Everyday awe

Wonder, the mental state of openness, questioning, curiosity, and embracing mystery, arises out of experiences of awe. In our studies, people who find more everyday awe show evidence of living with wonder. They are more open to new ideas. To what is unknown. To what language can't describe. To the absurd. To seeking new knowledge. To experience itself, for example of sound, or color, or bodily sensation, or the directions thought might take during dreams or meditation. To the strengths and virtues of other people.

"Soundscapes"

On the brow of the hill, behind a silent chapel,
two windmills spin new soundscapes over
the land, cart-wheeling alleluias.

Cloistered granite holds an orchestration
of birds, and eerie whirr, tremulous sounds
of curlew and lapwing. The wind

through the metal gate is a speaking in tongues
with the broken feed-hoop tuning in:
other-worldly, intimately insistent.

All this music to attend to, to slip into:
an old organ droning, an uproarious lullaby.
Up over da hill, arms turn, the heart lifts.

What happens with awe

I think that what happens with awe is the self is so reduced, so minimalized, is basically evaporated, if only for the snap of the finger, that for once you can see that thing clearly.

... the part that I worry about is that most people live on the level of the self and not the level of the soul, which is the costume of personality over the soul. It's what the self is... It's the performance of personhood, not the essence of personhood.

"They were starlings"

On my way back from Alabama, the birds were on their way wherever.
Their bodies, so many strewn in long lines across the sky, looked like
the words I wrote as a child before I knew how to write words.
I thought my thoughts would simply announce themselves to the page
if I pressed my pencil to it. And still, as I write this poem, I'm waiting
to see what I'm going to tell myself. The birds landed in an empty
field, gleaning for whatever it was they'd find. The clouds, so whipped

"I came to love you too late"

I came to love you too late, Oh Beauty, so ancient and so new... What did I know? You were inside me, and I was out of my body and mind, looking for you... You called to me and cried to me; you broke the bowl of my deafness; you uncovered your beams, and threw them at me...

"The Jar With the Dry Rim"

The spirit is so near that you can't see it!
But reach for it...Don't be a jar
Full of water, whose rim is always dry.
Don't be the rider who gallops all night
And never sees the horse that is beneath him.

Live your life

I wish you all good things. Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.

"Daybreak"

On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
Dozens of starfishes
Were creeping. It was
As though the mud were a sky
And enormous, imperfect stars
Moved across it as slowly
As the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once, they stopped,
And as if they had simply
Increased their receptivity
To gravity they sank down
Into the mud; they faded down
Into it and lay still; and by the time
Pink of sunset broke across them
They were as invisible
As the true stars at daybreak.

I cannot pull myself away

After hours in the penetrating rain, I am suddenly damp and chilled and the path back to the cabin is a temptation. I could so easily retreat to tea and dry clothes, but I cannot pull myself away. However alluring the thought of warmth, there is no substitute for standing in the rain to waken every sense—senses that are muted within four walls, where my attention would be on me instead of all that is more than me. Inside looking out, I could not bear the loneliness of being dry in a wet world.

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