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 Awe – Wonder – Joy 

For me each new year begins with the Lunar New Year, so January is a month of waiting and preparation. All beings are still in their root queendom, gestating and dreaming up new qualities to bring into the new yearly cycle. Waiting to rise from the dark imagination of earth. Waiting to come to light. I cherish this listening into winter’s silence, starkness and simplicity. All is stripped, unadorned, sparse, empty, skeletal – invoking awe, wonder, and joy – revealing essence. Even the storms allow us to touch into elemental and awe-some truths. 


Of course, here in California, already buds are starting to erupt into bloom: Magnolia trees, narcissus, and my hellebore. At the same time wind, rain, snow, hail, lightning and thunder are pounding and challenging us this year. We humans are truly tiny and helpless in the face of atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones. Water and earth assert their potent powers through flooding and mudslides. These elements are just obeying the physical laws of gravity. In other parts of the country as well, snow storms, blizzards and subzero cold highlight our fragility as humankind. No matter how shielded from, fortified and armored against nature we try to live – we are not the masters.  


Awe is the territory of childhood. At the beginning of life – but also again towards the end of our life – we are moved by wonder and awe. The forces bigger than us are no strangers, and yet paradoxically their might brings inspiration and aliveness. And with it a quiet joy and vitality will coarse through our veins, flood our hearts, make our eyes shine. Here, from a wintery place deep within, I engage in envisaging: what wants to arise and accompany me in the coming year? What is needed? Which qualities is my soul calling forth? Qualities that will infuse all my actions…. For now, I wait, contemplate, cook my weekly soup with onions, root vegetables, yams, mushrooms, and more. And use my hands to make for friends little imagine boxes with sand dollars, shards, beads and secrets in them. What can we imagine?



Comments

  1. Alex KJanuary 14, 2023 at 12:56 PM

    These days of threatening storms have kept me housebound and I found myself dulling:). Your writing gives me an orientation that enlarges and deepens allowing room for the awe and wonder in the face of what life brings. I was particularly struck by what you wrote about the relationship between awe and wonder and forces greater than us. I realized how I react is with fear and closing and even though it is necessary to take honest stock and do what is needed and possible, it takes courage to acknowledge the greater force and allow one's heart and soul to be touched and possibly transformed. I take up your invitation in imagining of what may manifest for me in the coming year.

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  2. ayshaJanuary 22, 2023 at 9:47 AM

    For me, roundness and openness this year. You write that awe is the territory of childhood and that elders move towards this too... as I enter the middle third of life (though who knows what stage this is for me), I am more and more delighted by intergenerational friendships, especially with elders, although I hope to make more younger friends soon. You are awe-ing me, thank you, I especially love learning more about your theater work. You too Alex, I remember you sharing stories with me at Karina's house :)

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