There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Welcome to Day One of Awakening to Awe
Awe is something you can choose. Living gratefully invites an open and receptive perspective on the world that increases your experiences of awe. Today’s practice focuses on awakening to awe in the natural world.
Most of us carry treasured experiences of awe — moments of amazement, even transcendence, that have enlarged our existence and allowed us to feel in touch with the very essence of life. Perhaps yours include watching the sunrise at the ocean’s edge, finding yourself in tears at a concert’s closing notes, or even something that is a daily experience for the fortunate around the globe: turning a faucet on and drinking clean, safe water.
Awe can result from a wide range of experiences but remains somewhat difficult to put into words. Our founder Br. David Steindl-Rast writes that “any encounter with mystery,” whether on a grand or daily scale, “spontaneously triggers awe.” Awe, then, has something to do with coming face to face with what is not fully comprehensible to us. It can arrive unexpectedly, leaving us swept off our feet or “grabbed by life,” but it can also be sought and cultivated by living gratefully. Our mere existence is deserving of constant awe…but we forget. This week’s series offers a collection of practices, reflections, and resources that will help you cultivate more awe in your life, which — it turns out — is a great benefit to your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Awe
By James Crews
It’s a shiver that climbs the trellis
of the spine, each tingle a bright white
morning glory breaking into blossom
beneath the skin. It can happen anywhere,
anytime, even finding this sleeve of ice
worn by a branch all morning, now fallen
on a bed of snow. You can choose to pause,
pick it up, hold the cold thing in your hand
or not. 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.
In his poem Awe, James Crews reminds us that awe is a choice, a decision “we make daily, hourly, / minute by minute in the tiny offices / of the heart.”
To set the stage for the week’s practice, take a few moments to read the poem then reflect on the following questions, whether in writing or silent contemplation.
- What possibilities open up when I think of awe as an experience I can choose daily, even hourly?
- How might opening to awe in this intentional way not only yield joy but also support me in whatever challenges or heartaches I may be experiencing?
Today’s Practice
Because nature is so often the impetus for awe, we’ll begin with the gratefulness practice of noticing, savoring, and appreciating the wonders of the natural world.
Take a few minutes to watch Fascinated by Nature, a 3-minute film by Green Renaissance in which artist Vicki Thomas invites us to look closely at the complexity and wonder of the natural world — at its beauty, its details, its mathematical order. She says, “The world that I dream of is the one that we’ve got because I think it’s absolutely incredible!,” modeling what it’s like to be fully open to and moved by the awe of the natural world — not just the grand vistas but the everyday garden, not just nature’s beauty but its complexity too.
After watching the video, here is your practice for the day:
- Set Your Intention. Set an intention to allow yourself to notice and appreciate the natural world as you make your way through the day. Whether you’re able to get outside, look through a window, or even close your eyes and envision your favorite place in nature, borrow Vicki’s phrase, “Oh, look!,” and notice anew — not only with sight but with touch, smell, or sound, whatever senses are available to you — the reflection of sunlight on water, the scent of a flower, the song of the leaves in the wind.
- Track. Document five things you notice — gifts of the natural world that move you in some way, that inspire awe. You can do this by making a simple list, taking pictures, recording sounds, or sketching — whatever works for you.
- Review and Reflect. At the end of the day, review your collection and reflect on the following: Was my day different because I was paying attention to the wonders of the natural world? In what ways did this savoring open the door to awe? How did increasing moments of awe shape the tenor and feel of my day?
Share Your Reflection: We invite you to share your reflection in the Community Conversation area below. Please note that you’re welcome to post a response to each day’s prompt at any point during the practice.
Deepening Resource
Springtime by Pavithra K. Mehta
This lush, evocative essay is a poetic reminder to slow down enough to notice, to remember, to be in awe of the natural world. It also compels us to let go and to allow the wonders of the natural world to live through us.
The essay concludes with these beautiful lines: “Step into the river, lean into the wind, let the strength of the earth rise through you. Watch your fingertips burst into bloom.”
Research Highlight
Based on his research on the benefits of awe across cultures and age groups, Dacher Keltner reports: “It is hard to imagine a single thing you can do that is better for your body and mind than finding awe outdoors. Doing so leads to the reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and cancer. It reduces asthma in children. It leads to reductions in everyday aches and pains, allergies, vertigo, and eczema.” (Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life)
Awe by James Crews (The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal, Storey Publishing, 2023) has been reprinted with kind permission of the author.
Photo by Leo Moko
Today the temperature has dropped to the 70s and it is still misty outside, which makes me think fall is getting closer. I would like to get in one more beach trip to Coney Island and a separate visit to see a friend in Long Island. I usually like to travel to the Jersey Shore in honor of my mother, but this year I cannot afford to rent a car or book NJ transit. Every day I walk outside she is with me in new ways even though she is not physically her. I still talk to her out loud or in my daily meditation and adventures. I am in awe of our bond and her artistic expression. I am in awe of what she accomplished in her 66 years on this earth and how she brought me into this earth as a blind mother with Type 1 diabetes. I am in awe of being matched together to be her daughter and thrive as my own unique self. Earlier today, my husband I took a walk to the fruit stand on the street near our home. We savored that terrific wet smell of the trees, sidewalk, and our bodies being lightly covered in raindrops. Yet, it never got heavy – no need to open the umbrella. I’m always so grateful for my daily walks with my husband as I prepare to go back to my job when the school year starts next week. Traffic is always rampant in our neighborhood, but we can always escape to special pockets of our local park or explore the fancy Tudor style homes in the garden area. I am in awe of the these beautiful bananas, strawberries, and grapes in our bag, all for five dollars rather than the expensive grocery store prices. I love living in this city where I do not have to drive and subway is one block away from my home. I am in awe of making my dream to move from NM to NYC a reality just over 20 years ago. Now, I look out my kitchen window where my cat Jupiter is sitting, and I see the soft, dewy green carpet of grass encircling the front of our apartment building. Our doorman, Norman, is resting on the railing and people watching. I see a few women returning from work or school with their suitcases and backpacks. I appreciate this gorgeous structure where I live, which was built in 1929. My husband, a native New Yorker, has never lived in a house. There are small baby pink flowers lining the front walkway. Today’s reading and video makes me want to learn the names of flowers and plants for my own personal knowledge. I have always identified them by simply feeling connected to their shapes and colors.
I have a large terracotta planter on my patio. There is a chipmunk who has made his home in it. I enjoy watching him jump from the ground to a planter that’s about 5″ off the ground, and then up the other 10″ to the planter were he currently lives under the flowers that are planted there. The other day I found a flower growing next to the planter in the ground between the pavers. It was lovely to find the flower growing in this unexpected place.
Today on my way to work I passed a series of shallow freshwater lakes which serve the bird population of southern Western Australia. Pelicans come to breed here as do a whole host of freshwater birds. I can’t stop but I am reminded that on my first day, over three years ago, at my current workplace, I consciously made the decision to travel this way rather than hit the quickest route which is the freeway. Why? Simply because of these lakes and the wildlife they attract. They bring me to awe…simple really.
Today I was happy cooking my zucchini, peppers and picking other vegetables to cook other recipes for the evening.
The current African anticyclone is almost unbearable and it is difficult to look around and find joy, especially thinking about what is happening to the glaciers of our mountains, but this is the paradox: the smells, the flavors of the vegetables are fabulous and give me joy. I’m lucky.
These days I seem to be awed by the power of forest fires and floodwaters. Witnessing such devastation, I am grateful to be spared and living so far in a safe area. At the same time, a walk around a city park left me enjoying the antics of a squirrel jumping from a solid branch to a leafy twig nearby, ducks out for a walk, and noticing the colours in what I thought was a blackbird which turned out o be a pigeon. Can there be awe in horror or only in beauty?
In the first day. I’ve had a beautiful conversation with my father. We was in his garden and we take an special attention to the flowers, we have watched the shape and the colors of them. At some moment we’ve had an special connection between us. We are un Buenos Aiers, Argentina, here the spring is neare. It’s coming. We can saw the life growing, amazing to share this experience with my father.
On this glorious day in the wake of tropical storm Hillary, I am awed by both the beauty and ferociousness of nature. The green of the 100 year old cedar that shelters our yard is glowing, the downpour having freed it of it’s brown needles. The needles beneath the tree reveal the pattern of the water that ran to lower ground; small riverbeds of exposed gravel lined on their banks by a matt of needles all pointed in the direction of the cascades…
Today I decided to sit for awhile on the patio near my garden—to spend time noticing the beauty of the flowers, their vivid colors, the chirping birds, my sweet rabbit friends, the bees and hummingbirds. I also noticed a few weeds and some overgrown areas, so after taking in the beauty of this lovely garden and appreciating the gifts inherent in its presence, I decided to spend some working time to maintain its serenity. I am in awe of its beauty and the peacefulness the garden adds to my life while at the same time understanding my responsibility for it. Now, at the end of Day One, I realize today’s lesson for me: I have a responsibility to care for the natural world to preserve the blessings of awe it holds for me, for us.
Today I decided not to walk in nature as I daily do, instead I stayed home. Although I can admire nature from some rooms in my house, I was immersed in doing my due diligence “doing all the things” that were keeping me busy that I forgot to even look at the view through the windows. But I was fortunate to be in awe when for a moment I stepped out to the uncovered front deck and felt and savored a sprinkle of much needed rain on my neck and smelled with the delicious smell of the damp soil and grass.
Today a few small things on my deck that brought me joy and awe; a bumble bee’s little behind as it wriggled inside a Morning Glory, gathering pollen; a half-eaten tomato on my deck steps – swiped from my vines by some little critter (I wish I had seen them in the act!); the beautiful bounty of vividly colored flowers, bursting from my pots – the result of a summer of much blessed rain coupled with days filled with the warmth of the blazing sun. It doesn’t take but a moment to witness the grandness of creation in a small piece of nature.
I am in general in awe of trees. They are wondrous. Today I’m in awe of the particular tree in a pot on my patio. My friend Louise, the VINE MAPLE, a tree native to southwestern British Columbia, is a wonder -4 metres tal, still thriving after more than twenty years confined to a pot! The leaves are in full summer green right now and in a few weeks will start to turn yellow. I learn that the Indigenous peoples of the coast gratefully used them to make bows and fishnet frames. I must add that in the past couple of years, Louise has a companion in a separate container: Irene the OAK was planted from an acorn!! She now has grown to more than 2 metres!
At present in BC we are contending with ferocious out of control wildfires all over this large province in large part due to the climate crisis. I lament the unspeakable, immeasurable loss of the more than human life on these lands and in particular today the TREES.
“Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.” by Mary Oliver
Today, I’ve been astonished by the cardinal’s sweet song, the lush green grass, the sunshine on my shoulders, the pink roses in my flower arrangement, and the taste of garden tomatoes. There is so much to be thankful for!
The natural world is my cathedral, the trees and birds my fellow parishioners.
Today my husband Rob and I went tubing all day on Antietam Creek, once the site of the bloodiest one-day battle in American history. Now the creek is vivacious and alive, serpentine and feminine. Today we floated slowly, the water cradling us as the trees spooled by above. Six hours passed in near silence, except for the rooster we could hear from a nearby farm. We napped, in the water. We held hands. We drifted and occasionally crashed through some exciting rapids. Everything smelled so ALIVE, everything seemed to be holding its breath.
Awe. When the ineffable bends down and kisses our brows, when nature meets us and we both share silence.
We passed a young fawn on the bank of the creek; she sniffed us and twitched her ears but did not flee. We sent love.
A tufted Brown Thrasher perched on a tree branch just above us, where he could cock his head and study us. We smiled.
Awe is in the moment, yet it lingers, a perfume on a faraway breeze, a leaf falling into water, and clouds scrolling above.
Awe is beauty.
Last Friday I went to a nearby lake with my husband, my sister, other people and my mother who has Alzheimer’s.
Forget everything, so you don’t remember today what she did yesterday.
But on Saturday she remembered the lake, she was fascinated by the splendor of that landscape (we were all fascinated) and she remembered her own astonishment.
I LOVE that, Anna: forget everything…Thanks for sharing your lovely story!
This morning, as I began my 5-day Grateful Living guided practice, Awakening to Awe, I was instructed to “choose to be awed by the natural world” and to document 5 things I noticed, gifts of the natural world that inspired awe. Perfect! I was able to easily take photos of 5 of the many things that moved me while I was on this morning’s 2-hour, 8-mile wonderhunt walk. I chose today to look at light and how it inspired my feelings of awe in nature. Was my day different from others because of that prompt? Yes and no. I try to see wonder and awe on all of my daily walks, but today, I focused on the fact that it is my choice, my decision to do so, and that was where I found an extra blessing for my day.
A wise and thoughtful friend contacted me this morning, asking me how I see joy and gratitude potentially being linked to privilege. My reply was that my joy and gratitude practice actually started during a time of deep sorrow, stress and grief when I felt far from privileged. I was paralyzed at the time from a tumor crushing my spinal cord and was at the same time caring for my mom who was dying, all while working in a demanding full-time job — and in the middle of it all, my husband, Larry’s, dad passed away. I felt the weight of that “dark night of the soul,” to quote Joseph Campbell. It was then that I decided, as poet James Crews writes so eloquently, that awe is a choice, a decision “we make daily, hourly, minute by minute.” I started keeping a joy journal where I made myself write something, just one thing that gave me joy that day, no matter how small, no matter how fleeting. That practice gave me the energy to move through the challenges, sorrows and heartaches, and it reframed my life lens from then on. Is every day perfect? No way. But when I choose to find joy, gratitude and awe “in the tiny offices of the heart,” as James Crews writes, I experience the darkness but I intentionally tilt my head up to feel the light.