Stillness Meetings and Awe

two things that are getting me through this year with a great ground to stand on

* quick note! I am adding an audio version as often as possible for those of you who are also trying listen and not look more

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We are experiencing a dramatic period in American life. I think of my grandmothers and how much they have witnessed in their nine decades on this planet, how strange a time this must seem to them. It’s difficult to be here now, to witness the sheer speed of things changing, and to remember how to stay in your own body. Somehow, a part of me felt this oncoming stress years ago and started asking me to get quiet, to learn what the inside of me needs and wants to say when I cultivate a routine space where nothing shouts importance. All around me, friends are finding ways to ground themselves and tether to something real. I heard this on a podcast recently and nodded fervently because my own body and spirit were already calling me to do it: This year, book stillness meetings with yourself. Do it often. It is not wasted time. It is a way to replenish yourself inside of a spinning world, and it will benefit you and your community in more ways than you can count.

At some point during the space between experienced ease and difficulty last week, a thought popped into my head. Could we somehow heal our collective grief—even a tiny bit—through a daily practice of awe? Since then, I’ve kept a note on my phone with a list of things that have deepened my awe….and my awe is pretty big. It is a thread that runs through my days. I orient myself to it. I used to wonder if it was frivolous, unserious, unproductive. Now I know that’s the point. When I am in a state of awe, I enter every subsequent connection through that generous river of words that keeps awe afloat: gratefulness, wonder, amazement, perspective, joy, delight, belonging.

Thinking about this led me to my practice of noticing light, one that is always accompanied by a feeling of awe. The act of noticing light is not profound, nor is it grand. It is an unwavering attention to and attendance of my own life, grounded by an act of noticing. I don’t notice light, and think, “wow! That’s really good light.” Or “my day is a good day because of all the light I noticed.” Rather, noticing light is simply that, noticing. Usually it makes me slow down a bit more to really sink into a moment so that I might rest a bit in a feeling, a noticing feeling. It simply is. Then, when I simply am, I feel amazed. I feel at home in myself. Noticing leads to awe that leads to wonder and then often to warmth. Then the next moment happens, and awe leaves me for a bit until it comes back again at some other time, because it always comes back.

Even more encouraging is the knowledge that the state of awe does not diminish if you feel it often. No! It builds on itself like a magical snowball who is lucky enough to have you witnessing it expand. How great is that?

Stillness meetings and awe are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. When you get still enough to notice the world around you, everything sings.

Here’s an example of the stillness meeting I had this morning. I went to meet a friend for a winter ocean swim, and she happened to be running 15 minutes late. I spent that time listening to classical radio, looking at the ocean below imagining I was the fisherman on the fishing boat I could see far off in the distance. Then I grew wings and became a duck in the small flock sitting near the ice shelf. I thought about the ducks, considered the pattern of their feathers, how the ocean was literally freezing but they seemed unphased. One duck splashed underwater and disappeared. I followed the ripples out from the edges of its body until they became flat water again. I notice the red and green

channel marker buoys and wonder how steady they are in a storm. I consider their purpose and am glad they exist, to safely usher the fisherman I just imagined myself to be back home to my family who loves me and loves my fish. A cello plays on the radio. The cello is such an emotional instrument; it sounds so like the voice. I consider what it takes to make single note on the cello. Who is the person playing it? Do their fingers hurt? Then, my fingers are miraculous. They are covered in my signature. I wonder how long my fingerprints took to form, in those early days when I grew in the belly of my mother? A flock of geese flies over the ice shelf. I see the hairline space between their bodies and the reflection of their bodies on the ice. Ice in the Atlantic is rare here. I wonder how far off shore it really is? I swim in the ocean all year, an ice shelf this large in Maine is delight. I keep my eye on it and a boat makes ripples near it. I wonder what will happen. The ripples move quickly, deeply through the water and soften beneath the frozen edge. The change in the pattern holds my attention. There it is, that awe again.

My friend arrives, we walk down to the water’s edge and walk into it with deep, focused breaths. We realized, with exuberance, that the ice shelf is not far away! As we walk into the water, we realize we’ll be able to meet it! It provides a magical distraction in the face of freezing temperatures and the pins and needles sensation on our skin. We laugh, push the ice around with our hands and backs, dunk, and return to the beach. Once we are warm and dry, my friend turns back to the ice shelf (that followed us in and is now just feet from the sand, almost longingly waiting for us to return) and says—

I don’t get it. How can you look at something like this and not feel full of awe?

Here’s the growing list of things that have helped me stay in this state of generosity and presence.

In the Presence of Elephants and Whales on On Being

Enchantment by Katherine May

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

Jim Carrey’s speech at the Maharishi Institute

Devotions by Mary Oliver

Anam Cara by John O’Donohue

This memory of suddenly being beneath the most vibrant Northern Lights without knowing that’s what the night would include.

And finally, one question I am living now is what seeds do I want to sow today that will grow into the future I want for myself and the world?