Find a place and a way to be. You may find it helpful to be somewhere without distraction, if such a place exists for you. If not, let it be what it is.

In this practice you will be invited to consider the impact of encounter — and so you may like to be out in the world, or if you are inside you may wish to situate yourself close to a window or possibly on a balcony or porch, to be somewhere where you can witness or be in closer proximity to others and they can witness or be in closer proximity to you. You may wish to sit, stand, lie down, or you may wish to keep moving. Remember you can always repeat this practice, listen or read again, in a new place and in a new way.

Take a deep breath, and begin by thinking back on the past week. Try to remember someone you had some small kind of contact with. Maybe you shared a look, or talked to each other, or you just remember them being nearby.

Think of this person, and who they are to you — if they are someone in your life or someone you don’t know at all.

Think of how each of you impacted the other's day.

Maybe this is a concrete image or maybe you can't quite see it
But imagine if you can
Imagine there’s a trace that connects them to you and you to them
Imagine this trace stays with you, lives inside you
Imagine this trace colliding with all the other traces of all the other people you encounter
And the traces they carry with them.

Take another deep breath.

And now instead of thinking back, turn your attention outward.

And as you open up your senses, begin to tune-in to the lines of connection
To sense the smallest of encounters
To imagine the threads of interconnectivity
To feel the collision of energies from near and far.

And as you watch and feel the world moving around you and in relation to you
Allow these connections or imagined encounters to create a kind of echo
A reverberation of our intersecting lives.

How difficult or easy is it to sense connection?

To sense interconnection?

How do you feel it?

How does it physically manifest? 

How, if at all, does it change your mood?

Consider if this is a new or different perspective.

Consider how easy or difficult it is to see yourself in others and in turn, to see others in you.

Consider how easy or difficult it is to feel that the people you meet matter.

Consider the echo of each encounter
And what it is to be alone but still together.

Stay with this as long as you wish.