My beliefs – Wonder and Awe
I believe wonder and awe play a big role in making life rewarding.
There are lots of things that fill me with wonder and awe. Here are some of them:
Comtemplating the universe and infinity.
Lying back and looking up into the dust of stars and imagining the countless numbers of galaxies and stars. What might all those planets be like? I am fascinated by black holes, quasars, bent space, the speed of light, infinity, dark matter, Stephen Hawkin, Einstein and Newton, and anti-matter universes.
I was told that the estimate is that we only see 4% of what is there.
There are days when I could fall up into the sky and float free.
Contemplating the microcosm.
All around me and inside me is an ocean of subatomic worlds. I appear to be solid yet energy and matter is zooming in and out of me all the time, radioactive particles explode within my brain. There is no solidity. Inside it delves to a different infinity. There are molecules instead of galaxies. Energy roars. Quarks are perpetual motion machines that will keep going until the end.
Rocks, mountains, gorges, canyons, waterfalls and icebergs.
I am attracted to them. Volcanoes, geysers, minerals and watwerfalls. They thrill me. Standing on the rim of Grand Canyon or the Blue Mountains is awesome.
Ancient monuments, temples, churches, mosques, castles, walls, and crumbling ruins.
I am moved by their beauty, their history and the tales they could tell.
Music, art, drama, writing, dance, photography, poetry and all creative outpourings from the spirit and passion of creative people.
I can walk round an art gallery in wonder or rock out at the front of a concert or sit and listen to the words and my spirit soars.
Trees, wild-life, animals and the natural world.
It breaks my heart to see the way it is being trashed. The majesty trees felled, the animals slaughtered, the land raped.
Love, sex, friendship and relationship.
Love gives substance to my life. My loves and friendships are the lodestone of everything I do. My family is a magnetic pull that centres me. Sex is the nearest I get to magic.
Travel.
New people, new places, new customs, new sights – it is stimulating. It is mind expanding. It puts your life in perspective.
I do not need religion. I do not even need spirituality. Spirituality for me is this wonder and awe of being in the midst of such a wondrous place with stupendous experiences.
I fill my life and am sated by it.
Inspirational!
Thank you Tiegan
It is awesome, isn’t it!?
It is mind-boggling. But we get used to it and accept it all as mundane. That’s the sad thing. We take it for granted.
Many do, I guess. I don’t, and I doubt you do.
I think we should have at least one compulsory ‘wonder’ a day.
At least one. 🙂 Is that your heron? Very nice.
I took that photo in Norfolk. He landed on our roof. Great isn’t he?
He counted as a wonder for that day!
Very great! A wonder indeed. The way the colors are, I thought it was a painting.
He might have escaped from a painting.
Yes! Likely so.
I love nature and wild animals. Even in my lifetime I’ve seen such a reduction. it doesn’t seem possible. I despair at times.
Me too, Opher. I try not to too much, but it is hard not to despair. I have seen huge reductions in most species. Kills me.
Somehow it has to be stopped. The overpopulation seems to be the major cause. Then there is this growth mantra and profit at all costs. The natural world is being decimated on all fronts. It makes you feel helpless.
I know. 🙁
Hey – but let’s be positive! You and me and a few others will soon set up a positive zeitgeist and sort it out! Can’t be long now!
Right!
I can feel it already!
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
Awe and wonder in abundance.
Awe and wonder – too many of us don’t stop to perceive deeply and feel the awe and wonder of our world, ourselves, and the universe – out there. Thanks for the reminder to stop…
I have to keep reminding myself John. This is an awesome life.
We have to be careful about awe and wonder : take the late Carl Sagan he used awe and wonder to belittle mankind . The theme goes thus: we are just specks of dust in a huge universe and he coined the phrase the pale blue dot. I could take an opposing view : man , I could say,is , as far as we know the most complex thing in the known universe and the human brain is its crowning glory.
‘ All things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small ‘ forgets the deadly bacteria and the ravaging rat As scientists point out but then they fall into the same trap. Just think of the awe inspiring sight of a man dying from cancer or choking on mustard gas.
Kertsen – I take both views. We are an insignificant bacteria speck on a small insignificant plant in a unspectacular galaxy. But we are conscious and have intelligence. That is absolutely mind boggling. How that came about is beyond our imagination. We might be unique in the whole of the universe. The chances are so small it might have only happened once in the whole of time and all the trillions of galaxies. Our consciousness is a marvel.
There is awe in all living creatures. I am a biologist. They all have a role in the web. They might not all be nice. The same with death. It has a reason – we clear the space for the next generation. It might not look nice or be pleasant but it is there for a reason.
You are implying the universe has a purpose which is a sort of moral sense and I understand that view point but it contradicts my experience . I go along with Thomas Hardy’s attitude ‘ why unblooms the best hope ever sown ‘ Hardy was a master at inventing meaningful words like ‘unblooms’. Some say he was a pessimist but I believe he was a realist.
No implication of a purpose. Just that it has all haphazardly evolved to fill every niche in an interconnecting web. All life is connected. There is no purpose but I believe there is a beauty in the way life has evolved to produce such a complex interwoven meshwork. Nature is both complex and simple. I love it. It has no conscience or purpose but billions of years have produced wonder for me.