Gratitude
Why is the world so beautiful?
dawn’s quiet glow casts ruby rim on sky’s inverted bowl igniting day
Walking the ridge this morning, I stopped to take in this view and remembered a question Priscilla Stuckey asked earlier this year in her Nature :: Spirit podcast: Why is the world so beautiful? Stopping to notice and be grateful for the beauty this living world offers is critical to healthy humanity: the awe we feel nourishes our spirits, minds and bodies.
My dictionary defines awe as
a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder
“Reverential respect” is powerful in that definition because it doubles down on the awe in awe itself: reverence comes from the Latin for “standing in awe of”; respect means to admire.
As Stuckey points out, reverential respect plus the fear and/or wonder is what gives awe its therapeutic value. Awe is something that makes us feel our proper size in the universe (small) and also happy or grateful to be part of this vast and amazing whole of life.
Awe gets us out of our ego, our preoccupation with self, and paradoxically, enlarges us as it connects us to others and the community of this earth. It shifts us into the present, the now, and thus, according to psychologists who research awe, allows us to take in information with less prejudice and make clearer decisions.
Clearly (pun intended!), we need more awe in these times.
Awe makes us better people.
“The bottom line,” Stuckey says in her podcast, is that “awe makes us better people. More ethical people. More loving and empathetic people.”
We can certainly use those qualities too.
And experiencing awe in nature re-connects us to the living world that is our home. Without that connection, I believe, we are lonely, restless, unsatisfied with ourselves and our lives. Finding and strengthening that connection is what Practicing Terraphilia is all about.
PRACTICE: How do you find time to notice and appreciate beauty every day, to experience awe?
Notes:
Priscilla Stuckey’s Nature :: Spirit podcast on beauty and awe
Also, read Robin Wall Kimmerer on awe and wonder in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass.
Nature and gratitude -- you're speaking my love language, Susan. And so beautifully, too. Thank you for a lovely morning read.
Thank you for this thoughtful post, Susan. I also believe that our awe when facing the beauty of nature helps us be more open, more fulfilled, and ultimately more concerned and linked to nature and wild beings. I am thankful that my family helped me develop such a view of the world that focuses on that awesome world itself.