What fills you with wonder?
Asked by
liminal (
7769
)
March 22nd, 2010
I have been pondering this phrase lately:
”From wonder into wonder existence opens.” (I believe this is associated with Lao Tzu)
These words lead me to see that I sometimes start to drown in the symptoms of lethargy and busyness. Either extreme drains my energy leaving me unaware and inattentive to the world around me. There is something about getting lost in wonder that helps me avoid drowning. I guess, wonder is my life jacket.
For me, being lost in wonder is a purposeful practice of noticing the things that fill my everyday. I go on walks and purposefully take in what surrounds me, sometimes carrying a magnifying glass and often my camera.
It also means stilling the chatter of my internal thoughts and feelings and tuning into the present moment: The feel of water on my skin as I wash the dishes. The laughter in the eyes of my children when they tell each other stories. The intricate delicacy of a budding leaf.
I am sure we all have things that captivate our awareness. What are some of yours?
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I am filled with wonder at the cruelty of humans.
How much I can love, my children and people’s willingness to not care.
The moon is different every night. The tides have a rhythm I’ve never memorized. The birds migrate away and then they come back. My little grandchildren increasingly connect the dots.
People learn. Groups of people learn.
We have a health care plan.
Mountains, lakes and seas.
And I continually wonder at the architecture around me, the beautiful buildings and the work people put into them.
Those are just starters, I could go on forever.
The sky often fills me with wonder, any time of day or night, but mostly the stars at night.
Life, death, everything in between, and everything beyond.
In a more practical sense, the little things mostly and every now and again the things so big you just have to stop and, well, gaze in wonder.
Space (stars, planets, the moon etc), wildlife, my love for my partner, history and theatre.
How cells and electricity can make thoughts, memories, jokes, etc.
Everything.
I ask so many questions, I take pictures of everything and just look at them in awe sometimes.
I notice everything and find it all fascinating.
I’ve been sitting here for about an hour just watching the rain. I think about each rain drop as individuals. They make friends in the cloud, then fall together, then get split up when it’s time to travel to the next place.
Weird? Maybe.
I heard a quote a while ago and it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard:
“Look at the stars.
They’re the same stars as last week.
Last year.
Same as when we were kids.
When we weren’t even born.
In a hundred years.
No one will ever know who we are.
But they’ll know those same stars.”
That made my lay outside one night and think for hours. Who saw those stars? Who had their first kiss under those stars? Who died under them? Who was married under them? Who else is looking at them? Who else is wondering who is looking at them? Will I ever meet these people? What if I already did? Will my kids one day see these stars? I asked myself questions like that all night.
I am completely in love with the world.
I was watching some documentaries on National Geographic last night, about how they make cars. I was all “whoa”.
I am blessed/cursed with a wonder of all things. Do fish pee? How high is up? machinery of all kinds, electronics, digital communications, nature, humankind.
The outdoors do it for me ;)
Honestly, human stupidity. It seems to really be boundless. The worst thing is, I know I am guilty of it too sometimes.
Watching a hummingbird at my beebalm, seeing Milo eating his daily (live) fly, and noticing the earth springing back to life, day by day now.
On the more positive side: aesthetics in general, with a special sensitivity to music and movies. These really get to me.
The fact that we live in a breathable, livable environment on a rock thats revolving around a hot, fiery ball of hydrogen and helium along with 7–8 (maybe I’m still loyal to Pluto, haha) other planets in an immeasurably HUGE vacuum called the universe, and that there are at least 45.3 bajillion other hot fiery balls and at least 1 could potentially have rocks revolving around them and have at least 1 with a breathable, livable environment for some kind of creature, let alone millions of species.
A spider spinning a web; the laughter of an infant; the absolute depth and breadth of the human experience; a rural sky on a starlit night; novelty, or the appearance of something in history when it did not exist previously; many many other things!
Consciousness and life in general, to be sure, but if there is one thing that I am in awe over? The eye.
No camera in the world compares to one human eye. Or an insect’s segmented eye. Or the focusing power of an eagle’s eye. Amazing thing. Even the next gen HD cameras being whipped up in Japan as we sit here have nothing on the wonder that is the eye.
Is it because I wear glasses and have since I was 5? Maybe. I’ll never forget the day I first put on a pair. I stepped outside the optometrist’s office, and the first thing I did was look at the grass, and lo! I could see every blade. I looked at the concrete walk and could see the granules. I’ll never forget how it was to actually see clearly, the leaves, the petals of flowers, the lines and curves of objects, the true expressions on faces, and not just differentiated shades of colour, lights and shadows.
The eyes have it! :D
I guess it’s better than being lost in Canarsie.
Of the many things in the world…
some mornings my son wakes up, and when I go to his crib to pick him up, he just looks different. So smart. Like while he was sleeping he just became smarter, or more grown up.
New born babies, animals…
My kids,I wonder how I’m so lucky to have them,space,I mean just wow,oceans,again wow & Angelina Jolie hmmm I wonder sigh.
“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes…
Silver white winters that melt into springs…”
Well, you get the idea.
Rainbows still do it for me, too!
Cats, they’re wonderful creatures… some tiny, cute & cuddly. Others huge… cute & cuddly, right up until they gnaw ur arm off. Just magnificent though whatever size!
What you do (the sacrifices you make, how protective you) for your family.
I’m going through this right now.
A totally happy laughing child.
Knowing it’s always something. And, you have never seen it all.
When Cher & The Osmond Brothers do a Stevie Wonder Medley…
THAT fills me with wonder.
I wonder why such a thing ever happened.
I wonder where those outfits came from too.
I wonder what Stevie Wonder thinks about it.
I wonder if that’s what caused his blindness.
I wonder about everything between, “Wow, how did I manage to wake up again, and on time, too?” until “I wonder how I’ll get to slee—” (nearly every night).
Wonder only opens to you if you open to it. (Lao Tzu might wish he had said that, too—but he has thousands of years on me.)
I’m probably going to sound really cliched with my answers, but it’s just the truth.
Nature fills me with wonder. Almost anything related to it does. The beauty of things like the mountains and the plants. Especially when you get up close to plants. It all fills me with wonder and I can never get too much of it. It just seems like it all combines to form the most beautiful harmonized scenes and situations.
The negative aspects of nature fill me with wonder too. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, those are all fascinating to me.
Of course space fills me with wonder. The size of it, the emptiness, the incredible numbers like the 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit estimated at the core of the sun.
Again, cliched and gushy, but my boyfriend fills me with wonder. He is such a beautiful human being, inside and out. Love itself fills me with wonder.
Coincidences, paranormal accounts, paradoxes, mysteries, computers, electricity, classical music, they all fill me with wonder.
You said it yourself: wonder is noticing. It can also come from thinking, or being exposed to something new, but mostly it all comes down to noticing in right way, whether of surroundings or thoughts or people or any number of other circumstances. Just be open, and you can’t help but wonder.
It also makes for good stories.
pretty much everything, I think too too much, but yes, everything fills me with awe… but top of my list would have to be rainbows, butterflies and the sky on a clear night in the middle of nowhere
Pictures from the Hubble telescope, the Grand Canyon, ancient ruins, American history.
@Ron_C all but that last one, I am with you
Baby toes, drooling, the perfect little black spots my dogs whiskers grow out of, the snail vine that grows all over my fence, it’s so delicate and strong at the same time.
@Simone De Beauvoir
Don’t you ever go to a historic site like Valley Forge and think about how people lived in those days, what they suffered to be free of corporate tyranny? I am amazed at how the people in our history overcame adversity. How about Williamsburg? The slaves had no rights and still became educated and finally free. I look at these things and wonder how I would manage in those situations. We have many strong and admirable people as our ancestors.
@Ron_C I identify with the history of this country no more than I identify with Russian history or the history of Armenians…I lived history and saw adversity…my family ran from murder for being Armenian in Azerabaijan…they had to leave their home and we’ve never looked back…to me history is fraught with negativity..it fills me with anger, not wonder..
Oh, I see your point. My anscestors got here from Croatia. They kept the religion, some of the customs and occasionally language.
I sympathize with your view of history. The Armenians were treated very poorly.
The fact that God created me just for His enjoyment and no reason other than He loves us and wants us to love Him back.
Observing a pregnancy from conception until delivery.
Amongst dozens, if not hundreds, of other things, looking at a new born baby and knowing that child was so recently living inside its mother’s body… truly a miracle.
Yes, bringing our attention back to the present moment, stilling thought and really seeing what is, in all it’s isness. lol
Nature dials me in and works as the de-frag I need when things get too overwhelming.
I can stand on my deck and just notice the trees, the breeze moving through the leaves, the butterfly, the wild turkeys in the field.
Lately I have been enjoying some primo lizard watching. lolol
I love lizards and now that spring is here my deck and patio are over run.
Yesterday there was a pair in loving embrace on a ledge off the little cliff below my deck.
A larger male next to a smaller female with his ‘arm’ around her. hahaha
Made my day!
Nature keeps me centered and interested in all life, lends that broad perspective that everything has it’s struggles and it’s joys.
Mostly nature: thinking about the power of water, the vastness of space, the wonders of evolution, Muir Woods.
I am also filled with wonder when I think about existence, the reality and the illusion. If I think about it too long or too in depth I begin to feel like a cartoon and I have to stop.
@tinyfaery
Yes, the wonder of existance….I find it sad that so many have no wonderment happening in their lives. Last night was amazing…moon, clouds , stars, lolling in my hot tub under the night sky.
I am always telling people not to forget to look UP! lol
the wonder of following the yellow brick road…..what will the next world look like?? The great beyond?/ heaven?? angels…holiness…or musical laughter and total love
The vastness of the Universe and all that is in it.
I find wonder and fascination less in the large things like the sky and the stars, and more with the tiny things like Baby hands and the perfectness of a snowflake. I recently found that the tiny wrinkles and patterns on a cats’ nose is as individual as a fingerprint!
The second movement of Beethoven’s 7th.
The power of the ocean, as I am pulled to and fro along the breaks at night.
Swimming with biophosphorescent algae.
The number of spiritually-fortifying encounters I have with strangers on a daily basis.
The agility of squirrels.
The cognitive virtuousity of intelligent children.
The taste of alliums.
The scent of cumin.
The color of beets.
The silent street,
and all of her secrets…
I am always filled with wonder at how intricately the human
body is put together by our living Lord. Nothing comes
close to this.
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