

• a beautiful smell.

• eyes. mysterious ones.

• a raindrop.

It makes you pause and ‘become present’. What is that person, place, thing, or idea?

These days, I’m of the opinion that whatever those things are, they resonate with us for a reason. And the essence of those things, whatever they may be, is what makes you - you.

But there’s also something natural and spiritual about the metaphorical head-turning experience. There’s something about it that only resonates with you, inasmuch as you are the only one - in that spiritual moment - to experience it.

I once heard an artist say, “ Those butterflies in your stomach are just as reliable as your first (natural, animalistic) mind, genetically”. In other words, the thing that makes your spidey senses tingle is something innate to each individual and more informative than extrinsic cues. And I’m willing to bet that in this day and age, folks are paying less and less attention to intrinsic cues and butterflies. And that’s unfortunate because the accumulation of the essence of whatever that is - is likely to be the difference between living life and merely existing in life.