Art: @davidshrigley on instagram
I’ve been thinking lately about how we tell ourselves stories about our lives through the lens of our past. As adults, life can feel like a snowball gaining mass as it tumbles down a mountain: heavy, cumbersome, riddled with painful memories.
Children see the world with fresh eyes. Nothing has become boring to them, nothing is unimpressive - which is vastly different from most adults I know, which I find to be tragic. Even yesterday someone I know said that solar eclipses don’t impress them. I mean, excuse me what? The perfect alignment of planets floating in the solar system to create the visual spectacle that is a ring of fire is not impressive?
But this, unfortunately, is what happens to many of us as we age - we become jaded, stagnant, stale, no longer moved by the miracle of existence.
But what if you just plopped into your body today, freshly for the first time, and didn’t have any of your negative memories, biases, bitterness? What would you feel? Do you think you would experience awe? I think you would.
In fact, I think awe is our natural state that is paved over by trauma (exacerbated to an absurd degree by living in a late state capitalist society that feeds off of complacency and jadedness).
So, how do we get our awe back?
I have my own ways of maintaining my sense of gratitude-filled excitement, but I want to hear yours. Please share what brings you awe in the comments!
Until next time, love and wolves.
D xx
P.S. Spring is a wonderful time to develop a tarot + oracle practice if you don’t already have one. I have lots of decks on offer for that <3
Thunderstorms, Sunlight glimmering on water, light refracted into rainbows, the night sky, huge vistas, watching clouds ... I know there are more!
This reclamation is def a practice. I dont fully know the way through, but part of feeling into it for me has been consciously adding little 'glimmers' to my life. Like recently i hung some prisms in my window so when I open the shade in the morning there are little rainbows everywhere 🌈💛 And whenever they are there i run my hands through them, or sit with them shining on my face or across my body.
The above has been more in an effort to reclaim joy, but as I'm reading/responding I'm recognizing that awe and joy are seemingly linked. Not that one can't exist without the other but rather one can be a gateway to the other ✨️ Maybe a key factor in accessing them is slowing down, taking moments 'in between' to just be? That is a reclamation in itself.