Chills, goosebumps, tears. The metrics of awe.

A couple of weeks ago, the aurora borealis was so present, many that have never seen those sky fireworks saw sun sparks dancing right outside the doorstep. My husband tracked the time of the best show, packed his camera equipment, and hurried down to the beach a few miles away. I was sleeping, dreaming of northern lights, maybe. He came back, woke me and breathlessly said, “come out, just to the front step!” I groggily followed, and sure enough, waves of what looked like fog swirled above our heads. He slid his phone into my view, and green and yellow light pulsed in the air. I held my breath for just a moment, speechless. Even my brain was silent for that moment. 

As we walked back in the house, he said that maybe a thousand people gathered on the beach, and there were moments of hushed awareness, then spontaneous  clapping broke out, waves of “ahhhs” and “oohs,” everyone transported to the place of innocence and wonder, the place of Awe.

When someone has that moment of pause, the timelessness of experiencing wonder, have you noticed how the face softens, becomes childlike? We have a longing to feel this childlike state, free of the worries, cares, and troubles of adult life. We yearn for connection to something greater than our small struggles. In that brief moment, we are paradoxically free, but woven too, in the infinite timelessness of cosmic wonder. 

So if this is a state we long for, why is it that moments of awe are so infrequent?

We are living life, humans so easily caught in the illusion of the ego mind that keeps us spinning in wishing and wanting things to be different, oh if only I was younger, healthier, stronger, more attractive, richer, calmer, kinder—-asleep to the cosmic delight dancing around us, if only we open our eyes and see. How do we train ourselves to seek and enjoy those tender moments? To pause in that precious state of childlike timelessness, resting in the infinite circle of our souls? 

Practice. When I was a school teacher, I had a magnet on the front board that read, in bold, PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT, PRACTICE MAKES AWESOME. The word awesome combines that state, that expression of delight, reverence, a sense of sacred, and maybe fear— with the suffix -some, meaning body. So to feel a state of awesome awareness is to embody reverence. This reverence embodiment pauses the thinking/wishing/fearing mind, and says to every cell: Notice. Pause. Feel. In this soul time, we experience the metrics of awe; a shiver down the spine, goosebumps, a tear gathering, the mouth opening in ‘aahh’, spontaneous movement. All this is body evidence that we are truly in the moment, stepping out of tedious time into breathless flow as we experience what is true, good, and beautiful. This is the human experience. There is no human alive that does not have this capacity. As children, we first discovered, laying on our baby backs, that those things waving above us—toes—- belonged to us! Awesome! 

An experiential sensation of awe, wonder and delight resides in our cellular memory, maybe buried deep in the hard experience of adulting, but still there. To access this state is to deliberately, pointedly make a practice of seeking awe in every day life. Yes, there are those wonderful rare moments where the sky dances in flashes of light, but when we open our eyes to the divine around us, a small caterpillar bumping along can become awe-inspiring. Gratitude and appreciation boost awe. The more we open our eyes and see; the more we perceive; a bird song weaves into our souls. A bee hum becomes a symphony. A newly opened dew-kissed rose, a sacred sacrament. The Earth is always here to bless us with these opportunities, but this is co-creative work. Soul expanding work. Maybe the why of our presence on this planet. 

Seek moments of awe. Practice by focusing on the face of a beloved. Pause. Notice. Feel. Maybe truly tuning in while listening to a friend on the phone. Without judgement, opinion or advice.  Deciding to see the customer in line as a relative, a sister, brother, cousin. Invite awe to fill the mind, the heart, and it will. Little by little. We can make these choices, day by day, and as we do, our perception changes, the world becomes more beautiful, our lives more precious, and compassion expands us in grace and freedom.