1, 2, 3 ... 100!

This is post #100 on CrowDayOne.

When I posted my first blog piece more than two years ago, I never envisioned where this journey would lead. Now, 99 posts later, I look back and realize the truth of Confucius’ statement:

Blogging on CrowDayOne step by step by step has been an amazing journey.

I think back on the that first single step I took – and even before that, the decision to take that first step. For many years, I had been dreaming of bringing my art and my writing together, and using these two mediums to address spiritual issues common to women of “a certain age.” I had no idea how that would happen – a book? A giant quilt? A series of pieces? –  but I traveled on in faith, learning more about quilting, about women’s issues, about writing genres, and about my own changing spirituality.

Then the crow appeared at the top of my winter tree, and I heard her say, “The time has come.” (No, not literally – but that’s the creative thought that appeared as I worked on the piece, and how that happens? Only God knows.)

I marvel at the threads that come together so wonderfully at certain points in one’s life. This was perfect timing. I began, and oh, wow! I felt as though I was doing what I’d been created to do. Such joy! I’d have done it even if nobody read it, because all the thoughts and questions and ideas that had been percolating in my head over so many years had found a home at CrowDayOne.

And the bonus was that you responded to let me know that I was on the right track, that my observations and questions were often the same ones you had. I thank you from the bottom of my heart! You are the icing on the cake.

But all journeys come to an end eventually. If this blog is a train, then it is running out of steam. Some days, it’s hard to get it started. It stutters and complains and seems reluctant to go. I think the time has come to take it out of service for an assessment and inspection. Actually, though, deep down, I know that while the train may need a bit of work, the problem really is with the engineer who is driving the train.

The writing and the art that has appeared on this blog has come out of me, out of my heart, out of my deepest truths. But I found that with a blog on the go, I rarely journaled anymore, even though journaling had always been a spiritual practice of mine, a way to grow and stay connected with the Creator. Journals from years past line a shelf, holding stories of spiritual struggles fought and (sometimes)  resolved, hard won insights that worked for me, and quotes from authors who have helped me on the journey. (And I’ll be honest: a whole lot of drivel, too.) While you can live on stored-up nourishment for a long time, there comes a time when the larder is empty. That, I think, is what has happened to me. Now I’ve begun to journal and walk again, and feeling more at peace.

Just as the timing was perfect for the beginning of the blog, so now the timing is also right for this ending. 100 is a nice number! And in a few weeks, DV, the resident sweetie and I are embarking on a journey of a different kind. We’ll be in Europe, during which time we are meeting up with all our children and grandchildren in an old Frisian farmhouse for a Family Roots trip. We’ll visit where Al and I were born, meet up with some relatives, check out windmills and historic places, visit the graves of ancestors, and oh, yes, just hang out with each other.  It will be a time to be, not a time to do. We will be traveling in a spirit of openness, welcoming new experiences. With my ears, my eyes, my mind and my heart receptive, who knows what will happen? It will be another adventure on the journey of life, exploring possible new pathways to follow into the future.

A new blog reader posted this the other day on Facebook.

I love it! There’s a time to sit in the second and third rows for a while to catch your breath, but when I’m ready, I hope to be in that front row again!

I am so grateful for these last two years of my life. I am especially grateful for the support and encouragement of the resident sweetie, who is my first reader and truthteller. He put up with a lot of ribbing about his nickname and he took it graciously. As well, my writing group has been a Godsend, whether they believe it or not. I wouldn’t have started this without their cheering me on. And for all you friends and loved ones who were long-suffering and patient listeners as I shared  my dreams over and over again  – you know who you are – bless you! – an enormous hug goes out to you. What a long list I could compile of other gratitudes – I feel incredibly blessed.

And in September ... ??? We shall see. The journey continues ...

Letters to Live By

We live in an age that is awash in messages composed of a few letters that stand for a whole lot more. I wrote a post about that a while back when I entered the brave new world of smart phones with messaging capabilities. LOL. Well, the folks who popularized cell phones may think they invented all this cool internet slang language, but I have news for them. Back when we were youngsters, there were initials too, that we used to communicate meaning.

In fact, we even had a weighty word for these initials: acronyms – i.e. (that is), initials that are short forms of phrases or expressions. For example,  e.g., which  means ... ta dah!: for example!

I did a little prowling on the internet, and discovered that acronyms were rarely used before the 1950s. Those that were common at that time were often short forms of Latin phrases: e.g. (Exempli gratia), AD (anno Domini), a.m. (Ante Meridien) etc. (et cetera).

Mom often included the letters DV in her letters to Holland when she wrote about events that were being planned.

Mom's letters to Holland after she and dad immigrated were a real life line. I'm fortunate to have a treasure trove of them.

“We will be going to Dunnville to visit Klaas and Martje DV next weekend,” DV meaning Deo Volente – the Lord willing. Those two letters were so ingrained into my upbringing, that I still have a hard time talking about plans with others without including DV in the sentence. After all, “Man proposes, God disposes” – an old-fashioned phrase that has not yet been acronymatized – but these days, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to include MPGD in our internet lexicon to remind us that we’re not totally in control of our destinies.

Letter writing was something we did a lot. I had a pen pal, and most of the letters I wrote to her ended with a PS (post scriptum), where I wrote bits of news that I’d forgotten in the main body of the letter. Then, getting silly, I would add PPS, PPPS, and sometimes even PPPPS. PS could also stand for public school. (Today, PS can mean a host of other things, Play Station being one of the more common ones.) Sometimes, I’d add SWAK to the back flap of the envelope: Sealed With a Kiss. Apparently, those initials became popular during the 20s and 30s, when military men posted overseas sent letters home to their sweethearts.

Another great set of initials was D.A. Only guys could have a DA hairstyle, but oh my, they were cool dudes, rocking the boat and thumbing their noses at society. We teenaged girls swooned!

DA stands for Duck's Arse

Fonzie had one, too, plus lots of stuff going on up front. What a dude!

In the 60s, we gathered around our TV (if we were fortunate enough to have one) to watch NHL games on Saturday night on CBC -- or we'd play a game of table hockey.

Or we'd watch The Man From UNCLE later in the week. U.N.C.L.E  stood for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, an organization that was at war with  T.H.R.U.S.H. "Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity." Is it my imagination, or is THRUSH still around these days? That just may be the explanation for so many instances of dehumanization these days. Time to send out an SOS to the men -- and women -- from UNCLE.

We had many other important acronyms “way back then”: UN, NATO, NAACP, USA, OPEC, NASA, RCMP. And no, LOL was not invented by teenyboppers. Doctors have been writing that on hospital charts since the olden days to denote Little Old Lady, usually with some extra initials to describe her condition: LOLWNAA – "little old lady with no apparent ailment" being an example.

Which brings me to my current letters to live by. NB: these are important!

The first is LIG. My wise baby sister taught me these three little letters when I was spazzing out a couple of years ago, trying to manage oodles of  details with two sons getting married 2 months apart. LIG stands for Let It Go. When you’ve done what you can, but there’s still more on the list, you need to LIG. Will the world come to an end if everything you thought was important doesn’t get done? No. And will you be happier if you just LIG? Yes. (More importantly, would the people who love you be happier if you would just LIG? Yes.)  And this does not only apply to weddings. Surprise, surprise, it also applies to life. We are not totally, utterly, always responsible for everything.

The corollary to LIG is NMP – another acronym Fran taught me. NMP means Not My Problem. Certainly I have problems I am responsible for, but not everything is my problem. I can't fix it all. When I have done my best to live at peace with a fractious person who wants to keep fighting, then it is NMP anymore. I need to LIG. When I’ve suggested a solution to a difficult situation, and the people in charge aren’t interested in what I have to say, then it is NMP. I will LIG. My responsibility is to sort through situations and decide which are my problems, and which are not.

Because, in the end, IIWII, and IWBWIWB: It is what it is, and it will be what it will be. MPGD.

And thank God for that.

Just a Simple Story

I was going to write a blog called "The Garden as a Metaphor for Life." Then Google told me that there were 55 million hits that responded to that phrase. You can read one of them on Huffington Post, where Maria  Rodale says you have to shovel the sh*t if you want to harvest the results, and a lot more. Read the blog I could have written at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/11-reasons-why-gardening_b_3146180.html

Instead, I’ll tell you a story. If you want to find a metaphor in it, you’re welcome to do so. But if you just want to look at the pictures, that’s okay, too.

Once upon a time on a beautiful island, so the story begins, there was a wannabe garden. It was gravelly, and bare, and surrounded by a fence. It didn’t look promising. Someone had sprinkled grass seed all over it. It was a wannabe garden dressed up like a lawn.

To the “lawn with the heart of a garden” came a man and a woman. I won’t call them old, but they had been to the top of the hill, and now were on the downward slope. They had tried gardening in other places in Canada,  most recently in a land where frost was a possibility in any month of the year.  They looked at this  “garden” and they looked at each other, and they said, “Yes!”

Dreams of sugarplums – no, Italian prune plums –  danced in their heads.  And rosemary! And lavender.  Roses, too. The woman pictured a wide perennial border all around the yard with splashes of colour. The man pictured a pond with goldfish and lily pads. So they bought the garden, as well as the house, which was a bonus!

That first winter, the  man took courses at the college in garden design. The woman joined gardening groups. They learned how to garden in a mild climate. By the time spring arrived, there was a five- year-plan for the garden. It would no longer be a lawn.

Their son was a permaculture guru. Permaculture is sustainable agriculture on steroids. “So where are you planting the vegies?” asked he who believes we can all grow everything we need to eat (organically, of course), thus saving the planet and feeding the world.  Oh. Vegies. Hmm. The woman added a smallish centre bed  to the yard plan for vegies. The man reduced the size of his pond, scheduled for year 4. Secretly, they both hoped the vegie thing would peter out by then. “We tried it and it didn’t work,” they’d tell the son.

And then the work began.  Bazillions of rocks of all sizes lay a foot or two under the surface of the neighbourhood. Those rocks were hauled from building sites in the area, and laid out around the yard as borders for raised beds. The sons and their young, strong legs were invaluable – they hauled rocks and piled hundreds of wheelbarrows of gardening soil and compost on top of cardboard which had been laid down to kill those parts of the lawn, and in no time, the beds were ready.

The man and the woman indulged themselves with all the plants their little hearts desired. Some they bought at nurseries, but many were given to them by friends and neighbours – lavender, daisies, rose canes, tiny spring flowers and more. They planted vegies, and oh Wow!  Cabbages the size of pumpkins, zucchinis the size of baseball bats, potatoes, beans, a tomato that weighed in at just under 2 pounds.

To her surprise, the woman liked her vegie garden just as much as her perennial border. Except ...it just wasn’t quite big enough. That was year one, and it was good.

At year 2, the 5 year plan went out the window. The garden was enlarged to accommodate more vegies; a pond, complete with twin waterfalls, was dug;  and an enlarged patio was added to the yard.

They planted trees and an herb garden. They built a shed. The plants flourished – and the man and the woman were content to sit on their patio and watch their garden grow, and their fish swim, and their trees  bear fruit. That was year two.

But as every gardener knows, there’s always a bit of tweaking to do, a new plant to add, a shrub to pull and replace, more beds to add at the side of the house. In year 3 and 4 and 5, much tweaking went on. Each year, there was a little more in the garden: a grape arbour, a woodland garden, a raspberry patch and a boysenberry climber.

In year 6, the man and the woman decided to show others that, yes, you can successfully grow a garden that combines vegies and flowers, and it can be beautiful. The garden became part of a tour. The people came, they saw, and maybe some of them were inspired to feed the world by growing their own food. Maybe!

One day, the neighbour jokingly asked if the man and woman were offering safari tours through the jungle. They shrugged it off as jealousy. Perhaps his peas didn't grow as tall or produce as bountifully. Perhaps the neighbour thought of it as a jungle, but it was their own precious jungle.

But just recently, with the garden 8 years old – a mature garden, the gurus would call it –  the man and the woman looked at each other, and the woman cautiously asked, “Do you think our garden may be a teensy-weensy bit overgrown?”

View from the dining room window.

“Yes,” admitted the man. “We've had a lot of fun with it, and we've tried a lot of things. But we’re not as young as we used to be. We can’t do it all anymore, and we'll have to choose which plants to keep and which to give away.”


That was tough to hear, but smart thinking, as well. “Maybe next year we can cut back,” she replied. And they will, because in a garden, there’s always some tweaking to do. "And maybe you can build a little table for the grape arbour, and we can sit there enjoy the view!"

And if something in this story that works for you as a metaphor for life, well, go for it!

Garden Guru

Last week, a local newspaper carried a story about a woman who discovered 4 large goldfish swimming in her pond. She and her husband had never, ever seen fish in it before. Then they remembered that a visiting friend had emptied a baggie of tiny goldfish into the pond – 4 years earlier! All those years, the fish had been dallying about under the pond vegetation, growing and thriving, and were finally ready to show themselves!

Now there’s a life lesson in that story, if you want to excavate it. Something along the lines of “There’s a lot more brewing under the surface of things than you are aware of. It will all be revealed, if you are patient.”

It reminded me that the garden can teach us many things. We have a garden behind our home, one that we started from scratch when we moved here in 2007. The yard was a blank canvas, and we went to work on it with gusto. Now it's a jungle or a paradise, depending on your point of view.

Sometimes, we’ve grown things we didn’t intend to grow. Sunflowers, calendulas, tomatoes and fennel are very good at volunteering to grow all by themselves, from seeds that fell to the ground unnoticed last year. This year we’ve discovered that those squash seeds we carefully composted have come back to haunt us. We have a couple of squash plants growing in the front yard, and one is even growing out of the compost bin. I think there's a lesson in this, too, but I'll let you puzzle on that.

In our garden we have perennial beds and a lovely vegie garden. It’s been an extremely productive garden: this week we’re eating our own potatoes, lettuce, peas, and berries: boysenberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries...

Ah, yes: the blueberries. If you ever need to get taken down a peg or two, blueberries are a great antidote to the “Look what a beautiful, productive garden I’ve created!” syndrome. The problem is the robins. We’ve had robins in our strawberries in other years, but this year they discovered that blueberries are just so much easier to access. Without even asking for permission, they landed on the pea fence to survey the possibilities. "Well, would you look at that! Our own private grocery store. Oh, Mamma, this is going to be good," says Sir Robin to his wifey.

Well, the resident sweetie was not amused. Out he went, shooing them away. “If I do this enough times, they’ll get the message,” was his reasoning. Right. These robins weren’t reasonable birds. We watched them fly in, as though they were getting landing instructions from the traffic controllers at  Pearson International airport – one after the other, bearing off our precious fruits. Sometimes they even got greedy and took two or three at a time. Clearly, we would need to do something more drastic.

String old cassette tapes around your bushes – the shiny fluttering will scare them off, we were told. Didn't work. So we visited the Dollar Store and came away with pie plates, streamers, and a colourful whirlygig. The pie plates and neon orange streamers are fluttering above the bushes, while the whirligig turns round and round. “Oh, you changed the decor,” say the robins. “For us? Oh, you shouldn’t have.” Then they do their grocery shopping, and fly off without even a wave of their wings.

Grrr. Gardeners tell us we could bring a radio into the blueberry patch and that might scare off the birds, but I don’t have a lot of hope. We’d probably play the music the birds just love, and next thing you know, they’d be organizing a dance and inviting the neighbourhood hooligans. So we caved: we decided to live with it. We still get blueberries, just not quite as many. There are some things that you just have to accept; fighting for our blueberries is  not the hill we want to die on.
   
Which reminds me of something I’ve read by Thomas Moore, a Jungian psychologist who has written much about the human condition. He says we all have personal “robins in the bushes”: traits and shortcomings that we’d rather not have. "I shouldn't be so judgmental ... impatient ... so undisciplined. I should be neater ... read more ..."  (you fill in the blank.) And we tell ourselves that we will work on those faults, and when we conquer them, then, THEN life will be so much better. We try a lot of things, but nothing seems to work. Who are we kidding? There’s nobody perfect – we may think we are little more perfect than the next person, but then, that’s our foible. Moore says that we might be better off recognizing that we have our shadow sides. Instead of fighting our flaws , perhaps we can use our energies more profitably in positive directions. The flaw is what makes us human, and perhaps a little more humble. This is not saying that we should never attempt to root out deep spiritual faults that impact our families and our own happiness. But the things that bug us about ourselves may be the traits that make us who we are (just as the robins' antics are part of the life of the garden.)

I don't know how you feel about that -- when I first read this idea by Moore, I was taken aback. Not strive for perfection? Accept yourself, warts and all, and move on? Isn't that heretical in the great self-improvement drive that our culture has become, and that many spiritual traditions also promote? But as I think more and more about it, I'm beginning to agree.

Something to think about: another lesson from the garden, brought to us this week by the robins.

The elves have done it again: this is what our little tree in the woods looks like now. Happy Canada Day, everyone!

Just a walk in the woods?

Last week I wrote about antsiness and questions. This week I ponder wholeness, or rather, the quest for wholeness.

Oy vay, that sounds heavy. Yes, but...I hope you’ll stick with me while I explore this subject. Last week, I wasn’t sure whether I should post my blog. It felt so ... so ... unfinished. But your responses were astounding. It seems that, in sharing some of my own experiences, you were able to say, “Yeah! Me too!”  Many of you are on the same journey I am on, and isn’t that reassuring? We can help each other.

This  is what I intended when I began this blog: to explore topics of life and growth for people “of a certain age” – and that includes spiritual questions.

Spiritual: a very popular word these days. If you want to sell anything  – books,

 art, retreats, home decor, conferences, magazines, pottery, even clothing
–  just add a whiff of spirituality. Put a butterfly on a scarf, a swirl on a pair of running shoes, crystals on an ornament, and the words “inner growth” on reading materials or conference names, and you’ll get the hungering masses interested.

That’s you and me, folks, because we’re all hungering for wholeness and the answer to the meaning of life. Sometimes, we think we’ve found it, then something happens that knocks our spiritual socks off and we start all over again.

I checked out what “spiritual” really means. The spirit, Wikipedia tells me, is the “animating or vital principle in man and animals” originating in the Latin word for breath. The scripture narrative says that the Creator breathed into the "dust of the ground" and formed a living creature. Traditionally the goal of a spiritual life has been to become more and more closely aligned with the image that God created within us, and which, over the course of life’s experiences, gets banged and bruised out of shape. At least, that’s my take. I don't know how many church fathers are rolling over in their graves as they read this, but I think St. Ireneus is cheering. He said, "The glory of God is a person fully alive."

And so we adopt spiritual practices (or habits, or disciplines -- choose your own word) to help us become more closely conformed to all that we could be, connected to all of creation, and in harmony with God and mankind. (Again: my interpretation.) There are many practices we can adopt to move us along on our spiritual journey: prayer, study of sacred texts, silence, belonging to a community of faith, meditation, social action, worship, walking ...

Walking? Who knows what will bring each of us closer to our Creator? For some of you, it could be biking, or gardening, or taking care of your goldfish. I’ve tried, and stuck to, and sometimes discarded, many practices. I was taught some as a child, but as I matured, I discovered for myself  other practices that also helped me grow. Now I count walking and journaling and creating art as important items in  my spiritual toolkit. When I took stock of my antsiness last week, I realized that I had been neglecting walking and journaling – and so I began again. It’s early days, but I can say that the restlessness is settling down. So I'll share some photos of a walk I took this week.

The path beckons ...

I cross the bridge, and immediately enter a different world. I call it my cathedral. Time slows, and I breathe deeply.

The music in this cathedral is the sound of rushing water and birdsong. "All nature sings, and round me rings, the music of the spheres."  The incense is the scent of growing things, flowers, warm earth.

I walk in a community of old and young plants, the young growing out of the old, integrally connected, and I am part of this community too.

I stand here, totally surrounded, close my eyes, all the better to listen. Amazing what you hear and feel when you stop. Just stop.

Looking up is good, too. How small we are, and yet how important in the Creator's eyes.

There's a season to everything in the woods. This week it's the week that  Ocean Spray blooms.

Take a close look. Amazing! Thousands of blossoms in each bunch, each with dozens of fuzzy stamens, each blossom having a purpose in the grand scheme of things. I am speechless.

It's time to return

to the world of sidewalks, garbage pails, fences and trucks and light poles. And this too is good.

A friend this week mentioned the phrase “being strong at the core” – yes! That's what questing for wholeness is all about, and it's what spiritual practices help us do. It’s what we need in order to tackle the questions, to love the questions, and to live into the answers.

Into the Future

I’ve been feeling a bit antsy lately. “Wanna go out?” asks the resident sweetie.  Maybe. Stay in? Perhaps. Read? Do some art? Write? Maybe, perhaps, possibly, it’s an idea, could be ... but probably not. When I’m antsy, I dabble, pick up things, put them down. The thing I want is just down the road, if only I could put my finger on it.

Maybe the reason for this restlessness is my birthday. Often such milestones have been times of  reflection, resulting in  new ideas, or a project that fills me with renewed passion and excitement. At 65, I began this blog, for instance, after much reflection and visioning. Creating this art piece helped me make that decision.

Self portrait at 65

Last year, as I approached my birthday, I was wondering whether to continue my blog. When I realized I was doing what I loved, I felt great delight.

Self Portrait at 66: no spring chicken, but still dancing.

I figure there should be some big reveal in the offing for this birthday. But so far, that’s not happening.

Instead, I have questions, many questions, about my life thus far, about blogging and art, about relationships and living life and growing spiritually. I have questions about the sorry state of our earth and wonder what I should be doing. Or is it too late? And what about politics and religion and truth and all those horrific stories on the news begging for action? Where should my energies go at this stage in my life? On and on and on, new questions around every corner. I want answers, and I want them now, but nothing's happening. No booming voice or tiny whisper, no finger pointing me in the direction I should go.

So I turn to my good and trusty friend Google, who often has deep wisdom to share with questors. And there I find Parker Palmer’s  January 1 blog for the program On Being (http://www.onbeing.org/blog/five-questions-for-crossing-the-threshold/7167). He quotes a poem by Anne Hillman:

“We look with uncertainty
    beyond the old choices for
    clear-cut answers ...
    We stand at a new doorway,
    awaiting that which comes…”

Yes! Exactly. But Palmer doesn’t tell me how to find the answers, either. Instead, he points me to another quote, this time by poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote this in a letter to a young poet:

 …I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Really? LOVE the questions, with all the attending uncertainty and antsiness and restlessness? And what does that even mean, to LIVE the questions?

I puzzle and ponder on these words, and this is what I came up with. Love the questions, because questions are signs of growth. Love the questions because they are like locked rooms which you want to get into, so you dig deep and search hard for the key. In so doing you will find purpose in your life. Love the questions that are like books written in a foreign language – if you love those questions, you’ll put in the effort to learn the language that will reveal what the books say. And in so doing, I realize, I will be living the questions, and they will lead me to the answers. Or maybe not. Perhaps the answers aren't important; it’s all about the questions.

I wish I could say this pondering and these explanations bring relief from the antsiness. Alas, not so. Just because I accept that questions are good things, that restlessness is a process I will have to live through, doesn't mean I like it! I still need to learn to love the questions. I can see change coming down the road, but I don't see its shape or form. I don't like that. But then again, it's not all about me, is it?

Says Parker Palmer, “We look with uncertainty to the year ahead. But if we wrap our lives around life-giving questions — and live our way into their answers a bit more every day — the better world we want and need is more likely to come into being.” Thank you, sir, I needed that.

I was going to share my latest art creation with you, a self-portrait at 67. Sorry, it’s not finished. I’m not ready to finish it, either, because I am living the questions, and I realize the questions are an important part of the portrait. There’s me, the white crow (I’m no longer dipping into the hair dye pot these days) and I’m flying with threads that I want to add to the tapestry that is the world. But which threads? And where do I lay them down? And ... oh, more questions.

Instead, I leave you with this photo I found on the internet. The child reminds me that there is great joy to be found in the quest if we but look for it. Perhaps I will learn to love the questions, and live them. At any rate, I’m thankful to be rolling on into the future, still questioning. You too?

Beyond Awesome

Who knows what sometimes gets your brain in a tangle? For me, it started when a friend posted a New York Times article on Facebook about awe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/opinion/sunday/why-do-we-experience-awe.html?_r=0

Awe, said the researchers, consists of two qualities: a sense of vastness – something we think to be greater than ourselves – and a need to reconfigure our mind to include this experience. Often, an experience of awe is transformative; we see the world through different lenses.

People in the studies who experienced awe had an expanded sense of time, were more willing to volunteer their time to help others, and preferred good experiences over material goods. Awe also aids creativity, gives us hope, makes us more empathetic, and helps us appreciate life.

It was all very good, a very important topic. I needed to get me some of that awe, I thought, and I wondered how I could do this every day in my own life. But something else was getting in the way. 

It was the word awesome. It is very hard to get serious about awe when the word awesome is floating about so freely.

Bar patron 1: Hey, dude, you spilled beer on my cell phone.
Bar patron 2: Awesome!

Teenager to friend: Shudda seen the awesome zit on my face this morning. I squeezed it. Yuk.
Friend: Awesome!

Teenybopper: I was like shopping in like Forever21 ...
BFF: like, awesome! ...
Teenybopper: yeah, cool, and I saw like the most awesome leggings, and like, I bought ‘em.
BFF: Awesome.

There’s a website called www.1000awesomethings.com that posts a new AWESOME thing every day, and invites readers to add to the list. Things like  #951: hearing a stranger fart in public (catching a business man doing the deed while riding an express elevator to the 98th floor is the most TOTALLY awesome; he can't hide!) and #871: finding out that your birthday will be on a Friday or Saturday. Mine is – this week, even. Awesome!

Oh dear. No wonder there’s a movement afoot to ban the word awesome from the English language. That, and its sister AMAZING, its British cousin BRILLIANT, and baby brother Freakin’ Cool. These are amazingly, awesomely, brilliantly overused words that are no longer freakin’ cool. Are you with me, dude?

The sign reads: "The campaign to stamp out AWESOME starts here. Please try to restrict usage of this nauseatingly ubiquitous and by now completely meaningless superlative to those of us who are under the age of 12."

Actually, I like the word awesome, but in proper context. I’m not so sure that finding 40 minutes left on the parking meter, or picking up the last available barbecue on special is so awesome – although I will admit that I used the word when I counted the change that fell out of our jeans when I did the laundry: $20.20. Awesome! (Oops.)

But these delightful experiences, fun as they are, are not the stuff that inspires me to think of transcendence, causing me to rejig my view of the world. For that, I need to slow down, open my eyes, and really, really look at the world. When I sit with my morning coffee, I look outside our dining room window and watch the bees flying in and out of the individual bells of the foxglove flowers. In and out, in and out, collecting food, making their way back to the hive to feed babies they’ll never see. Now that’s awesome.

The bees wouldn't pose for this picture, but you get the idea!

I need to lay on my back outdoors on a summer night, far from the city lights, and stare up at the sky, knowing that billions of years ago, stars exploded, creating what I see – and then I remember Joni Mitchell singing, “We are stardust...” We are connected to this vast galaxy, sharing “stuff”. Wow!

photo courtesy Flickr

A poem that takes my breath away with its clarity and beauty; a piece of music that brings tears to my eyes; a child sharing his last Smarties with a friend who has none; a frail elderly couple holding hands as they take their evening walk past our house; a generous teacher sharing her skills and wisdom freely, without compensation ... the list goes on. Awesome!

This week, I wish for you, and for me, experiences of awe that fill our souls with wonder.