My findings are clear. From Greece to the Netherlands to California to China to India, wonder matters. Wonder is the beginning of all wisdom. Wonder is the first of all passions. Wonder is the beginning of all writing. Wisdom, emotions, and creativity – all borne from wonder.
It’s led me to confirm what one Western thinker said of wonder in the 17th century – it is the first of all human emotions. Before curiosity is wonder. Before compassion is wonder. Before the creative impulse is wonder.
Wonder is the window to our original genius.
More than any other intellectual, spiritual, or emotional experience we humans have, wonder opens us to what is real, true, and beautiful – and on the smallest, most ordinary scale.
We’re talking about beetles, snails, and baby toe nails. Not the Grand Canyon.
… The Lakota people have a word itonpa. It means “to wonder.” It also means “to care.” And “to thank.”
Jeffrey Davis (@trackingwonder)
The morning after an encounter that might change my life, if I let it.
This morning’s light of day might appear so pale, so washed out and insubstantial after yesterday’s glimpse of what eternal light might look like.
This morning might bring a sudden rush of self-doubt.
This morning might bring such busyness there is simply neither the time nor headspace to do anything other than obey the immediate complex demands.
This morning might bring a sudden surge of overwhelm, the sky looks so vast, and my life so small and insignificant, despite what I have been told.
This morning might bring a lump in my throat, a gulping anxiety; how do I tell the story of what happened? What might it mean for those who care for me?
This morning might bring such awe; an open-mouthed gaping at how the impossible might possibly happen to me.
This morning might bring a smile for all to see.
What a person desires in life
is a properly boiled egg.
This isn’t as easy as it seems.
There must be gas and a stove,
the gas requires pipelines, mastodon drills,
banks that dispense the lozenge of capital.
There must be a pot, the product of mines
and furnaces and factories,
of dim early mornings and night-owl shifts,
of women in kerchiefs and men with
sweat-soaked hair.
Then water, the stuff of clouds and skies
and God knows what causes it to happen.
There seems always too much or too little
of it and more pipelines, meters, pumping
stations, towers, tanks.
And salt-a miracle of the first order,
the ace in any argument for God.
Only God could have imagined from
nothingness the pang of salt.
Political peace too. It should be quiet
when one eats an egg. No political hoodlums
knocking down doors, no lieutenants who are
ticked off at their scheming girlfriends and
take it out on you, no dictators
posing as tribunes.
It should be quiet, so quiet you can hear
the chicken, a creature usually mocked as a type
of fool, a cluck chained to the chore of her body.
Listen, she is there, pecking at a bit of grain
that came from nowhere.
‘A Quiet Life’
Baron Wormser
From Scattered Chapters
alone under the sky. Canon 7D. f11. 1/500. ISO 400.
image into ikon 