on awe
ooh, aah, whoah, and so on
this week’s Thought (singular)
no more. enough of this singular thought business. i have many thoughts every week, and they’re all brilliant and genius. i refuse to pick favourites any longer.
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they get a haircut that they really like. thank you for joining us. may you be unable to look away from your reflection and just stop short of falling into it narcissus-style.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
hi
this last week, i read a collection of essays by Mary Oliver called Upstream. i’m familiar with her poetry, have always found it soothing and electrifying in equal measure, and her prose evoked a similar reaction.
the essays span nature, writing, poetry, and childhood, with a common thread connecting all of them–awe.
she speaks of the awe and delight of being alive. the awe and discovery of unfolding as a writer. the awe and wonder of the woods, the owl, the pond, the fox, the spider. every essay i turn to has an underlying, violently thrumming essence of awe, and i realised that this is what makes her writing so incredible, and her poetry so visceral.
how lovely, to be awestruck by everything. to possess the capacity to see wonder in the tiniest leaf, a single note of a song. to have this incredibly deep, intimate relationship with yourself and the world around you and the art you consume.
i started thinking about the idea of it, the feeling of it. of what awe does to a person, of how it heals, how it must be chosen, how it seems necessary, how it stills you to a dead stop that makes you feel so alive. that’s when i remembered an old draft i saved over a year ago, titled ‘on awe’. it was after i had read this piece (further expanded on below) about the science behind and healing aspects of awe and wonder, an essay that i re-read so many times when i first stumbled upon it. the draft was empty, but the essence of the thing was there. past-jahnavi’s intentions were clear.
what follows is excerpts from some essays in Upstream, as well as other miscellaneous bits and bobs of media about the same topic. as always, interspersed with my own mostly coherent contributions.
from Upstream by Mary Oliver
My heart opened, and opened again.
it’s an expansion of sorts, isn’t it? a distention of yourself, of your heart, as it grows to accommodate the beauty. my heart opened, and opened again. bearing witness to a moment of awe–and that’s all it really is, to silently watch and to let the sight fill you–feels like an enlargement of the self.
from The Ponds (M.O.)
If at this moment I heard a clock ticking, would I remember what it was, what it signified?
it’s not like zoning out. much the opposite, i think. it’s being almost forcibly, violently jerked out of the routine that loops in your brain constantly so you can be more attuned to your senses and surroundings. i detest the growing certainty that our purpose is to be more machine-like, more efficient, more optimised, and that our work determines our worth, but it’s difficult to exist outside of this belief in a world that’s hell-bent on convincing you of it. awe goes against this belief. awe says your humanity and your ability to connect and be moved by the world is a power in itself. how else can you explain its potency? how else can you explain why you stop short at the sight of the sun peeking from behind clouds in an otherwise blue sky?
from tumblr
from Wordsworth’s Mountain (M.O.)
Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity.
i spoke about time becoming something queer when we engage with beautiful art here, and i think the same applies. whether you think of time as a flowing liquid or a discretised series, there’s no room for it–and consequently, for notions of past, present, and future–amid the grandeur of awe.
from Winter Hours (M.O.)
Stepping out into the world, into the grass, onto the path, was always a kind of relief. I was not escaping anything. I was returning to the arena of delight. I was stepping across some border. I don’t mean just that the world changed on the other side of the border, but that I did too.
from imonlysighing on instagram
i went for a concert last week, and there was, as there always is, a Moment. a Moment where the artist pointed the mic at the screaming audience, and we ceased to be an audience any longer and became a choir instead. jumping was replaced by slow swaying, and hundreds of voices sang in unison, and the vibration of that unity ran through my body. i watched the flashing lights illuminate each vibrant face in the crowd, felt the rhythmic thump of the drum-beat under my feet. a moment of awe and wonder, at the beauty and community of music, of singing–loud, off-key, wild with glee–with this large and joyful group.
from Questions for the New Year by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (full poem)
Can I ask without longing for answers? Can I feel I am one with it all? How does life live through me? Can I be in service to that? What do I believe I can’t give away? What if I say nothing and listen? Will I choose awe today?
this comic by Doug Savage
some weeks ago, before the weather turned this hot, i had stepped out for a walk one morning. it was still early, not after 7:30am, and there was a slight nip in the air. and a breeze–a cool, gently flowing wind. i was petting a cat–a sleepy, purring, grey cat–when i noticed what this wind was doing a few feet away from me.
leaves were gliding down from a small tree, being twirled and twisted in the unseen current before settling gently on a growing pile on the floor. i stopped. i stared. for endless minutes, i stood and stared at those leaves, at that tree. i can’t explain what it was, but in that infinite moment, it seemed like it had been a very long time since i had last stopped, and stood, and stared, and that it was desperately important for me to do those things then.
i still remember it so clearly–the feeling of floating, as if i were one of those leaves being slowly carried, and the feeling of rootedness, as if i were the tree obligingly letting the wind carry her leaves.
the lyrics to Saturn by Sleeping At Last
You taught me the courage of stars before you left How light carries on endlessly, even after death With shortness of breath You explained the infinite And how rare and beautiful it is to even exist I couldn't help but ask for you to say it all again I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen I'd give anything to hear you say it one more time That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyesfrom Finding Awe Amid Everyday Splendor by Henry Wismayer for Noema Magazine
By taking us out of ourselves and expanding our sense of time, it counteracts the self-focus and narcissism that is the root of so much modern disenchantment. To experience awe, to fully open ourselves up to it, helps us to live happier, healthier lives.
Rolf’s death plunged Keltner into a deep communion with awe — first its presence, in the aura of love, memory and mortality as he watched his brother slip away. Later, in the numbness of bereavement, he felt its absence.
The most common source of awe was the moral beauty of other people, such as witnessing instances of compassion or courage. Also prevalent was “collective effervescence,” the sense of transcendent unity we might feel at a sporting event or when dancing in unison with others. Then came two predictable ones: nature and music, to which was added a third aesthetic stimulus, visual design. The last three could be lumped together by those of a romantic disposition as matters of the soul: spiritual awe, life and death, and epiphanies, like Archimedes’ Eureka moment, or the Damascene conversion of St. Paul.
experiencing awe, like hope, is a choice and a skill. a deliberate, conscious effort to stop yourself from running to the next Thing To Do and slow down enough to allow a stillness to enter you. and the more you do it, the better you get at it. the more often you let yourself stop, the easier it becomes to see wonder around you. how can you smell the flowers by the side of the road if you’re sprinting too fast to even notice that they’re there? that slowing down–a choice, and a skill.
the sky, the sun, the clouds
cubbon park, a recent saturday evening from Awe by James Crews (full poem)
Few tell us that wonder and awe are decisions we make daily, hourly, minute by minute in the tiny offices of the heart—tilting the head to look up at every tree turned into a chandelier by light striking ice in just the right way.
from tumblr
from A handful from Human Stuff
There is a lot of grief in realizing you’ve been cut off from parts of yourself for so long that you didn’t even know they were there. There’s grief in realizing you’ve been leading from places that don’t contain the fullness of you. There’s grief in unfolding from the shrinking. Yet there is also a lot of opportunity in the reintroduction, in the meeting of ourselves. I feel like a baby giraffe on wobbly legs, learning how to be in the world in this new shape. I feel afraid of the changes that are occurring, the unfamiliarity of it all. I feel afraid of being seen in this phase, in the process. But what I feel most is awe — awe at what is possible when we learn to get out of our own way and step into the world a bit more whole. Is that cheesy? Sure. It is true? Yes.
may you have many such healing moments of stillness, removed from time and place, removed from routine and duty. may you take the decision to and make a habit of slowing down, of letting the world show you all the beauty she has to offer.
bonus: the Awe Quiz from Greater Good
ps: happy april!
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this week’s Song
Hjemme for meg by Emma Steinbakken
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
yes? no? maybe? let me know!
Thodi has always brought in a goodies of positive energy .Thank you so much for introducing me to Mary Oliver .Loving your newsletters 💚🌱