This is wonderful, thank you! I’ve found the great poet Mary Oliver to be such a fantastic ‘teacher’ on awe in the everyday. As she says in her poem ‘Sometimes’:
My first memory of awe was an occasion at school when I was learning to write. I had copied a sentence from the blackboard and the teacher suggested we might like to continue with another sentence 'of our own'. The idea seemed monumental - like throwing myself off a cliff, but after a while I tried it. And there, on the paper, something that I thought in my head - came out at the end of my pencil. My breath stopped in the wonder of it. I will never get over it.
I woke up at 4:30am and unable to return to sleep I started to read this. Then I started to well up with tears remembering times of being understood. Then I became so moved by the grace of your words and feelings. Then I was so grateful for this connection I did something I’ve never done - I decided to write you with such gratitude. Good night now.
Katherine, your post prompted me to sign a subscription. NYTimes lost out this year…
. I heard you first in an interview with OnBeing and bought wintering, now, Enchantment is waiting in the wings.
As a spiritual care provider in a palliative care setting, I often have the opportunity to be awed by the courageous, persistent, and heroic ways in which my patients face their end of life. I wish more humans were aware of our individual and common fragility and lived in awe daily. I never heard a patient say “I wish I was in one more business meeting, or bought another handbag.” But I do hear “I wish I spent more time watching the deer in mornings, or a sunset, or the waves at the ocean.” Life is fragile and short, be awed by the mere fact that we are alive.
I’ve been lucky enough to grow up with awe as a part of my life. I thank my parents for this ✨ it’s very often the small moments, like feeling the sand under my feet then the feeling of awe as I realise how long it’s taken for shell and rock to become the grains of sand. Your conversations are wonderful doorways to memories and ways of being in a world that very often moves to fast or is distracted by the next shiny thing. 💖
I am one of the very lucky ones, in that I have never lost that sense of wonder and awe with life. Despite or maybe because of numerous hardships and Other People along the way, every day I wake up is a day of adventure. Tiny or otherwise.
I had just come in from taking photographs of the morning clouds when I read your lovely posting. I try to find enchantment every morning and I find that looking for a "picture" helps me to notice so many things.
In considering awe, I remember walking my dogs one evening and looking up to see a cloud in the shape of a Native American silhouette. As we walked, a poem was forming and as I continued to watch the cloud, it continued to shift until it morphed into the shape of an eagle. By the time I got home, the poem was almost completed, just not written down. But somehow no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the eagle to fit into the poem. It just seemed too unbelievable to be true! It's been almost twenty years since that walk and it still fills me with wonder and grace.
Awe lights the gap between what our logic expects but our spirit perceives.
Hello Lori, Yes! Awe is more likely to be experienced when logic steps out of the way and doesn't interfere. When it is switched off by something that catches your attention and draws you in.
I love this. I'm mostly housebound and often bedbound, but I felt true awe last week when, skimming over a newspaper website, I spotted an item which included the information that hedgehogs evolved about 15 million years ago. Many people may know this already but I didn't and, in that moment, it blew my mind. And set me off on an enchanting hedgehog internet discovery journey.
I always thought I knew what awe was and since reading Enchantment I’ve thought much more on a daily basis about finding awe in nature but I’ve really only practiced it as a ‘wow’ moment without the real embodiment of it that you describe in this piece. That sense of something greater, the vastness, the deep connection… it’s left me looking out of the window at the sky instead of rushing to my workout mat (and upgrading my subscription to paid!) Something really clicked at 6.51 this morning, thank you.
I love this! It's so how I try to live my life. Seeing so many people consumed with busyness and to-do lists saddens me that they don't seem to enjoy life. I'm 70, and I'm filled with awe and wonder. I am so thankful for this gift!
I remember when that sense of awe struck me like a lightning bolt and never left. I was about ten years old and walking in the woods behind my aunt and uncle’s home in Alabama. Growing up, we went there every summer to spend time with my grandmother and the rest of my mom’s family. My older male cousins and brother wanted to go hunting, which I knew nothing about but was given a rifle to carry even though I had no intention of killing anything. I was 100% tomboy. The woods were thick with tall trees, and I remember feeling I was in the presence of queens and kings. On the way back to the house, I walked out of the woods into a field, when I turned around to see where I had come from and desperately thinking when and how I would get back into the woods. Every time I go hiking, I’m amid millions of moments of awe.
My awe is shared by many...giving birth twice to miracles of enchantment🥰🥰I find it is easy for me to capture awe in my every day life because I am very child like💜💜Life is a daily source of joy for me because of how lucky I am🩷🩷I marvel at my lovely children, swimming in nature surrounded by trees and birds, my garden, new flowers, clouds, my creek bed....
I love how awe changes our sense of time and place -- slow (or completely outside time) and transformative. I've experienced it working with herbs and in natural settings, in an encounter one night with a barn owl in flight and (so often) sitting with the dying (in a former role as a priest). You are so right about how important it is and I loved how you wrote about it in Enchantment.
Well, now I’m also crying about the beautiful doctor! I needed this reminder today, thank you. I’ll be taking a slow noticing toddler-esque walk this afternoon.
One moment stands out. Sitting in my seat having received my dosage of the trial medication, a doctor beside me, a doctor in front. The moment, during a long, medical explanation, when I heard what was being said to me. "The clinical trial is a success. It has proven to stop progression of disease." I would not soon die. My head dropped to my hands and I sobbed.
This is wonderful, thank you! I’ve found the great poet Mary Oliver to be such a fantastic ‘teacher’ on awe in the everyday. As she says in her poem ‘Sometimes’:
“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
❤️🔥
Mary Oliver will save us all, if we let her!
Yes! 🙌
My first memory of awe was an occasion at school when I was learning to write. I had copied a sentence from the blackboard and the teacher suggested we might like to continue with another sentence 'of our own'. The idea seemed monumental - like throwing myself off a cliff, but after a while I tried it. And there, on the paper, something that I thought in my head - came out at the end of my pencil. My breath stopped in the wonder of it. I will never get over it.
I love that - what a wonderful moment!
How magical—thank you for sharing!
I woke up at 4:30am and unable to return to sleep I started to read this. Then I started to well up with tears remembering times of being understood. Then I became so moved by the grace of your words and feelings. Then I was so grateful for this connection I did something I’ve never done - I decided to write you with such gratitude. Good night now.
Thank you for writing to me 🤍
Katherine, your post prompted me to sign a subscription. NYTimes lost out this year…
. I heard you first in an interview with OnBeing and bought wintering, now, Enchantment is waiting in the wings.
As a spiritual care provider in a palliative care setting, I often have the opportunity to be awed by the courageous, persistent, and heroic ways in which my patients face their end of life. I wish more humans were aware of our individual and common fragility and lived in awe daily. I never heard a patient say “I wish I was in one more business meeting, or bought another handbag.” But I do hear “I wish I spent more time watching the deer in mornings, or a sunset, or the waves at the ocean.” Life is fragile and short, be awed by the mere fact that we are alive.
Oh goodness, that sounds truly awe-inspiring 🤍
What a beautiful reply, Sylvia. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
I’ve been lucky enough to grow up with awe as a part of my life. I thank my parents for this ✨ it’s very often the small moments, like feeling the sand under my feet then the feeling of awe as I realise how long it’s taken for shell and rock to become the grains of sand. Your conversations are wonderful doorways to memories and ways of being in a world that very often moves to fast or is distracted by the next shiny thing. 💖
How lovely!
I am one of the very lucky ones, in that I have never lost that sense of wonder and awe with life. Despite or maybe because of numerous hardships and Other People along the way, every day I wake up is a day of adventure. Tiny or otherwise.
I am very glad to hear it :)
I had just come in from taking photographs of the morning clouds when I read your lovely posting. I try to find enchantment every morning and I find that looking for a "picture" helps me to notice so many things.
In considering awe, I remember walking my dogs one evening and looking up to see a cloud in the shape of a Native American silhouette. As we walked, a poem was forming and as I continued to watch the cloud, it continued to shift until it morphed into the shape of an eagle. By the time I got home, the poem was almost completed, just not written down. But somehow no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the eagle to fit into the poem. It just seemed too unbelievable to be true! It's been almost twenty years since that walk and it still fills me with wonder and grace.
Awe lights the gap between what our logic expects but our spirit perceives.
Clouds are just incredible- I’m forever reading shapes in them!
Hello Lori, Yes! Awe is more likely to be experienced when logic steps out of the way and doesn't interfere. When it is switched off by something that catches your attention and draws you in.
I love this. I'm mostly housebound and often bedbound, but I felt true awe last week when, skimming over a newspaper website, I spotted an item which included the information that hedgehogs evolved about 15 million years ago. Many people may know this already but I didn't and, in that moment, it blew my mind. And set me off on an enchanting hedgehog internet discovery journey.
I didn’t know that - but they do feel ancient. We used to have one living the in the garden and I really miss him.
I want one as a pet.
I always thought I knew what awe was and since reading Enchantment I’ve thought much more on a daily basis about finding awe in nature but I’ve really only practiced it as a ‘wow’ moment without the real embodiment of it that you describe in this piece. That sense of something greater, the vastness, the deep connection… it’s left me looking out of the window at the sky instead of rushing to my workout mat (and upgrading my subscription to paid!) Something really clicked at 6.51 this morning, thank you.
It makes me very happy to hear that! Sometimes it's about finding new angles :)
I love this! It's so how I try to live my life. Seeing so many people consumed with busyness and to-do lists saddens me that they don't seem to enjoy life. I'm 70, and I'm filled with awe and wonder. I am so thankful for this gift!
I think it only grows as we get older, if we let it. Everything seems miraculous to me now!
I remember when that sense of awe struck me like a lightning bolt and never left. I was about ten years old and walking in the woods behind my aunt and uncle’s home in Alabama. Growing up, we went there every summer to spend time with my grandmother and the rest of my mom’s family. My older male cousins and brother wanted to go hunting, which I knew nothing about but was given a rifle to carry even though I had no intention of killing anything. I was 100% tomboy. The woods were thick with tall trees, and I remember feeling I was in the presence of queens and kings. On the way back to the house, I walked out of the woods into a field, when I turned around to see where I had come from and desperately thinking when and how I would get back into the woods. Every time I go hiking, I’m amid millions of moments of awe.
Gorgeous!
I love this post so much, Katherine! I am someone who has always valued those feelings of awe, which is why I loved Enchantment so much.
The story about the doctor at the beginning made me cry. This is what all doctors should do, with all of us, right?
And the way awe can make you feel small - it is usually a good small, not a bad small. Small because what is larger is, at worst, benignly indifferent. Sometimes it can be beneficent. Small like the way Josie George feels small in the summer: https://bimblings.substack.com/p/allotment-tales?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
Doctors shouldn’t make us feel small in the way I talk about in my recent allotment post.
I haven’t listened to the Dacher Keltner podcast yet. Going to go and do that now!
Josie is the Queen of small awe!
My awe is shared by many...giving birth twice to miracles of enchantment🥰🥰I find it is easy for me to capture awe in my every day life because I am very child like💜💜Life is a daily source of joy for me because of how lucky I am🩷🩷I marvel at my lovely children, swimming in nature surrounded by trees and birds, my garden, new flowers, clouds, my creek bed....
Lovely!
I love how awe changes our sense of time and place -- slow (or completely outside time) and transformative. I've experienced it working with herbs and in natural settings, in an encounter one night with a barn owl in flight and (so often) sitting with the dying (in a former role as a priest). You are so right about how important it is and I loved how you wrote about it in Enchantment.
Yes! It’s time-altering, absolutely.
Well, now I’m also crying about the beautiful doctor! I needed this reminder today, thank you. I’ll be taking a slow noticing toddler-esque walk this afternoon.
He was incredible. Enjoy your walk!
One moment stands out. Sitting in my seat having received my dosage of the trial medication, a doctor beside me, a doctor in front. The moment, during a long, medical explanation, when I heard what was being said to me. "The clinical trial is a success. It has proven to stop progression of disease." I would not soon die. My head dropped to my hands and I sobbed.
That’s quite a moment!